Six bizarre school policies in my junior high in Japan


I attended public schools in Japan from elementary through high school. Japanese schools have changed over the past 20 years or so but I attended schools in a very conservative town in the countryside of Japan. So that definitely influenced how the school policies were made and my junior high school definitely did not allow any sort of flexibility. That was the craziest time, yet I just can’t deal with the memories when I think about my crazy years with Japanese furyo (gang members) in junior high.

Six bizarre school policies in my junior high in Japan

Black uniform for both boys and girls. Socks needed to be folded three times and socks should cover your ankles. Skirts should be below knee and girls with long hair had to blade on both sides. Bangs should not cover our eyebrows. Boys also had to wear a black uniform and they were not allowed to have a long hair. Of course gang members did whatever they wanted.

uniformWe had a sports competition each year and the teachers made the students practice marching, which was                 similar to Nazi Germany…(https://nblog.hachinohe.ed.jp/simongj/s_blog_14430…)

marchingNo heater, no air conditioning, and it was hell as it was a public school after all. No matter how cold it gets, teachers wouldn’t allow girls to wear a tights or pants underneath the uniform. Even gloves need to be black color.

  1. きたちゅうStudents who live far enough from school were allowed to ride a bicycle but it needed to be black. My parents are cheap so they sprayed a red bicycle black and that was my black bicycle right there.

black bycle

The main educational emphasis was to train us to develop the concept of “senpai  “senior ” and “kohai Junior” and the school made us do a lot of group trainings that was supposed to raise an awareness of the importance of group collectivism. If a group member messed up, all other members were also punished by the teacher. (http://www.redc.nagasaki-u.ac.jp/tips/chodaikun/lt…)

senpaiNo janitors like in America. We had to clean the toilet, room every single day. It was nasty. (http://www.sakai.ed.jp/weblog/index.php?id=sakai02…)

cleaning timeWe took turns serving lunch and in order to get the box lunches for all students in the class, we had to wear this crazy white uniform that covered us from the top to bottom and we were allowed to have literally 15 minutes to finish a meal. If we didn’t finish, the teacher would have punished us! (http://tachibana-net.jp/school/index.php?e=1116)

lunch wear

Conclusion:

I hated Japanese public schools for many reasons but junior high was the worst experience of my life. Fortunately, I got through it with some good friends but overall, a lot of “trainings” I received in my junior high were an attempt to kill individual uniqueness, creativity and talent. There are benefits to these trainings because I learned to appreciate peace, harmony, compassion and to feel responsible for my team member. I still keep in touch with my American English teacher who was teaching our English conversation class in junior high and he was shocked to see our daily lives and he even went to talk to the principal because he thought these teaching and trainings were harmful to our self-confidence but “Yes, I understand but we do things differently here.”, says our Principal. LOL

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