• 2 months ago
Transcript
00:00Hey guys so we're getting to the end of what they call the summer school
00:06holidays they just had five weeks of so-called summer school holidays
00:11ironically though most kids to varying degrees have spent a goodly proportion
00:18of it either actually at school or at least doing schoolwork so it's
00:24absolutely ridiculous first of all I've got to state or acknowledge that
00:30depending on which source you look at Japan the Japan education system is the
00:39top in the top 10 high school education systems in the world that is true as far
00:45as the quality of their education or what they actually learn perhaps is a
00:50better way to look at it because it's just it's typical of Japanese society
00:54and the work work harder not smarter mentality you know it's absolutely
01:00ridiculous how much time the kids spend doing schoolwork and at school it's
01:05absolutely ridiculous and particularly when you compare it with company or with
01:09countries like Finland and Sweden that have very
01:14high level or if not the highest levels of education in the world and yet the
01:20kids don't spend nearly as much time at school or nearly as much time doing
01:24schoolwork as they do in Japan and it's probably because a lot of the stuff here
01:28is repetitive same as Japanese society there's a lot of time wasted with
01:33faffing around with doing stuff you don't need to a lot of unnecessary
01:36repetition so it's that work harder not smarter thing that they seem to it
01:41pervades right through Japanese society that the harder you do stuff or the more
01:46you do stuff the better it'll be instead of being sort of logical and
01:50critical about how you do it and finding a better way to do it so just repetitive
01:56you know so during the usual school term kids go to school high school kids so
02:02I'm going to lump junior high school and high school together although the high
02:06school kids tend to do more of everything but generally you can lump
02:10them together they go to school usually from 8 in the morning to 4 in the
02:14afternoon that's actually usual classes that's 40 hours a week and then they'll
02:20have club activities we talked about club before club could be two days or
02:23four days or five days or six days a week and that could be basketball or
02:28baseball or volleyball or something like that or something inside like goal where
02:34they do the board games or they do IT computer stuff or something like that
02:38but we'll just ignore that extra 20 30 40 hours of club we'll ignore that for
02:44the moment because that's not really academic that's that's more about
02:47whatever that's supposed to be about and again some of the kids really do enjoy
02:52club and you know there's no doubt that it has some benefits to them but again
02:56how much time a week do you expect the kid to stay at school you know and
03:01weekends and everything else but we'll ignore club for a moment so basic
03:05academic lessons usually about 40 hours a week and then quite often they'll have
03:11extra classes in the afternoon depending on the school and then the most
03:17ridiculous thing is the Juku and Juku is sometimes translated to mean cram school
03:23but we'll ignore that because it's not really cram school doesn't really
03:26illustrate what Juku really is so let's just call it Juku because that's what it
03:30is and the Juku system is basically private businesses private businesses
03:37that that operate these little after-school weekend schools basically
03:42and they're a total waste of time I've talked about them before actually I
03:45shouldn't blanket it like that they're often a total waste of time what happens
03:50is usually when kids get to 12 years old and they go into junior high school
03:56quite often the parents will automatically enroll them into a Juku
04:00and we know lots of people who've done this and over the years you know I'll
04:05sometimes ask them oh you know they'll say oh she's starting Juku next month you
04:10know because she's going into junior high school oh really uh you know what
04:14what's good about Juku sort of ask it in a sort of an innocent sort of way like
04:19why why Juku and their answer usually is because she's starting junior high
04:23school so there's no real questioning of why they need to do this now Juku
04:32usually they go after school so they might finish school at 4 o'clock and go
04:36to Juku at 4.30 or 5 o'clock and sometimes I'll stay there 3, 4, 5
04:40hours we actually have a friend who owns a Juku and I've spent a fair bit of time
04:45when I go past this Juku sometimes I stop and go in and sit at his desk and
04:50we talk and his desk is just inside the entrance of the Juku so I get to see
04:54what's going on in there and there'll be kids there till they're open till 10.30
04:59at night and there'll be kids in there till 10.30 at night now in fairness there
05:04there are kids who go in there and they the Juku teachers the teachers are
05:09usually just university students and the Juku is their part-time job right so
05:14you've got these university students that are 19 or 20 years old helping
05:18these kids that are you know between 12 and 17 and of course those university
05:24students have varying degrees of ability right and they'll help them they're
05:29supposed to help the kids with their homework or with things that they don't
05:34understand now we know we know some kids who have actually been helped by their
05:40teacher at Juku and tell us all you my Juku teacher is really helpful
05:45however I've seen it firsthand and I've heard about it a lot but you know I've
05:50seen them in the Juku though the high school kids will go in they'll sit down
05:54they'll put all their books out they'll go off to the convenience store buy some
05:59food and come back and sit down at the table with their friends and look at
06:02their smartphones and eat some food and do very little the students who really
06:09focus at Juku and sit down and do their homework and things like that usually
06:15are self-motivated and could do that at home right because the Juku's attitude
06:21is that these students are customers right the Juku rely on these kids for
06:27their income right these these kids are customers their parents are customers so
06:31all the Juku is interested in is keeping the kids happy and it's ridiculous the
06:38atmosphere in there is just ridiculous that the one I go to the owner of it and
06:42the university students who are the teachers clown around with the kids and
06:47joke around and carry on like fools really and to keep them happy it sort of
06:52reminds me a little bit of the way the English schools work here you know it's
06:56not really about education it's about keeping the kids happy because then the
07:01kids are happy to go there and keep going there and they don't want to stop
07:04and the parents happy to keep paying the money because the kids happy it's
07:07working right and it doesn't really matter if it's helping them with their
07:12education right so and and the cost of these Juku I mean if a kid goes you know
07:18maybe once a week or twice a week it might cost maybe $200 a month if the kid
07:23goes four or five times it could cost four or five hundred dollars a month
07:26right the parents are forking out and quite often total waste of money right
07:31so then you've got to ask yourself what's the point why I mean you'd
07:38imagine in most countries that that parents would be asking and the media
07:44would be asking I mean this is another thing about Japanese society that you
07:48don't see like investigative journalism here very much when it comes to this
07:54sort of society stuff you know in some countries journalists would do a story
07:58on this and say what's the story with Juku why do we need if we've already
08:02got a school system where the kids are going 40 hours a week and they're
08:07getting given hours of homework every night and every weekend why do we need
08:12to be paying money for these Juku why do the kids need when they finish school at
08:17the end of the day after eight hours of school why do they need to go to these
08:20private places to to get properly educated allegedly right you'd think
08:27you'd think most parents would be asking that question wouldn't they but they
08:31don't and nobody questions it and that's the answer I've got when I've asked
08:35parents because I asked the question as if I'm curious to know if it's a good
08:40thing if I should send my kids to right you know Juku all right is Juku good you
08:45know what do you send Juku and they'll just say oh cuz cuz he started junior
08:50high school and that's just their automatic response so it's automatic if
08:55kids gonna start junior high school well they should go into Juku right so I mean
09:03there's no doubt some kids definitely get some benefit from going to Juku
09:06there's no doubt if they happen to go to a good one and there happen to be some
09:09good teachers there that help them there's no doubt but then the question
09:13is why why do they need that help why is it if they're spending 40 hours a week
09:18at school you know I can't remember I saw a documentary a long time ago about
09:22the education system in Finland and high school kids spent like 20 hours a week
09:27at school right and yet when that comes to those international tests that they
09:31do Finland scores really high you know in Japan's kids spent 40 hours a week at
09:37school and still not enough they've still got to go to Juku after school and
09:40on the weekend Saturday and Sunday and school quite often high schools will
09:45have lessons after school and on the weekends extra lessons and and I know
09:52one high school where a kid we know gets sent to the extra lessons if they don't
09:56do well enough in a test I've got to go to these extra lessons that's
10:00ridiculous and having watched lessons too because of course we go along to the
10:04school sometimes to watch lessons they have this thing twice a year where
10:08parents can go and watch a lesson and when you see what they actually get done
10:13in an hour some of you might remember I mentioned a while ago of a lesson I
10:17watched where it was an English lesson and the whole lesson was can you ride a
10:21unicycle was basically basically yeah they sort of faffed around that and a
10:28couple other questions and that was a 50 minute English lesson you know just
10:32really unproductive and the homework that they get is really repetitive so our
10:37junior high school kid came home with a big stack of books at the beginning of
10:42the holidays and we worked out how many days we had during the holidays and how
10:47many pages and it worked out to 11 pages of homework a day and it's really
10:52intense like the homework that they're given is really time intensive and
10:57really repetitive so you know there'd be like a math a math formula question
11:04then be five of them exactly the same it's like well okay if she can get all
11:08those right and she pretty much knows it but there's another 30 of them exactly
11:14the same format and a question which means if you can get one right you're
11:18gonna get 30 right but you're gonna go through this whole process this whole
11:21formula and the time to do 30 math questions was huge you know that was one
11:27page she has to do 11 pages all the different subjects so it's just it's
11:33just that same thing that we've talked about over the years in Japanese society
11:37in general where you get this time-consuming faffing you know wasting
11:42time and working harder not smarter and and non-productive and and just but no
11:50one questions it you know because for all of them it's just all normal ah it's
11:55normal I used to have this guy who I used to talk to sometimes whose English
11:59was pretty good and when I talked about stuff like this he'd say it's normal I
12:02think it's normal I think and that rings in my head when it comes to stuff like
12:07this because that's just what they think it's normal you know and they don't look
12:12again you know it'll be great to see some investigative investigative
12:16journalism here when they say here's our system and here's the Finnish system you
12:21know or the Swedish system and look how much more effective theirs is and how
12:25much how much less time and less faffing there is and do away with the juku
12:30shouldn't need them shouldn't need the juku they should cease to exist if the
12:35education system was proper it should cease to exist so the school holidays
12:41you know every kid we ran into and that's what sort of triggered this video
12:45really I mean our own kid has had to spend you know sort of all morning every
12:49every day of the holidays doing homework and and then the other kids in
12:55our neighborhood and kids we run into and cousins and all sorts of kids you
13:00know the same thing and what are you doing I went to juku I went to club clubs
13:06just huge amount of time they spend at club and going to school you know we'll
13:10go visit friends and the kid will come home in a school uniform and been to
13:15school been to school I had a special class on today you know they go to
13:20school some of the high schools the kids go to school one day in the middle of
13:24the holidays to take the homework in that they've done already the half the
13:28homework I give it to the teachers obviously so the teachers can check it
13:32but just you know ineffective
13:37just faffing you know an ineffective education system that no one seems to
13:43question they all just accept it you know so it's just the way it is I mean
13:49we made a few videos over the years for people who are parents who are going to
13:55be raising kids in Japan it's frustrating it really really is
13:59watching this ridiculous system you know where and the kids will come home they
14:04actually give them the book and
14:10like the book with the questions and so they'll have one book that has the
14:16questions in it and then they'll have another book that has the workings like
14:20showing how it's done so like in the math example there's one book that just
14:25has the questions and then there's another book that has the workings how
14:30you get how you process that question right and then they have another book
14:34that actually has the workings and the answers in it right which means that
14:39some kids are just going to be sitting there copying because they've got to do
14:42six million of these things they're going to be sitting there copying what's
14:47in the book right some kids are going to be doing that and learning nothing
14:52and often, Nabi's annoying isn't it sometimes, often too you'll ask the kids
15:00did the teacher explain this no right and that's really common get that all
15:05the time did the teacher explain this you know I get asked stuff when I go to
15:10that guy's juku sometimes you know there'll be some kid with some English
15:14and I'll have a look and why is this and why is that and I'll say did the
15:18teacher at school did the teacher at school explain this no and that's the
15:23other thing is the teachers said mountains of homework that they haven't
15:28taught so they haven't taught it in the classroom they just they just set this
15:33here go and do these 600 math questions but they haven't explained it yet and so
15:39the kid goes off home and then they have to use these books to try and work out
15:42how it's done and I mean I have heard some of some people justify that all right
15:46it helps them learn how to work it out for themselves but it doesn't it doesn't
15:51and if that's the case what's school for if schools not for the teachers to teach
15:56the kids just to hand them homework they don't really need the teachers at all do
16:01they so you know send them on with this homework that they haven't been taught
16:05how to do it it's just ridiculous it really is it
16:09really is over the years before our kids were in this system you know and we
16:14we've got in-laws and people with kids and you know those kids that turn up at
16:18our family events with their English homework you know and say you know what's
16:22this and what's that and I'd say them do the teacher explain this and oh no she
16:28just gave us the homework you know and that's just what they do and then
16:31because see that's what keeps the juku in business again because the kids go
16:35off to juku with these huge bags what are the high school kids have two school
16:39bags they have a backpack and they have another big bag full of books and those
16:44kids will turn up at the juku and walk in and say I've got this homework and I
16:48don't know how to do it and if they're lucky the juku will be
16:52one of the ones that has has someone there that can help them you know but
16:57quite often they don't quite often those juku they'll have like 30 kids in a room
17:00all sitting there doing their own homework and then maybe one university
17:05student wandering around flirting with the girls usually that's amazing that
17:10the juku thing bloody Navi doesn't shut up does it the juku really
17:17deserves its own video because some of the stuff that goes on there is just
17:20ridiculous because all the juku is interested in is keeping the kids happy
17:24so you get these 18 and 19 year old university students who are the teachers
17:29right with no teaching qualifications at all teaching teaching or talking to
17:35or flirting with 16 and 17 year old high school girls right and and and no
17:41one has a problem with that because the owner of the juku is happy because the
17:45young dudes flirting with the young girls is keeping the girls happy and
17:51they'll keep coming and the juku keeps making money so there's a lot of that
17:57that's a whole video in itself that's some of the stuff I see at the juku is
18:01so anyway the education system probably won't be the last time we talk about
18:06this because it's absolutely ridiculous it really is and as a parent it's really
18:12frustrating I mean as someone who's not a parent here just watching it you know
18:15they probably just shake their head and go oh well that's amazing school everyone in their
18:19school uniforms on a Saturday off to school in the morning you know or a
18:24Sunday or eight o'clock at night or nine o'clock at night coming home from juku
18:28nine o'clock at night in their school uniform you know and they've been at school for eight hours
18:33and then juku for five hours you know whether or not they did any works
18:38another thing but that's you know that's their life that's their life they really
18:43only got during the school holidays they really only got a week and it was
18:46Obon and usually Obon the jukus will close and usually the schools don't have
18:51places so they get one week usually but see that's still to get the homework
18:55so they might not have to go to juku or they might not have to go to school but they still get the homework done
19:00so it's just ridiculous it's absolutely ridiculous those of you that are watching
19:05this I know some of our patrons live in Japan and have kids some other people
19:12watching this video actually are ALTs that work at schools as assistant
19:17language teachers so no doubt some of you guys will have your own comments to
19:21but the end result it's just you know okay so Japan might be in the top 10 for
19:26you know the level of the education of the high school kids but look at how
19:30they're going about achieving it it's typical working harder not smarter
19:34wasting all that time ineffective you know wasting time fapping around
19:41for sort of you know the same result that you can get with a lot less fapping
19:46you know but but it's not going to change like everything else in Japan
19:49it's going to stay the way it is because everybody just accepts it as
19:52normal nobody questions it the parents are all forking out hundreds of dollars
19:56a month for the juku and juku are making money nobody questions it if logic came
20:03into it all those juku would cease to exist overnight and the education system
20:07would have to improve itself you know anyway that's enough of that ranting
20:12Nagoya City lots of fun I'm doing the speed limit I've been doing the speed
20:17limit the whole way you'll notice everybody's overtaking anyway that was
20:23that more videos coming soon