A poll shows that 40% of Japanese elementary school children refuse to do #2 at school. Writer Yachiyo Murakami has begun writing a series of books to guide parents and children through their “second” toilet training. She was recently quoted as saying that the problem is that once parents get their kids to stop using…
‘Tis the season when the youngsters are running around eating Kit-Kats (キットカット,きっと勝つ, kitto katsu), and looking for pentagons (五画, 合格, gokaku) in the architecture while trying to endear themselves to various deities in order to find favor in the hopes of scoring a few more points on their junior high entrance exams. Many private schools…
If you want to read books online, you have several options. Google recently announced a new deal with several authors and publishers to increase the available digital library. Although it remains to be seen how this will affect users from outside of the United States (international publishing rights will still be a speed bump for…
A list of members of the Waseda University who sought counseling for sexual harassment, “power harassment”, or stalking was released on the internet through file sharing software. On the list were 390 cases which listed the names and addresses of victims, the reason for seeking counseling, and the name of the accused. The list referred…
Tsugeno High School in Aichi Prefecture is currently in the public eye because of reports that the school, which is designed to give a second chance to dropouts, provided students with “smoking” rooms. The school claims the rooms are part of an anti-smoking program the school is doing. The rooms are equipt with ashtrays, however teachers…
Twenty-one students, many of them members of the baseball team at Sakae High School, a private high school in Hokkaido, shoplifted during a school trip to the United States this month. Eight students were caught by staff members at the store after stealing several expensive brand bags and wallets. The school apologized to the duty…
Akita and Fukui had the best results, Okinawa had the lowest. The test was reintroduced into the curriculum after not having been used for 43 years. All of the students in the country took the test on the same day in April.
Today’s commentary is inspired by an article about use of Nintendo DS in eSchool News. The article talks about a Nintendo DS tie in to a textbook being used at Tokyo’s Joshi Gakuen (sic). Here is the story as presented by Reuters. Tokyo Joshi Gakuen should be commended for trying some new things, but the…
Here’s the scoop on the drama, just in case you don’t actually have a tv under the rock in Japan where you live… but maybe that’s too extreme. I’m sure there are plenty of people in Japan who don’t know about Gokusen. So here’s the ad for the show… if you’re even slightly interested, I…
If you, like most of the major journalists in the U.S. (see my pop-Japanology posts), are under the mistaken impression that Japan is an unassuming, grin-and-bear-it type of society, here’s a great list of some of the things today’s Japanese parents are expecting from their kids’ preschools. “I’m busy in the mornings so the day…
The article found here: Vice Principal Skips School to Play Pachinko in Hyogo gives us a good chance to talk about how the schools work in Japan (for those of you who are more unfamiliar). There is no “substitute teacher” system that most people in the U.S. are familiar with. If a teacher takes a…
Takaaki Obara, a 57 year old high school basketball coach was convicted of raping a member of the girls’ basketball at a hotel when the club was away for a tournament. He was also convicted of punching members of the team in another hotel. The english story on Mainichi points out that he was “highly…