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Ingleton Middle School

75 Years of School in Japan

Hitoshi Mukai, the teacher at Jogakuin, in Hiroshima, shows us how school life has changed in Japan over the last 75 years.

In the pre-war period, everything in Japan was geared towards service for the emperor and his nation. Teachers were looked up to in awe and they very often gave students corporal punishment. During the war, there was a photo of the emperor and empress in a special place of each school and teachers and pupils were ordered to give a deep bow before the photo. When air raids on Japanese cities and towns by the US became fierce near the end of the war, teachers' first duty was to guard the photo from burning.

Around the end of the war, a military policeman was allocated to each school to give students military drill,using bamboo spears as weapons, and to keep an eye on whether teachers and students were loyal and supportive of the government, war and army.

In the classroom, the teacher stood in front, on a little elevated stage, and pupils (fifty or sixty in a classroom) sat face to face to the teacher. If a student happened to say something funny or had forgotten to do his homework, he would be made to stand outside the classroom, sometimes with a bucket of water in his hand. They might also be slapped on their faces. It is said that pupils were supposed to walk three steps behind the teacher; they never walked side by side, still less ahead of him. Everyone in Japan used the same text books.

That changed after the war ended in 1945. Students were told to cover in black ink many parts in the textbooks so that they had no 'anti-democratic' ideas left. New text books became available and local education authorities could choose their text books. Each class had a class leader whose job was to give orders to students at the beginning and end of each lesson to stand up and bow to the teacher and standing at the front of the class lines at assemblies.

In the past, some teachers of English were not very good and their pronuniciation was poor. Now, in general, teachers of English speak English fluently in a very American accent. At the school where I am teaching currently all the English teachers have studied in English-speaking countries.

There are also many native speakers of English. In those days, however, there weren't enough teachers properly trained. It was not until I entered high school that I heard real English but even that was recorded on a record disc. This is one of the biggest differences of teaching.

Teaching style has changed too. Now in many primary schools, pupils sit in groups facing each other. One-way instruction from the teacher still plays a part, as some traditional methods of learning persist. Learning is mainly considered to be memorizing. Students are given lots of information and have to learn it for exams. They don't have to work much out for themselves. Some things are getting even worse. Many pupils go to a 'juku' (cramming school) besides their own schools even at primary level. Now almost all students go to high schools and more than half to universities. In my time, it was only about half.

Teacher-student relationships have changed greatly. There is no 'stay three steps behind'. Students can walk ahead of teachers! Some teachers are called by their nick names which only friends use. There are more fun things in schools such as festivals, trips, clubs and friendly teachers. There were trips in my days too but we just walked long distances. Former rigidness has been replaced with freedom.

Hitoshi Mukai

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