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The vast majority of the Japanese criticize the system of entrance examinations. They argue that the current "slicing (wagiri)" system measures human worth in terms of scores (hensachi) and ignores the unique ability and potential of each student. The Ministry of Education conducted major reforms in 1989 aimed at easing the examination race (juken senso) by the implementation of "individualized" education. Overall, we found parents and students liked the idea of the Ministry's reform. In the mean time, they are reluctant to go along with it because doing so reduces the chances of students going to better universities.
The reform was designed to give secondary students more flexibility and long-term opportunities (shogai kyoiku) for seeking or pursuing higher education. There are roughly three areas to which this reform is addressed: high school education, "examination wars," and continuing education. First, the ministry has suggested that the examination process is too rigid and needs to be more flexible to account for students' individual differences. Second, they feel that the current "examination war" (juken senso) encourages students of all levels to study in order to get high exam scores, while neglecting their individuality and non-academic strengths (e.g. artistic originality) and weaknesses (e.g. social immaturity). Instead, the Ministry has discussed the possibility of easing the examination race by adopting multiple and even non-academic means of evaluating students' abilities such as putting more weight on GPA, interviews, essays, or extracurricular activities. Finally, the current system gives few chances to high school dropouts and to adults past the college graduation age to continue their education. The Ministry has now encouraged a life-long opportunities program designed to give people of all ages and all academic backgrounds opportunities to continue education or re-enter schools.
Japanese parents and students find it ideologically compelling to criticize their current education system, but at the same time they find it personally and pragmatically unwise to give up competing, lest they be left behind in the examination race. As a result, parents and students hold on to the perception that entering highly-ranked high schools and universities, regardless of the content and quality of the education provided, offers students the best chances for success in life. For example, a mother whose daughter just entered a university challenged the criticism that many students would go to colleges for the school name alone:
Mother: Once we had an exchange student from China who went to a Japanese university. He said, "The Japanese are funny people. They study so hard to get into university. But once they do, they completely goof off." Looking at my own daughter, I felt how true that was.
Interviewer: How do you feel about that?
Mother: Well, I say, I am going to send my child to college anyway.
Interviewer: Why do you think so?
Mother: When a girl is trying to get married, the first thing people ask is her level of education. They ask, "Was it a 4-year college? Women's college? Which college?" and so forth. I know it's parental ego or vanity — you can call it whatever you want to. But that's just how I feel. I feel it's my responsibility to send my child to a university that she won't be embarrassed by when she mentions its name. My daughter said she wanted to major in religious studies at college. When we (parents) asked why, she said she didn't know. That's OK by us. I'm not embarrassed to admit that we want her to get the diploma from that college and bring back the name of the school with her when she graduates.
Juku are designed to complement the Japanese public school system, as an administrator of one of Japan's largest jukus explained. He boasted that his company had what it takes to replace regular schools with its ample money and teaching staff. "But if we do that," he explained, "we no longer are juku. We become a regular school and have to compete with other juku. To be a juku, you have to do what it is meant to do—support regular schools."
As his remark indicates, Japanese schools produce a large number of students who find instruction in regular schools too easy, difficult, or not tailored to their individual needs. For them, there are two major forms of supplementary education: juku and supplementary classes called hoshu within regular schools.
Japanese schools often provide some form of supplementary classes. By definition, hoshu are given by regular teachers and typically are offered in the morning before the regular classes or after school. Most hoshu are free, and whoever wants to attend can attend. Hoshu take somewhat different forms in elementary, middle, and high schools.
Hoshu plays a very minimal role during elementary school in dealing with differences in students' rate of progress. Teachers try to provide help to children having difficulties as much as possible in the regular classroom. Elementary school teachers are also reluctant to offer hoshu for fear that the extra emphasis placed on academics hampers the basic goal of educating the whole person. As one teacher explained: "I don't want to give hoshu, if possible, because I want children to go home and play after school." The same teacher also explained: "I make sure that I'm available to students. I tell my students, 'if you want to see me after school, you can,' but I don't make that mandatory."
Junior high school teachers rely much more heavily on hoshu. The more advanced course materials and the need to prepare the third-year students for entrance exams necessitate this change. In junior high school, hoshu are given after school in a teacher's room immediately before or after regularly scheduled exams (i.e., mid-term and final). Attendance is voluntary before the exam, and mandatory after the exam for those who failed it.
Most hoshu classes are not divided by ability. As a math teacher in Midori explained, the diversity does not always pose a problem because "good students know what they don't know and how to ask questions. Most of them leave quickly, and I'm left with slower students with whom I spend a lot of time." Although teachers require students who fail an exam to attend hoshu, they cover material students can easily understand and then use that material in subsequent make-up exams so that these students can pass the course.
In academic high schools, on the other hand, hoshu are geared toward both those who are failing and those who wish to do well in college entrance exams. In the case of vocational schools, they are important for job certification exams. At Naka Vocational, for example, teachers often ask failing students to see them and receive hoshu because "many students do not come unless they are told to" (Teacher, Naka Vocational High School). At Meiji, hoshu are mandatory for anyone who scores below half the average score in any given exam in a course. Should these students fail the subsequent make-up exams, which are based on the materials covered in hoshu and are slightly easier than regular exams, they must repeat the grade. It is very rare, but sometimes a few students do repeat a grade at Meiji.
In addition, all high schools in our sample have school-wide hoshu directed toward college entrance or job certificate exams. At Naka Tech, anyone who plans to take a certificate exam can ask a teacher to give him a hoshu. School-wide hoshu at Arata probably represent the most common pattern. During the first year, hoshu are offered in the major subject areas of math, science, Japanese, and English. During the second year, separate classes are offered for the liberal arts and science majors. In each hoshu class, students are divided by ability on the basis of teachers' evaluations of students' performances on classroom exams. Summer hoshu are also offered to second- and third-year students. The course covers major subject areas of college entrance exams such as English, mathematics, and science. Because tuition is low many students take advantage of these courses.
As noted in other chapters, there is a wide range of juku that meet varied needs. These include fast-track, shingaku juku and supplementary, remedial hoshu juku.
Kawai Juku. Kawai is a multi-functional school with about 40,000 students going to its post-high school preparatory school (yobiko) division nation-wide, 60,000 to the high school division, 10,000 to the middle and elementary school divisions, and 10,000 to the vocational and preschool divisions. As indicated by these numbers, the main patrons of a large-scale juku such as Kawai are high-school students. Most of them are either top students from average schools or students from top schools. These students feel that instruction given at their regular schools is not adequately preparing them for the college entrance exams.
The Kawai Juku of Naka City is a large, modern, bright building that appears more like a popular shopping mall than a typical Japanese school. The students are dressed in neat school clothes and appear to be focused on studying. Kawai Juku is a preparatory school (shingaku juku) for able students from all areas of Naka City who are planning to take college entrance examinations. Seeing these teens conversing with laughter in the hallways gives no image of a juku being a hangout for "bookworms."
Large-scale juku like Kawai are perhaps the only academic institutions in Japan that are both designed to and capable of providing support for fast-track students whose academic potential is not met by regular schools.
One administrator of Kawai Juku told me, for example, what academic success entails in Japan and why admission to an outstanding university is so important:
What education gives is an insurance policy. Going to Tokyo University is like having paid the largest possible premium in life. No matter what happens in your life, chances are you will lead a disaster-free life. But this doesn't mean you are going to make your wildest dreams come true.
The administrator acknowledged that there was no room for a wild card in Japan. To the Japanese, providing special treatment to an individual neglects the Japanese reality, in which being different from others often entails being left out, or worse still, being marginalized by the main-stream. The administrator emphasized that the role of shingaku juku is not to produce "wild cards," but to prepare fast-track, college-bound students to get into nationally ranked universities.
Sakura Juku. Sakura Juku in Naka City is a typical shijuku, small-scale, “mom and pop” juku. Unlike Kawai, Sakura's primary function is to help elementary and junior high school students who are either failing to or hoping to keep up with regular class instruction.
Mr. Sakura, who is in his late thirties, started to tutor several students while he was a graduate student. After graduation, he officially founded this operation as a private juku. Currently, eight college students work as teachers. Students range from the 4th to 12th grades, with the highest concentration being junior high school students, particularly those preparing for high school entrance exams. This pattern closely resembles the general pattern of juku attendance by elementary and junior high school students.
There is usually only one class for each grade level. A junior high school-level class usually consists of about thirty students; elementary and high school classes, somewhere between 10 and 20 students. At the elementary and junior school levels, students receive classroom instruction much like that which they receive in regular schools. The teachers use supplementary exercise books published by private companies. The junior high school students are especially concerned about doing well on mid-terms and finals.
Chances for successfully entering a college or university are improved by knowing what one needs to study in order to pass the entrance exam for a specific university. A large juku such as Kawai specializes in such service, but a private juku such as Sakura cannot provide such information. High school students who plan to apply to top universities, therefore, are normally advised to quit Sakura and go to a larger juku that specializes in preparing students for entrance exams. Some students, however, are either unwilling to go a larger juku or are unable to afford it. The few who stay form one class for each grade. Several teachers are assigned to each high school subject, so that each student can receive individual instruction. A Sakura teacher told me this setting is a clever alternative to having a tutor.
Why go to juku? Talking with parents, students, and teachers in regular schools and juku, one learns that the primary reason students go to juku in Japan is not to attain individual excellence or high levels of achievement, but to keep up with or get ahead of their peers both socially and academically.
The list of reasons why students go to an academic juku given by a long-time teacher at Sakura, who is now a faculty member in a department of educational psychology in a major national university, underscores such a peer-based tendency. For elementary school students he cited three main reasons for going to an academic juku: (a) to prepare for entrance exams to elite junior high schools, (b) to give the child whose siblings are attending juku fair treatment, and (c) to help a student keep up in regular school.
The former juku teacher said that for a junior high school student, this picture changes dramatically. He noted that the majority of those who go to juku say they go simply because their friends are going. Going to juku provides them with an opportunity to spend time with their peers. One sign of this he said, is that even after classes are over in the evening many students do not leave the juku. The second reason he suggested is that parents want their children to obtain better grades at school. When the news spreads in a neighborhood that certain students improved their grades by going to a particular juku, many parents decide to send their children to that juku. The final reason the teacher listed as to why junior high school students go to juku was that the parents were disappointed by the teaching that goes on in regular classrooms. He explained, "Since regular schools conduct whole class instruction, when a certain student begins to lower the morale of a class, the whole class suffers. At other times, students find they are incompatible with their teacher. In such cases, juku offer them another setting in which they can avoid such problems."
The overall distribution of students attending juku changes across age groups. Many elementary level students attend non-academic type juku, and juku focused on academics become more prevalent at the junior high and high school levels as students prepare for high school and college entrance exams. However, at the high school level the number of students aspiring to attend college greatly reduces the pool of potential juku students. Therefore, looking at all of the juku, there are fewer high school students than their elementary and junior high school counterparts attending juku. Students said that studying in high school becomes much more difficult and out-of-school study requires a good deal of time. As a result, many students simply do not have time to go to juku. Those who do go to juku, tend to be divided into those who are either having serious problems keeping up with class or those who are preparing for college entrance exams.
The role of juku in dealing with differences in students' ability. At the risk of oversimplification, one can state that it is juku, not regular schools, which both systematically and effectively try to deal with differences in students' abilities. Many teachers say regular schools are sufficient for most students to accomplish their goals, but Japanese parents and students claim that students who are either at the bottom or top of the class have to go to juku in order to receive appropriate levels of instruction. For example, students who aspire to go to an elite junior high school have no choice but to turn to juku, rather than to their teachers in regular schools, for help. One mother at Hasu Elementary testified:
My older child expressed her desire to go to a private junior high school when she was in the fifth grade. Today, in order to go to private junior high schools, children have to study things that are far more advanced than those taught at school. So we decided to send our child to juku. I know that the parents should really help the children at that point, but when we looked at the lessons our daughter brought home, we could not help her with math. We were still able to offer some help in Japanese, but not math . . . So we had to have somebody's help. As a result, our daughter passed the entrance exam to the very school she wanted to enter. Because her dream came true, looking back on the past 2 years, she feels it was good that she went to juku. However, during those 2 years, she, being busy, always looked anxious and under stress. I could tell even from the language she was using, that she needed more time to relax.
It is important to realize that most Japanese parents and students neither criticize regular schools for their unwillingness to deal with ability differences, nor praise juku for attempting to meet the students’ individual needs. Rather, they think both a regular school and a juku are needed if the student is to derive the maximum benefits out of the current Japanese system. One such example of this differentiation comes from the results of a survey study conducted in Chiba, part of the Tokyo metropolitan area. Nearly 80 percent of elementary and junior high school students responded that they considered homework given at regular schools more important than that given in juku (Kudomi, 1993). The majority indicated that they approve of ability grouping at juku "because the grouping makes the right adjustment for my own ability level," but not at regular schools, where they considered the grouping "a sign of discrimination." This paradoxical situation occurs because of the different goals of juku and regular classes. Social interaction and the development of the individual are goals in regular schools. Juku, on the other hand, seek only to develop the students’ skills, and grouping by ability often makes it easier for the teacher to accomplish this goal.
While the majority of respondents indicated that instruction given at juku "prepares them more effectively" for entrance exams than those given in regular schools, they also indicated that they respect teachers in regular schools more than those in juku, because the former understand them better than the latter. Clearly, Japanese parents and students rely on regular schools for the basic materials to be covered for a given grade, and equally importantly, for the environment in which everyone is treated equally regardless of academic ability.
Two kinds of schools exist for mentally or physically handicapped children in Japan: special education schools and special education classes within regular schools for elementary and junior high school children.
The basic types of special education schools are those for visually impaired, hearing impaired, and for children and adolescents with mental retardation, physical handicaps, and other conditions of infirmity. Special education classes, on the other hand, enroll students with less severe physical and mental handicaps, such as mild visual or hearing impairment, mental retardation, physical handicap, medical infirmity, language disorder, and emotional disorder (Monbusho, 1991).
Around 1 percent of the 14 million children of compulsory education age with physical and mental disabilities are receiving compulsory education in either special education schools or classes (Monbusho, 1994, p. 70). Of these children, 42 percent are enrolled in special schools, and 58 percent are enrolled in special education classes in regular schools.
Thus almost all Japanese children, including the severely disabled, attend some type of school, with only "about 1,000 children (0.01 percent of the compulsory education age population) allowed postponement of or exemption from the compulsory schooling" (Monbusho, 1994, p. 70).
The parents of a handicapped child ultimately decide the school or class in which the child will be enrolled. No laws mandate that certain types of handicapped students will enroll in a special school, special class, or regular class. Neither the teachers nor the city's Education Center possess authority to send handicapped children to a special education school or class. The primary function of the Center is to help parents and teachers of handicapped students decide which school is most appropriate for them.
The decision, however, is rarely made solely on the basis of parental judgment. Although it is difficult to derive a general pattern of how a child is referred to a special education school or class, the special education teacher at Tancho Elementary mapped out the typical road many handicapped children travel before being enrolled in a special education school or class:
Most disabled children get identified before entering preschool. Parents receive the notice from the city government to bring their child for a check up at age 6 months, 18 months, and 3 years. In case of rather severely handicapped children, they can be picked up easily by the 6-month check-up because their heads do not sit stabley on the neck. If a child's neck is not stable at 6 months, a potentially severe disability is suspected, so the child with this condition is referred to a doctor immediately. In the 18-month check-up, most children are expected to walk, so if a child is unable to walk at this time, he or she is referred to a doctor. Incidentally, most autistic children pass both the 6-month and 18-month check ups. Autism is usually identified at the 3-year check-up when children are asked, for example, "What is this?" when shown a book. If a child does not respond at all, or try to avoid the examiner all together, autism is suspected and they are referred to a pediatrician. After being referred to and seeing a doctor, parents who still think that their child may be slower than others must make a decision if they put the child into a regular preschool or a special school for disabled children. Children who enter such special schools usually advance to either a regular school with a class for disabled children or a school that's primarily for disabled children (yogo gakkou). When parents have a hard time deciding, they sometimes go to the Education Center and get the opinions of staff members.
Some children are so severely handicapped that they are left with few options but to go to a special education school. One teacher explained, "Such children typically have very low IQs, cannot be toilet trained, and in case of autistic children, cannot stay still for even a moment. If a child requires a teacher's constant, one-on-one attention, and if this keeps the teacher from paying attention to any other child in a class, the child is often considered to have a handicap severe enough to be referred to a special school."
Special education teachers seem to interact with special education students more casually and intimately than most teachers do with healthier children. Attending a special education class is a particularly "homey" experience. Normally, a special education class consists of five to seven students at most. Almost all academically-oriented instruction is informal. For example, in one math class I attended, students were given real money and went to the teacher to buy various snacks that she sold. In another such class, students bowled and counted the number of pins they knocked down. Each student received individual attention. In one elementary-level class, each student owned certain sections of the classroom. A girl named Kako-chan, for example, was both curious and nervous about the sudden visit by the vice principal and this strange adult. Upon our visit, she retreated to her own "spot." Then the teacher remarked, "Fine, Kako-chan. That's your place isn't it? But you don't have to hide in there. Everything is fine."
Japanese teachers expressed the belief that individual attention should be given at home by mothers, but in school, children should learn to control such "selfish" impulses. Clearly such restrictions are lifted in Japanese special education classes. Ms. K likened her students to her own child:
I don't think my students are 'special' as you suggest. Maybe there are slower than others. When I was raising my own children, I noticed behaviors which look exactly like that of my autistic students. The difference is that the autistic student is stuck at that stage of development. So I don't see them (her own child and her autistic student) being that different.
Most teachers in special education classes expressed ambivalent feelings toward the general cultural and academic climate in which special education is embedded. For special education students, whose identities are shaped by being different, mainstream Japanese education stands as both the goal to be accomplished and as the obstacle to be removed.
Ms. K, for example, told me about her dilemma in the school's "sports day" (undo kai). As in any athletic events, all students must follow rules by which they compete. In a short distance race, for instance, all runners must line up at the starting line. "In Japanese schools," she said, "when they say 'line up,' you really have to line up. But there is no way that my students can do that. So they inevitably stick out." She said that she felt torn because on the one hand, she wanted her students to do exactly as others so that they did not feel embarrassed. At the same time, she felt "this is not what education is all about. I thought handicapped students should be free to do what they can do. Of course, they have to follow rules, too. But making a perfect line is not such an important rule."
Ms. K and other special education teachers agreed that what they hope most for their children is that the society will become more understanding of their students' "need" to be different. They acknowledge that the majority of handicapped students will never achieve the level of independence as adults as their non-handicapped counterparts. "There will always be times when they have to ask for help," Ms. K said. To both prepare handicapped students to seek help and non-handicapped students to offer it, the teachers said it was essential that the two groups spend as much time together as possible . Specifically, Ms. K told me:
I would like to have regular students see the ways I interact with my students as much as possible. In fact, we have a program within this school where my students and I go visit regular classrooms. Had the regular students not seen the way I interact with my students, many of them would opt to help my students completely, expecting that my students would not be able to do anything on their own. But this shouldn't be so. My fourth-grade student had everything taken care of before coming to this school by his preschool teachers. I changed all that when she came to my class. I simply watched her when she was doing what she could do, and helped her only when she needed help.
Japanese teachers, students, and parents appeared to be generally in favor of mainstreaming. One Hasu parent even maintained that it was necessary for non-handicapped to be given opportunities to mingle with their handicapped peers because "Society cannot exist without those people, and to learn that when children are young is very important."
In summary, special education is only beginning to receive pubic attention in Japan. Clearly, the notion of group life both hinders and helps children with special needs: it hinders to the degree that it demands conformity and helps so far as it encourages an acceptance of diversity.
This chapter began with the question of how the Japanese treat individual differences among students. Several culture-specific assumptions and ideas were suggested concerning how individual differences are created, maintained, and dealt with.
First of all, Japanese do not consider individual differences in abilities to be primarily given at birth, but rather acquired through individual effort and family background. From the beginning of their formal education, Japanese children are taught to see themselves as equals, as part of a group. From preschool and throughout much of elementary schooling, children receive what Japanese educators call "whole person education". The idea behind "whole person education" is that children should be educated in every dimension of their personhood, including their social, emotional, moral, physical, and intellectual capacities. Japanese elementary schools place so much emphasis on the group, and the individual as part of the group, that teaching and learning at this level can not be taken out of an interpersonal context.
Junior high school years in Japan, however, are a time of turbulent transition, a time when the egalitarian education that characterized the elementary school years merges with the new forces of academic competition. It is in junior high school that students become concerned with competing with their peers in the entrance exams that will determine their place in a high school system with various levels of academic rigor and prestige.
This competition is carried over to high school, the time of preparation for university study or direct entry into adult Japanese society. During the high school years, much emphasis is placed on social life within the school while, at the same time, students are being trained to compete as individuals for the university entrance exams. Japanese high schools, stratified by their academic levels, mirror the occupational levels of competition in Japanese society, where emphasis is placed on learning to balance individual competition with being a productive part of a group.
In Japan, competition and egalitarianism often go hand in hand. The two behaviors produce some conflicts in students' lives, but Japanese students and parents generally regard the two elements as being equally necessary. Competition, which outlines differences between individuals, is considered to be necessary because it gives students the ticket to higher education and opportunities for prestigious and well-paying employment. Egalitarianism continues to be important in Japan in part as a reaction to earlier periods when education was available only to elite groups in society.
Virtually all Japanese students, parents, and teachers appear to be aware of the simple formula that the more time an individual student spends studying, the better their chances will be for entering a good school, getting a good job, and becoming members of the middle class. The crucial requirement is the possession of a high school diploma; regardless of whether one is planning to go to college or not, "doing one's time" in high school is an important variable to social acceptance.
[Chapter 4 - The Role of School in Japanese Adolescents' Lives (Part 1 of 6)]