TOKYO - If anybody actually has the time to read The Eagle during this time of the year, I thank you, and you should consider yourself lucky that the semester is drawing to a close, because I have three months left to go. The Japanese system is odd; the current semester, my second, is actually the first semester in Japan, and it started a few weeks ago, running through most of the summer until the end of July.
So, yes, I have three more months of ignoring a history professor who seemingly gives sleep-lectures, listening to fellow students try to prove the Jews nuked Japan and pretending to understand what my teachers say in Japanese class. And all that while it's nice outside and I could be building a tree fort in the woods or something.
I was homeschooled as a kid and never attended summer school, so it will be a new experience for me to be stuck in class on a sunny summer day. Not that I would go outside anyway, but it's the principle of the thing. I have no idea why the Japanese decided to put the long break from school in the godforsaken months of February and March, but if I were a Japanese kid, I would be pissed.
But, if I were a particularly smart Japanese kid (as I no doubt would be), I would be angry about the whole Japanese educational system. Japanese high school students are under huge amounts of pressure to perform well on college entrance examinations so they can go to a prestigious university that is actually not very challenging and is basically just an extended job search and networking seminar.
The notion of "teaching for the test" that is often decried in U.S. public schools is an established practice in Japan. Most high school students get additional instruction in topics likely to show up on entrance exams at places called cram schools, or juku. High school is basically consumed by the need to perform well on the right tests, and is actually more intensive and time-consuming than college in many ways.
I attend Waseda University, which is considered to be one of the best in Japan. But even at such a prestigious institution, the classes are quite a bit easier than the less-well-regarded AU. For example, the two history classes I have taken do not require me to write a single paper. Many students take six or more classes, because they are not that difficult.
Going to a university with high-name recognition seems to be the most important thing for people in Japan, rather than the actual work done at that university. Waseda and Keio are two highly regarded private universities, and Tokyo and Kyoto universities are among the "best" public universities. Those four can be compared to the top schools of the Ivy League in terms of influence.
There is one aspect of the Japanese higher education system that beats out the U.S. system though, and that is cost. Waseda has one of the highest tuition costs in the country, but it is less than $10,000. Furthermore, on-campus housing is rare, at least in Tokyo, so most students live at home, even if that means commuting an hour and a half or more to class. Regardless of the inconvenience of living so far away from the university, Japanese students won't have ridiculous amounts of debt like many U.S. students.
While I may not particularly like the Japanese educational system, there is no doubt that it is effective. Japan still has the world's second largest economy, and sometime in the future, advanced Japanese-designed robots will basically run the country as the human population steadily declines. Of course, once the robots become self-aware and begin a merciless crusade to purge mankind from the face of the earth, we will all curse Japan and its educational system that doomed us all. Until then, I can just bitch about overly easy classes.
