The Japanese educational system and its schools get a lot of bad press in Western countries, particularly the United States. I’ve always found this ironic, considering the state of the American educational system and its schools (and I speak as an American). Perhaps it runs in the family; my sister was so dismayed at the quality of her local school system that she home schooled all four of her children. (Home schoolers seem to have the image of being religious conservatives, but my sister is neither particularly religious nor conservative.)

My wife and I don’t have any children, but if I did, I would have gladly let them go to a Japanese primary school. (Recent school reforms designed to make the Japanese school system more like the American school system have succeeded, alas.)

There’s a lot to be said in favor of the things Japanese schools do, and I was reminded of that by this recent short article in the Nishinippon Shimbun. The article is in Japanese and not online (and if it were the link would disappear in a week), so I’ll provide a quick translation. It starts from here:

Students and Faculty Clean Lavatories Together

Tobu Junior High School in Taku, Saga Prefecture, held a unique class for inculcating a sense of public service among the students by having them clean the school’s lavatories. All the students and faculty members participated.

The school’s position is that lavatories are places that everyone uses. There is a tendency to neglect their cleaning, however, because people consider them to be “dirty”. The school wants to clean the students’ public spirit by having them clean the lavatories. That’s why they started a project last summer vacation to have the students come in and clean all 14 of the school’s lavatories in one day.

The students come to school dressed in their gym clothes, remove their shoes and socks, and begin cleaning with their bare hands, using cleanser and sponges. They devote themselves to the task for about two sweaty hours.

First year student Ayako Fukakawa (13) remarked, “I hated the idea at first, but I steeled myself and worked really hard at it. Some friends even boosted me up on their shoulders and I cleaned the ceilings.”

Another first year student, Haruna Miyahara (13), said, “It was the first time I had ever cleaned the inside part of a toilet. I discovered how much fun it was to help clean the school.”

End of translation

Note in particular the first student’s comments. She hated the idea, but she resolved to do a good job, and even found a way to have fun with her friends and give the place an exceptionally good cleaning.

I can’t begin to describe how typical that is of the Japanese (particularly the way she expressed it in Japanese). Being in an environment created by people with that attitude is one of the reasons I’m glad I live here.

Postscript

No doubt some readers are thinking of the articles they have read describing the brutalities some Japanese teachers inflict on their students. Yes, these “teachers” exist, but they are not anywhere near as numerous as the publicity would lead you to think.

Besides, somewhere on my bookshelf is a report from a few years ago footnoted to an unimpeachable source stating that 5% of all crime in the United States is committed on school grounds.