Japan Grapples with a Breakdown of Discipline in Class
Neat ranks of immaculate schoolchildren in sailor suit uniforms bowing to their teacher at the start of class is the standard image of school life in Japan. But teachers and pupils talk increasingly of a “collapsed class" syndrome which can range from small incidences of lax discipline to violence and even murder at schools.
The breakdown in discipline is being blamed on an increasingly individualistic society and coping with it is proving a sharp learning curve for all concerned.
Official figures show that violence in Japanese schools is on trise. In 1998, the latest year for which annual figures are available, cases of violence rose 25.7 per cent compared to the year before.
A total of 29,685 cases were reported at primary, junior high and middle schools. Most of the incidents also rose 19.2 per cent. Government officials said students were expressing their frustration and stress through violence and were less able to exercise self-control.
- In January last year, two 15-year-olds at Matsuda Junior High School, west of Tokyo, assaulted five teachers who had told them off. One teacher suffered a fractured cheekbone.
- In Tokyo, two 14-year-olds attacked a teacher because he asked them to stop playing mah-jongg in class.
- In Hokkaido, five junior high school pupils set fire to their school and a building at another school, which was destroyed. Acts against school property are not even counted in the statistics.
- In 1998, a 13-year-old boy stabbed his teacher to death because she criticized him for being late. The murder sparked a debate about violence and knives in schools.
Hiroo Shiga, 50, a primary school teacher, has never seen anything as bad in his 30 years in the profession. He says teachers who are used to well-behaved pupils are having to learn to deal with collapsed classes, where individuals disrupt proceedings for everyone else. “Kids talk back, they sit in class openly reading books which aren’t the textbook and walk out of class when they feel like it. Once a group of boys started playing ball in the back of the class while the teacher was teaching," he said. “There is no respect for the teacher any more.”
Masao Asami found out about his son’s collapsed class from another parent. The boy, then 12, was singled out as a troublemaker, but Mr. Asami thinks the teachers were equally at fault. “In my son’s class, the kids would insult the teacher and shout. Once they threw knives at each other and chucked plates out of the window," he said. But the teacher ignored the situation. The troublemakers in turn ignored her.
In addition, children, especially boys, are increasingly carrying knives to school. A survey last year by the Management and Coordination Agency questioned 1,270 children who had been either questioned by the police or were registered as juvenile delinquents. Of them, 13.5 per cent of high school boys, and 13.3 per cent of junior high school boys said they carried knives. Schools, however, have not yet turned to security guards and metal detectors. And guns are unheard of. Most violent acts in Japanese schools are less serious than those at schools in the United States and Europe.
A report commissioned by the prime minister to set out a vision for the 21“ century suggested such radical moves as shortening the school week to three days with the remaining two to be filled with activities of the parents’ and pupils' choice paid for by a voucher system. The idea is to foster individualism and creativity. Soon afterwards, Education Minister Hirofumi Nakasone announced a review of Japan’s basic law on education, which has not been changed in 50 years.
But some fear that fostering individualism will lead to a further breakdown in discipline.
Kazuko Narui, a teacher and education consultant, says that parents share much of their own playing computer games. They arrive at school without knowing the most basic rules of good behaviour.
“They used to learn the rules by living in a close-knit community where they played outside and had older children looking after them, now they have no guidance,” she said.
The image of rigid, rule-bound institutions, however, may never have been very accurate, according to Tim Clifton, a British teacher who has taught English in junior high schools near Tokyo for three years. He feels Japanese schools have more rules, but they are less strictly enforced than elsewhere. “It’s almost as if hundreds of minor rules have been invented to give pupils something to rebel against,” he said. To his surprise, truancy is widely tolerated, with some students being allowed to turn up at school just for lunch.
But he said serious misdemeanors are severely punished. One boy had his hair dyed back to black in the staff room after breaking the no-hair-dying rule.
And the lack of discipline is taking its toll on teaching staff. Newcomers and veterans alike are stressed out; half the sick days teachers took last year were for stress-related illnesses.
Japan is now a breakdown of discipline in schools. Violence between students and is on the rise at schools due to and on the part of the students. In classes, students ignore the teacher and disrupt proceedings. However, according to teachers should be blamed because they ignore the students’ misdemeanors. Unlike the situations in American and European schools, most violent acts are in Japanese schools and are not in use. A report suggested that the school week should be shortened to three days with the to be filled with activities of parents’ and pupils’ own choice so as to encourage . But this may result in a worse . An educator says that children used to live in a and play outside, getting from older children. But now they spend too much time on their own. According to a British teacher, however, Japanese schools have many rules that are not so . As a result of the students’ rebellion against school discipline, many teachers got stress-related illnesses.