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Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#41

Post by krige »

chii wrote: post #14
redis_mlc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reporting segment running now on I believe CNN Asia about Singaporean schools and "kiasu" culture. Reporter: "How do you balance schoolwork and play?" Singaporean Mom: "That is a good question. But my kids will thank me after they are successful in life." In other words, no balance except as an abstract thought. :)

> after they are successful in life... where the definition of success is based on the parent's perception of what success means. The child's opinions nor desires don't come into the picture.

Ignoring the extremes, why would a child's opinion be taken into account in a situation like this? What experiences does the child have that makes their opinion valid in parenting issues?

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#42

Post by ArcMex »

If I could go back, would I attend school again? Yes but not for 18 years. Six maybe. There are things that I learned from school that I appreciate so I am not against going to school completely. This is similar to how I feel about my desk job. I am not opposed to working 4 hour shifts from Mon to Wed over a period of 10 years max.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#43

Post by 8bitsrule »

WilliamEdward wrote: post #16
satori99 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "But when am I actually going to use this?" I was as guilty of this as anyone in my school days, and yet not a single teacher ever pointed out to me that I was at school to learn how to learn , so in a sense the subject matter was irrelevant.

Not only that, but you actually do use the things you learn if you paid attention well enough. History taught me how to analyse sources, accounting taught me how to write up a budget, english taught me how to write better, math taught me how to create graphs. These skills are timeless and some of them I use daily.

This ought to be so self-evident here that having to point it out is unnecessary.

I can remember much of where and what I learned in K-12, and who helped me to learn it (and how much they helped). It may (or not) be trendy, but it would be damned thankless of me to take that help for granted.

Learning anything is a discipline. Self-discipline isn't something we're born with, and great teachers model it for us. If we don't learn it, the prognosis for us is dim. Once we acquire it, to the extent we're able, we can accomplish whatever we 'set our minds to'. Coding, for an example. Compassion, for another.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#44

Post by steve1977 »

oddity wrote: post #5

If you're a kid and do the cost/benefit analysis, going to school looks like a dumb decision and a huge opportunity cost for time that could otherwise be used for things with known reward (playing). Bullying, exams, homework, sleep disruption, etc is all cost. What does the student believe they get they out of it? The pathway from school to job is nebulous to young kids who don't yet need money to live. As kids get o…

Add to the opportunity cost that you often actually learn pretty much nothing in school.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#45

Post by steve1977 »

jolmg wrote: post #19
oddity wrote: post #5

If you're a kid and do the cost/benefit analysis, going to school looks like a dumb decision and a huge opportunity cost for time that could otherwise be used for things with known reward (playing). Bullying, exams, homework, sleep disruption, etc is all cost. What does the student believe they get they out of it? The pathway from school to job is nebulous to young kids who don't yet need money to live. As kids get o…

> Maybe there's the benefit of finding friends, but now they have the internet from a young age, and I think the social justification has evaporated. Why bother forming friend circles with people you must talk to, when you can find friend circles from a larger pool with people you want to talk to? I don't know... Aren't relationships with people you see face-to-face generally stronger than those with people you mainl…

I can only say that I pretty much don't care about folks from my schools, with very few exceptions (say one or two persons).

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#46

Post by steve1977 »

sametmax wrote: post #39
jolmg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe there's the benefit of finding friends, but now they have the internet from a young age, and I think the social justification has evaporated. Why bother forming friend circles with people you must talk to, when you can find friend circles from a larger pool with people you want to talk to? I don't know... Aren't relationships with people you see face-to-face generally stronger than those with people you mainl…

As a kid, it's very easy to make friends. You don't need school for that. Three of my child hood best friends were not in my schools. I sill visit one regularly, 20 years later. In fact, I'll argue that school distort the child ability to socialize, not improve it. Because it's an artificial setup were the crazy values and rules only exist and make sense in the school. And worst, adults sell you values and rules from…

And it's an arbitrary cohort of same-age kids. Whereas for example my friends in the neighborhood all were of different ages. Not very different, but still.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#47

Post by 8bitsrule »

connicpu wrote: post #31
S3an12 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why did Japan's snap first? North American (NA) schools have bullying, exams, homework, and sleep disruption but our system is still relatively intact. Children aren't much happier here either. Teen depression and teen suicide is rising at a rapid pace as well. The first reason that comes to mind is that there is less of a stigma of leaving these public schools in Japan than in NA. It seems such a common occurren…

In a lot of the United States at least, it's illegal to not have your children in school, and there's a fair bit of paperwork involved for doing homeschooling. The burden is there on the parents to force kids to go to school even if they don't want to.

One reason for that, historically in the US (and probably everywhere else) is that parents would pull kids out of school for weeks to 'do chores around the farm'. They'd fall behind their classmates. Guess who was expected to fix that.

Parents who think education is worthless breed kids who fulfill that prophecy. Reap what you sow.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#48

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M »

glandium wrote: post #12
oddity wrote: post #5

If you're a kid and do the cost/benefit analysis, going to school looks like a dumb decision and a huge opportunity cost for time that could otherwise be used for things with known reward (playing). Bullying, exams, homework, sleep disruption, etc is all cost. What does the student believe they get they out of it? The pathway from school to job is nebulous to young kids who don't yet need money to live. As kids get o…

Add to that that according to polls, the most popular aspiration of a job for Japanese kids these days is... Youtuber.

I doubt Japan is the only country where that's the case, especially after the recent news about an 8-year-old raking in $26 million for toy reviews.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#50

Post by abecedarius »

satori99 wrote: post #11
oddity wrote: post #5

If you're a kid and do the cost/benefit analysis, going to school looks like a dumb decision and a huge opportunity cost for time that could otherwise be used for things with known reward (playing). Bullying, exams, homework, sleep disruption, etc is all cost. What does the student believe they get they out of it? The pathway from school to job is nebulous to young kids who don't yet need money to live. As kids get o…

> "But when am I actually going to use this?" I was as guilty of this as anyone in my school days, and yet not a single teacher ever pointed out to me that I was at school to learn how to learn , so in a sense the subject matter was irrelevant.

> to learn how to learn

Is spaced repetition still almost never taught in school?

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