Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
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Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#2Perhaps it’s time for a new monastic lifestyle - Gibson and Stephenson should write a book together.
Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#3Perhaps it’s time for a new monastic lifestyle - Gibson and Stephenson should write a book together.
https://slashdot.org/story/04/10/20/1518217/neal-stephenson-...
it went interestingly last time! (C-f for "You don't have to settle for mere idle speculation. Let me tell you how it came out on the three occasions when we did fight. " )
Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#4Wow, this jogged a very long dormant memory of a record I used to have when I was a kid: "The Boy Who Would Not Go To School" (available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBjv0CLtd7g).
Which is apparently kind of a (vinyl) audiobook adaptation of the 1935 classic children's book "Robert Francis Weatherbee".
Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#5If 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 older and gain knowledge but not respect or autonomy, the school to job pathway looks more and more arbitrary and unnecessary (the common question of "But when am I actually going to use this?" I remember hearing often in school).
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?
For many (most?) kids, it doesn't seem like they, individually, have a reason to go to school. Instead, their parents have a reason and the kids' only reason is to not anger their parents.
Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#6If 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 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 occurrence that everyone has just accepted it. Here everyone is so anti non-traditional that even home-schooling is seen as an archaic form of education.
Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#7If 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 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…
Japan also has several decades worth of a stagnant economy in order to instill a sense of financial nihilism in its culture that doesn't exist yet in America.
Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#8Earlier 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…
Japan also has several decades worth of a stagnant economy in order to instill a sense of financial nihilism in its culture that doesn't exist yet in America.
Also salaryman culture. I could see the whole "do it to get a job" thing being not only largely ineffective, but achieve the opposite effect. When the person with a job that you know is a depressed alcohol who never has time for fun, why would becoming that be motivating?
Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#9If 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 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…
A good question. My best guess is that NA school systems are much less taxing than Japan's, and Japan's long history of economic stagnation has clamped down on the benefit equation even for those who do buy in to the school = job argument. I hadn't thought of the reason you gave, and I'm sure there's more here that I don't understand about Japan's culture.
My comment was primarily in response to the article talking a lot about why kids don't want to go to school, but not why they would want to go to school. imo, you could reduce the cost of school as much as you'd like and it would still be hard to get kids to learn unless you've convinced them to want to learn.
Re: Many Japanese children refuse to go to school
#10A 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 the daughter now starts crying in response.
My friend said this is a scene repeated again and again. Enormous amounts of pressure from both the parents and the teachers (he is something of an exception) is crushing children.