Contents:
Because the new year starts in spring, we only get a 2-week spring vacation between the end of the school year and the beginning of the school year. That means all of my new first-year students are already wandering around the school collecting textbooks, school uniforms, and books of information about the school. In one of their books, there is a map of the school and all of the rules for the students.
Students in their uniforms. Faces are blurred out because making my students look like creepy nightmare creatures is fun not because of privacy. Nobody ever actually told me the school rules when I arrived a few years ago. Every time I have heard one during my time here, I have been surprised at what the school restricts the students on. Here are a few of the surprising rules that my students must follow at my school.
Students must wear their uniform every day. You cannot attend school without your uniform. This includes school shoes, neck ties for girls, and the school crest a pin on their uniform. For example, dying your hair, wearing makeup, wearing colored contacts, tweezing your eyebrows, painting your fingernails etc. You may not wear any jewelry or accessories of any kind. You may not wear a bright colored sweater or jacket over your uniform during winter. You may wear a tan, gray, navy, or black sweater or jacket only.
Girls cannot wear a scrunchie. Plain black, brown, or navy elastic hair ties only. Students can only wear hair ties in their hair and not on their wrist. These uniform rules must be followed anytime students wear their uniform. Even while the students are not in school or at school, they must wear their uniforms properly to be good representatives of their school.
Students may not work a part time job. If a student needs to work a part-time job during the school year or during long vacations the job must be approved by the school. Students may not take extra classes at cram school without informing their homeroom teacher first. Students may not have their cell phones out while inside the school building. If they must use their phone between classes or after school they have to use it in the parking lot in front of the school entrance.
All students must be at school by 8: If you are late 5 times you must come early for a week and do punishment cleaning before school. It should be noted that every school in Japan, especially high schools, are unique.
When you talk about the school systerm in Japan it is important to remember that high school is not mandatory. Students choose which high school they go to based on what they want to do in the future. Therefore each school specializes in different things, have different types of students, and different rules and expectations. THere are schools for students who want to be office workers, students at prestigious colleges, students who want to study languages, and students who want to be farmers and mechanics.
My school situation is that I am teaching at a high level academic high school. Schools like mine tend to be stricter with students about the rules they must follow. I also live in the countryside, where things are more traditional. I know students in Tokyo and other large cities have far fewer restrictions.
I do see students sometimes breaking these rules, even as rural, traditional, and academic as my school is. There is always at least a few rebellious third-year students wearing a tinted lip balm and dark brown contacts that change their eye color only slightly. It happens, but it is rare. As a teacher, you are expected to follow the same rules as the students. Some teachers wear jewlery but nothing large or bulky. I am almost never without a hair tie on my wrist so that was a really hard habit for me to break at school. Next year my school will have its first long-term international foreign exchange student.
That could cause all sorts of problems for her and the other students getting along because of how strong the Japanese group identity is. Here is an example from a friend of a friend of mine of the kinds of problems it could cause. This friend of a friend is a teacher in Fukui and she has been living here for over ten years. Her daughter has always been in the Japanese school system and, other than her appearance of blonde hair and blue eyes, she is very Japanese. She speaks fluent Japanese, was raised in Japanese culture and acts like her classmates.
Her daughter entered Junior High School a few years ago. The other students cannot change their natural appearance and neither would their foreign daughter. Before sports day in their gym clothes which is also a uniform. The students here are getting ready for the opening ceremony. The teachers explained they were only asking this because they were worried that the jealousy of the other students would cause resentment and problems for her interacting with her classmates. The need to follow these rules and adhere to the group identity in Japan are really interesting to me. There are good and bad things to each way of thinking, of course.
Growing up in America we only ever hear about the value of our freedoms and the greatness that comes with that. There is a freedom of expression, but there are bad things that sometimes come from being encouraged and raised in a culture with those freedoms. For example, there is also hate speech, entitlement, and some egotism. The bad things that come from that are like I said above, no freedom of expression, lack of individuality, loss of personal identity, and a lack of challenging old ideas and progress.
But it is so hard to argue that their system is bad. The kids are so well behaved and polite. The society is safe and honorable. Japanese people have respect. Respect for each other, respect for their environment, respect for their families. I just checked out your photo blog, some really nice shots! Where are you from, Kristi? Genial la parodia del Hundimiento. I used to be checking continuously this weblog and I am impressed! Very helpful information specially the ultimate section I handle such information much. I was seeking this certain info for a long time.
Thank you and good luck. This is great news for everyone except for those who for political reasons want to see fewer people employed. Those people will likely see their wishes come true in a month as employers in areas devastated by Hurricane Sandy can be expected to layoff some employees. Si doveva fare e basta, senza cedere alla retorica patriottarda ed ad unanimismi che non esistono.
Well, looks like you touched a nerve. For me, left brained as I am, what is important is that the world allowed by the disbelief is consistent unto itself. Unless you are writing a metaphysical paranormal in which the beings in an imagined world allow a suspension of disbelief.
Buy Typical Japanese School Lunches in Tokyo Junior High Schools (Travels In Japan Series Book 1): Read 3 Kindle Store Reviews - www.farmersmarketmusic.com Power Lunch at Japanese Schools for the years of compulsory education in Japan is one of the highest in High Schools and Higher Education In Japan, % of junior high school graduates continue their Also in this series Tokyo Camii: Japan's Biggest Mosque Traditional Japanese Houses.
You know the mirror behind the mirror behind the mirror. Go as far as it takes you to say, Yeah, Ri-i-ght. Its still surprise me, how a lot of people do not know about Kinovelax Diet Plan do a google search , despite the fact that a lot of people get good result because of it. I have seen a great deal of useful points on your web site about computers.
However, I have the judgment that laptops are still not nearly powerful more than enough to be a option if you usually do jobs that require many power, including video modifying. Appreciate sharing your opinions. Is it glass or is it plastic or some type of composite. Deadlines are a must. Thank you Vitaly for sharing your experience. I love finding out the origins of sayings that we use all the time, had never thought about this one before.
I am so glad to hear that you are feeling better ;D. Jeg elsker stadig mitt og synes det bare blir finere og finere! This is an example of a board of education paying more attention to commuting time than to distance. An example is Shinagawa Ward in Tokyo, where the board of education indicates that, because all homes are located within 2 kilometers of a school, there is no need to set the boundaries like in other municipalities.
Children living in the same neighborhood go to school together. In places where there is a lot of traffic, parents, school staff, and local volunteers take turns supervising road crossings to make sure the children can cross safely. Children are taught to raise their hand to let drivers notice that they are crossing. In certain elementary schools, lower graders are all asked to wear a bright yellow hat when they are on their way to or from school to make it easier for drivers and others to see them. To make walking safe, many different initiatives exist depending on the characteristics of the district.
In each municipality, the board of education or school is responsible for safety management. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology has published the Safety of Children Walking to and From School as a guideline for boards of education and schools, following 2 cases of murder involving children commuting to or from school in This guideline consists of 5 components, and examples of safety measures applied to each of the 5 components are described in Table 2.
In this program, children and their parents commute to school together to identify risky areas and also to find the places to evacuate to in case of emergencies on particular school routes at the beginning of the program.
In accordance with the checklist, the school and parent—teacher association worked together to prepare a safety map that included all of this information. Parents identify the places where the child is likely to be alone on his or her school route. In some cases, actions are taken to improve safety. Students prepare a sheet of safety measures and discuss these measures on the way to and from school with their parents to avoid becoming alone on school route.
Patrols by teachers and parent—teacher association volunteers also take place. Although walking to school—a practice that has been in place formally for more than 50 years in Japan—was not originally intended as an intervention to promote physical activity, walking to school seems to be providing unintended positive outcomes.
As Japan has managed to maintain one of the lowest prevalences of childhood obesity in the world, it is likely that the walk-to-school policy benefits schoolchildren in terms of their levels of physical activity. The good news is that walking to school actually meets the physical activity guidelines for children published by Japan Sports Association. Two kilometers is equivalent to 30 minutes of walking and 3 kilometers is equivalent to 45 minutes of walking, when velocity is calculated as 4.
There may be other factors outside the scope of this article to explain the low prevalence of obesity, such as dietary intake, as the Japanese diet has been shown to be healthier than the American or Western diet. This investigation of walk-to-school schemes revealed several key factors. First, there is high availability of schools within walking distance for children, particularly in urban areas.
Also, the districts and distances to and from school are decided on the basis of the local characteristics of each municipality. The local board of education is the body that is responsible for making all the decisions regarding whether it is possible to walk to the nearest school. In some rural areas where the population is small, some schools had to be integrated or even closed and children may have to spend an hour or more getting to school on foot, or by school bus or public transport.
This situation is rather common in Tohoku, where many of the schoolchildren are actually driven to and from school by their parents, and where childhood obesity is more predominant. The intention of this campaign was mainly to reduce the use of private cars for commuting to school and encourage children to walk to school to build up their physical strength.
Because walking to school is considered as promoting physical activity, diminishing the number of overweight children can be considered a goal. One of the approaches in Hiraizumi Town Elementary School, in Iwate, is re-evaluating the current school bus operation status and working to encourage walking to school. As a result, the number of children who walk to school has reportedly increased. Schools advise remaining school bus users to get off at the previous stop and walk home from there.
Second, there are highly established safety measures in place in Japan. Again, the local board of education or the school itself is responsible for these safety initiatives, so that each one is unique and specific to each municipality or school. In most of the cases, parents, school staff, and local volunteers are all involved in supervision. The success of the walk-to-school schemes may be related to the fact that Japan is considered to be safer than many countries.
Crime does occur, and children face similar threats to their safety as they would in any country if the same basic precautions were not taken, including carrying a personal alarm in easy reach at all times in public, always traveling in a group to and from school, walking on well-lit and busy routes, knowing how to react if threatened or approached by a stranger, never entering a car or any other private or secluded area with a stranger or suspicious person, and always ensuring parents know where students are and where they are headed.
The Japanese experience may be useful for cities and countries elsewhere that are promoting similar interventions to prevent childhood obesity, given how a walk-to-school policy may contribute to increased activity levels among children.
We summarize the lessons that may be useful from the Japanese experience:. Nguyen for their comments. Because this study did not involve humans, institutional review board approval was not needed. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Am J Public Health. Published online November.
Craig Willcox , PhD. Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Reprints can be ordered at http: The views presented in this article are those of the authors and do not necessary reflect the decisions, policies, or views of the World Health Organization.
Accepted May 21, This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Open in a separate window. Changes in the prevalence of obese children in Japan. METHODS We reviewed gray literature, online government information, local policy documents, and regulations following a case study methodology to document this policy. School Availability In Japan, education is compulsory at the elementary and lower-secondary level up to the age of 15 years. Safety Management Children living in the same neighborhood go to school together.
Guideline Components Examples of Measures Dissemination of information about suspicious areas on school routes, and conduction of safety inspections to ensure safe conditions Inspection of school routes to find out the place where children are likely to be alone on the way to school or home e. Percentages of childhood obesity in developed countries. Key Factors This investigation of walk-to-school schemes revealed several key factors. Conclusions The Japanese experience may be useful for cities and countries elsewhere that are promoting similar interventions to prevent childhood obesity, given how a walk-to-school policy may contribute to increased activity levels among children.
We summarize the lessons that may be useful from the Japanese experience: Base interventions on the existing network of schools and adapt the provision to other local organizations. The district should be allocated by the local governmental body in each municipality, as well as the determination of the school that each child should attend. The range of distance should be within 2 to 4 kilometers for elementary schools, and 3 to 6 kilometers for junior high schools for reasons of feasibility.
Sufficient availability of schools within this walking distance is an important factor; however, in more spread-out cities, cycling combined with public transport may be considered to encourage physical activity. Establish a set of safety measures for schoolchildren. Each school in Japan is responsible for its respective security initiatives; in some cases, the board of education has been involved to make the walk-to-school scheme effective.
Initiatives should depend on the characteristics of the particular district. School staff, volunteers from local community, parent—teacher associations, and local governmental institutions such as police stations can all cooperate to make commuting to school safer. Examples of possible measures are listed in Table 2.
What do high school students have for lunch? For a comparative survey, take a round-the-world-trip with school lunches:. If that was enough to whet your appetite, you might also also want to peruse these: Comments feed for this article. July 24, at 9: The schools in my area took a lot of trouble with serving seasonal and local ingredients. I loved the soups the most. At junior high the portions were quite big for not-particularly-active adult females.
I started a trend of halving my rice—keeping it for later or taking it home—otherwise I lapsed into a carb coma after lunch and could not stay awake at my desk, no matter how hard I tried. Later we got a teacher who could never eat enough, so everyone just piled onto his tray. I much preferred the rice to the bread—white bread is boring and gives me heartburn. The best was when they occasionally had rice-flour bread. October 1, at 2: September 6, at 7: First week of Kyushoku. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Twitter account.
You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email.
That is definitely against the rules. The summer holiday runs from roughly July 20 August 25 and is the longest break. According to a survey conducted by the education ministry, the parents of 98, students failed to pay lunch fees in fiscal , or about 1 percent of kids served school lunches nationwide. There are only 24 hours in a day, and it has been suggested that a child needs percent of his or her waking time exposed to a language to maintain fluency. Although walking to school—a practice that has been in place formally for more than 50 years in Japan—was not originally intended as an intervention to promote physical activity, walking to school seems to be providing unintended positive outcomes. First, there is high availability of schools within walking distance for children, particularly in urban areas.
Create a free website or blog at WordPress. Ben Eastaugh and Chris Sternal-Johnson. Soba City Kyushoku Center school lunch program.