Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 262 posts

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#71

Post by hrktb »

emanuer wrote: post #58

My 9 years old son has refused to go to his public Tokyo school for two years now. I am from a German speaking country and the idea of a child not to attend school is absolutely unimaginable. His mother (Japanese) has always insisted that this is not uncommon in Japan. His head-teachers also insured me that this is not uncommon. As I am not living in Japan I had to accept these circumstances. I was somewhat calmed by…

> So, if my hypothesis is correct, parents in Japan are more likely to go untreated

You are right that people don’t often admit mental illness in public or to people they don’t trust.

That’s not that different from western countries in my experience, there is a stigma associated to even depression. Perhaps agoraphobia would be the line where people just nod and ask for details, otherwise they tend to draw a line and flag you as “crazy” or lazy if they have no prior experience or exposure to mental illness.

The worst part would be from a career perspective, where your employer getting that info would be at best neutral, at worst cost you opportunities you would have no chance to prove you missed because of discrimination.

Now, Japanese people get treated. It’s not difficult to get a prescription, and you don’t need to shout on the roofs your getting treatment. I had a number of co-workers that were diagnosed with depression and were under treatment for a few years already. Close friends knew it, otherwise it was no one’s business.

Like for everything, the first step is to recognize you need help, and that’s a step a lot of adults fear to take.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#72

Post by sametmax »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #65
sametmax wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1. Even as an adult, If I could do it all again, I would avoid school as much as possible. School is an upgrade from child labor, but I now have enough experience to know it's a downgrade from what I can learn of my own. Not saying every kid should do the same of course. But personnally, after being in 11 schools, including fancy private ones and ones in poor neighbourhoods, I found extremly few decent teachers, a v…

> Also, I don't miss having to fight for social acceptance, the bullying, the stress and pressure nor the hypocrisy of the ones in charge. Ironically this is somehow the most valuable lessons learned during school, since you ultimately have to deal with this shit throughout your life in most career paths. So at least you got prepared for that.

Yes, but should not have to learn about fire by putting your hand in it for 20 years. In a room full of pyromaniacs calling themself firefighters. As a defenseless kid.

It looks like this: https://imgur.com/gallery/YiqlS

Without the fun of it

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#73

Post by dkersten »

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.

Except school never thought me how to learn. School learning was always an uphill battle for me and using schools ways of learning was a hindrance to me in uni and later life. I had to figure out for myself the best ways for me to learn, but unfortunately didn’t really have a good grasp on it until much later (after uni).

Hell, I was a somewhat troubled teen with problems and when I was about 14, I outright refused to go to school for a year and my poor mother couldn’t do much to make me go :/ BUT in that time, I taught myself to program, first in Visual Basic, then in python and finally I settled on C++. Sure, my knowledge was quite limited compared to what it is now after years of practical experience and a computer science degree, but that year of self study largely shaped my approach to life, exposed me to a lot of things just because I was interested, gave me drive and ambition and set me up for a career in software development.

I’m not saying school was completely useless to me, but it was a rather inefficient way of learning the things I do find useful.

In school, I hated most subjects like history, geography etc but nowadays I’ll happily Wikipedia binge for days on end learning about the finer points of other civilizations past or present (I’ve even started reading books on Sumerian tablets), chemistry, biology, physics, maths.. I’ve recently been binge watching YouTube videos on quantum mechanics...

Then there were things I really enjoyed while in school: English essays for example were something I enjoyed writing, but I got little encouragement or help in doing so and my passion for writing fizzled out...

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#74

Post by gtirloni »

fountainofage wrote: post #66
iforgotpassword wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, I don't miss having to fight for social acceptance, the bullying, the stress and pressure nor the hypocrisy of the ones in charge. Ironically this is somehow the most valuable lessons learned during school, since you ultimately have to deal with this shit throughout your life in most career paths. So at least you got prepared for that.

Or is the issue that school starts rewarding this kind of behavior, and it carries into adulthood?

That's a basic human trait.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#75

Post by jopsen »

> In some cases they even decide on the colour of pupils' underwear.

Wow, Not to be judgmental, but maybe Japanese schools are a bit too strict...

I've never seen evidence that strict discipline creates good humans. Last I checked modern pedagogy teaches us otherwise.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#77

Post by rorykoehler »

redis_mlc wrote: post #13
laurieg wrote: post #10

A friend of mine teaches middle school in Japan and he recounted this story of a parent teacher meeting. A girl, who was by all accounts a decent student, had not been doing some of her homework recently. He brought it up in a casual and supportive way. The mother busy into tears and apologised profusely, exclaiming that she was so sorry for sending such a terrible didn't to this teacher's class etc. As this goes on…

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. :)

The depressing thing is this type of kiasu parenting actually takes the child further away from success. Children learn through play. A good technician doesn't make a good inventor and let's face it the people we remember as successful are all in the inventor mould.

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#79

Post by murkle »

WilliamEdward wrote: post #21
barry-cotter wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That means school was irrelevant. The evidence for transfer of learning is weak to the point of non-existence[1]. Even if transfer learning did exist that’s not the reason for school that any substantial portion of people believe in. If we look at the institutional history of school teaching nationalism is a much easier sell as to the purpose of school. [1] “Besides just plain forgetting, people commonly fail to mars…

> The evidence for transfer learning is weak to the point of non-existence. Citation needed. But transfer learning is a term specific to the ML field anyway, so I'm not sure why you used it. > teaching nationalism is a much easier sell as to the purpose of school I don't think most people believe this is the purpose of school, not even nationalists.

How do you cite lack of evidence? :)

Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school

#80

Post by VvR-Ox »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #65
sametmax wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1. Even as an adult, If I could do it all again, I would avoid school as much as possible. School is an upgrade from child labor, but I now have enough experience to know it's a downgrade from what I can learn of my own. Not saying every kid should do the same of course. But personnally, after being in 11 schools, including fancy private ones and ones in poor neighbourhoods, I found extremly few decent teachers, a v…

> Also, I don't miss having to fight for social acceptance, the bullying, the stress and pressure nor the hypocrisy of the ones in charge. Ironically this is somehow the most valuable lessons learned during school, since you ultimately have to deal with this shit throughout your life in most career paths. So at least you got prepared for that.

Or you die trying like some people at my school did.

I am sure there has to be a more human way to learn to deal with this.

Post reply on HN