“Chinpoko”- Japanese education quote of the day
“During the speech both old and new students had become extremely restless, and thirteen children were out of their seats and moving around the room. The obscenities accompanying another tussle between two four-year-old boys- bakayaro and aho (fool)- had started a wave of obscenity calling from various parts of the room. As parents and teachers listened to the director’s speech apparently undisturbed, children tried to outdo one another in demonstrating their knowledge of elicit words. One particularly daring five-year-old topped the list with unko (feces) and chinpoko (penis).Completely ignored by teachers and parents, the contest died down as the audience rose to leave. The director’s remark ‘It is good to see that many children have already begun to make friends’ was a veiled reference to the general commotion”
This really shocked me in Japan- not the indirect criticism, which is actually a lot more direct than Thailand, but the tolerance for what seems to translate as swearing by small kids and more generally the noise and seeming chaos during parts of the school day in kindergartens and, to a lesser extent, elementary schools.
More Japanese education quotes and quotes from the same book on Quote Japan and as I continue to ponder why this is so, I will put my thoughts on my Japan Explained blog.
Meanwhile，in TEFLtasticland, the question I am asking myself is if since I noticed that Japanese teachers allow their students much more freedom to drift off (and even out of the classroom), have changed my teaching style to match the cultural expectations of my Japanese students, their teachers, their schools and their parents? And the answer is- no. It may be entirely due to my inner fascist, but if I were to try and give a rational reason for what has not until now been a thought out decision, it is that I simply cannot see how it is compatible with learning a language.
Luckily, the kids don’t seem to mind that I want their full attention for 30 to 90 minutes, and no parent or school has been foolish enough to entrust their kids their kids to me for longer, so I don’t have to worry too much about messing up what seems to be quite a successful way of bringing up kids in Japan with my British mum-shouting-that-she’s-going-to-slap-her-kid-in-a-supermarket school of parenting.