Walking the Road:
The Essence of Junior High School in Japan

It is the beginning of the first term of the school year in Japan, a term which coincides with the arrival of spring. There is a heightened spirit of renewal at Otsukadai Junior High School, about 20 miles west of the city of Kobe, as the cherry blossoms bloom and junior high schools all over Japan usher in the ichinensei, the first year students.

I was asked to attend a meeting with the new students so I followed the crowds of unfamiliar faces up to a fourth floor meeting room. The students filed in by homeroom and neat boy/girl rows, and were instructed to sit facing front, knees up, head down, eyes closed. I had observed this routine with the ni- and sannensei (second and third year students), but only now was I witnessing where the process began.

This is where the students will learn to greet teachers and fellow classmates with an enthusiastic ohayo gozaimasu (good morning) every day. This is where they will learn to bow in unison to the count of down-one-two-up-three, and chant arigato gozaimashita in perfect harmony after every class lesson and every speech given. This is where they will learn to bow and announce shitsurei shimasu (sorry to bother you) when entering the teacher's room, and shitsurei shimashita respectively, on the way out. Here is where teachers begin wandering in and out of rows to make sure jackets are straight, buttons aren't missing, socks are required length, backs are erect, knees are propped up, fingernails are clean, hair is neat, and eyes are looking attentively at the speaker, or are closed when they're supposed to be.

Once all the homerooms have shuffled in and assumed mokuso, the meditative, eyes-closed position, the head teacher commands their attention and leads them through "the signals" which from then on will be conducted by the first student in each row. A raised fist means stand up; open hand means elbows at sides to measure the half-an-arms length distance between each student and the one before; dropped fist means sit down; and one finger up means assume closed eyes position. I realize, as profoundly as these students do, that this is a pivotal point in their lives. The true enforcement of certain Japanese cultural values, such as order, discipline, regimentation, obedience, and group cooperation, commence with junior high school.

The previous days have been spent in anticipation of the arrival of the ichinensei. On the second afternoon of the new term they finally make their appearance for the nyugakushiki, a very formal welcoming ceremony attended by parents (mostly mothers), PTA representatives, the entire teaching staff, and many teachers from neighboring elementary schools the students previously attended. The students themselves are perfectly uniformed right down to the brand new white sneakers on 229 pairs of feet.

Some look worried and confused as they file in, and by the time the national anthem and school song have been sung, one girl has already passed out in her neighbor's chair. Several other students are instructed to be seated as it looks as though they, too, are teetering and reeling. It seems the anticipated pressure of junior high school is already too great.

As an island nation, Japan has had to rely on its main resource: people. And in order for it to depend on the populace, Japan has viewed education as a primary concern. Some 98% of the population is literate, and close to 90% complete high school. There is a notion in Japanese society that if you perform well, do the expected thing, conform and sacrifice for the sake of the whole, then you'll be taken care off--accepted as it were--by your culture. Junior high school heavily cultivates this idea.

But the pressures on Japanese students to succeed are becoming increasingly intolerable as seen by the highly publicized incidents of teen suicide, the prevalance of ijime (bullying), and most recently, an outbreak of violence in schools. Thus, Japanese teachers must try to prepare their students not only academically, but also socially, for a lifetime of positive participation in a highly structured, tight-knit society. By the time the ichinensei are graduated from Otsukadai Junior High School, the general outcome of their lives will have been decided--at 15 years old. (Japan operates on a 6-3-3-4 schooling system; six years of elementary, three years each of junior and senior high, and four years of college. School is compulsory through junior high.)

By graduation, most students will know whether or not they've been accepted to a senior high school (their teachers will spend several months helping them study and prepare for high school entrance exams), and those few who do not get into high school or technical school will be thinking about menial jobs accessible to them. Unlike the United States, where we have many opportunities to make ourselves competitive and marketable by such options as obtaining a GED or learning computer skills, Japanese employers are most likely to pay attention to which university one attended because it is understood that passing the university entrance exam in itself indicates diligence and dedication through junior and senior high school. In fact, college education in Japan is somewhat of a joke by Western standards. Since acceptance to the university is of utmost importance, one's performance while there tends to be overlooked. It is not uncommon for Japanese university students to be continually absent from their college classes and to do the bare minimum required to pass.

TThe day after the welcome ceremony, I watch the incoming ichinensei file onto the school grounds to the brass band's "When the Saints Go Marching In". They line up opposite the upperclassmen for the taimenshiki, another formal ceremony in which they are officially introduced to their sempai (literally "elders" or "seniors", connoting one with more experience). "You are probably nervous and scared," one third year student stands at the mike and addresses the new students. "Maybe you're wondering what this school will be like, if you'll make any friends..." The new students gaze attentively at him. "Don't worry," he continues, "we were all first-year students once. We will help you, and we'll be your friends."

To further their educational "upbringing", the students will attend a meeting held every Friday morning in the school gymnasium. A different teacher speaks every week, usually sharing tales of their own life experience, their misconceptions and views of life when they were students, and the things that turned out to be the most important and influential aspects of their junior high training. The students greet each speaker with a hearty ohayo gozaimasu and thank with arigato gozaimashita, just as they've been instructed. If they're not genki, or lively enough, everything stops and they are lead through a repetitive practice of greeting and bowing, with more enthusiasm. This meeting also calls for inspection by the homeroom leaders of their classmates' uniforms, from buttons to undershirts to socks. "What happens if someone's socks are too long?" I muse and ask Mr. Taniguchi, one of the English teachers. He looks surprised, as if he's never considered the possibility, and replies matter-of-factly, "It's a rule." And rules are not just some external regulations imposed on the students, but rather become a strict internal code of discipline. There are exceptions, of course, but being an exception in a society which values preservation of group harmony over individual wants, is a less-travelled route.

Uniforms are the most obvious "rule" for Japanese junior high students. They may vary slightly from school-to-school, but there is always a standard navy blue or black jackets and pants for the boys, knee-length skirt for the girls, and white shirts. All students must wear plain white sneakers and white socks; however, girls wear anklet-type socks while the boys wear a mid-calf length. (This slight difference becomes a glaring double-standard in the winter as students are allowed to wear nothing more than their school uniforms.) No winter coats or longer socks are allowed, and in many cases, gloves and hats are also prohibited. The raw-skinned, wind-blown students sometimes walk 20-30 minutes each way to school, to enter unheated classrooms. The only room heated in the winter, or air-conditioned in summer, is the teacher's room (schools with gas heaters in teh classrooms are rare exceptions). Many of the kids secretly tote their kairo, little sachets of iron powder which retain heat for up to 12 hours and can be carried in one's pocket or strategically stuck with adhesive on some cold part of the body.

Ear piercing is also against the rules. Schools often post what we might call "propaganda" which conveniently supports school rules and discourages them from getting their ears pierced (or ever wanting them pierced) or wishing for contact lenses. One poster outside the nurse's office showed gruesome photos of infected pierced ears while another showed horribly infected eyes (from contact lenses). The first question the girls always ask about my piercings is, "Itakunai? Doesn't it hurt?" I always insist that it doesn't but they look at me skeptically and admire me for my bravery.

Jewelry, including watches, is also prohibited. Below shoulder-length hair for girls should be in ponytails or pigtails and no fancy barrettes or colored bands are allowed. The boys generally have short hair; no hair gels or spiking or coloring. On occasion, however, a student will venture into school with hair dyed chapatsu (dying one's hair brown is a popular trend among young people), only to be escorted to the teacher's room to have their head sprayed with washable black spray paint to conceal their rebellion.

Further restrictions applying to students include food regulations. No sweets, chips, or anything of that sort can go into school lunches. In the Kobe area, students bring their o-bento, or Japanese box lunches, which usually consist of fish or meat, rice, and pickled vegetables, dutifully prepared by their mothers every morning. Students are not allowed to have gum or candy en route to or from school. If they are spotted eating (or buying) anything while still in uniform, it will most likely warrant a teacher visit to their parents. And there are watchdogs. Certain teachers are assigned "patrol" responsibility, and even the community assists the school in maintaining order. It is not unusual for a convenience store ownder to rat on a deviant student, or for some neighborhood obaa-chan (old lady) to call the vice-principal and report what she's seen.

Occasionally gum and candy wrappers are found in the garbage--alarming news that's sure to make the morning teacher's meeting. And around certain holidays, such as Valentine's Day (borrowed from the West), an extra reminder goes out to all teachers to ensure no candies are exchanged at school. Recently, there was an additional flurry in the staff room when six teachers banded together to decide on the appropriate action to take over love notes discovered wadded in various garbage cans.

To a Westerner, these standards of behavior may seem harsh and unreasonable, but Japanese educators, they are cultivating gaman (perseverence) and these young people, by tolerating rigidity and some "discomfort", will be stronger, more solid members of Japanese society. The students themselves hardly complain as there's a sense of common suffering, and it would be considered immature and disruptive to complain about one's own situation.

The sense of community in the Japanese school is just one of many contributing factors to the success of the education system. Teachers are valued in this country; they are generally well-respected and are paid well in most coases. But they earn it. Japanese teachers are not just a singular part of a student's day, but rather from the time a student enters school until they graduate a few years later, the teacher becomes an integral part of their lives, from academic issues to growing pains to family problems.

The first week of the first term all students are assigned to a homeroom (and a homeroom teacher) and for the next year, all their classes are held in that room with the same classmates. (The teachers, rather than the students, rotate.) Homeroom teachers have the greatest responsibilities as they meet with their homeroom class first thing each morning, eat lunch in the classroom with them, meet with them in the afternoon and supervise classroom cleaning, as well as visit each student's home at the start and end of the term to meet with the parents, find out about the personal lives of each student, and lay the foundation for a growing relationship with the student and family for the coming years. With approximately 40 students in each homeroom (in an average-size school), this is a monumental task. Additionally, every teacher in the school is assigned a club activity to participate in with the students. Whether the teacher has the skills or not to coach the judo club or the basketball team, they are paired with another teacher and spend every day after school with that club's students, usually from about 4:00 to 6:00 p.m.

Many teachers remain at school until seven or eight and later, due to responsibilities to the students, as well as to their fellow teachers. The idea we have in the US of working constantly throughout the day and leaving promptly at a certain time, does not exist in Japan. Rather, the Japanese work ethic includes developing rapport with one's co-workers throughout the day and well into the evening. In doing so, the Japanese create a bond of "family"; the people one works with, in fact, are often considered one's surrogate family.

The same applies in the student-teacher relationship, as the homeroom teacher--and indeed every teacher in the school--becomes a "parent" to the student, and the student-teacher bond often becomes more significant at this point than the child-parent relationship. It is customary for a Japanese teacher assigned to an ichinensei homeroom and to teach ichinensei classes, to move up through each grade along with their students. While they may not be a homeroom teacher every year, the fact that they are still accompanying their students--moving up through the ranks respectively--builds a system of consistency and camaraderie between students and teachers. By the time the students are ready to move on to senior high school their teachers have seen them through the emotional trauma of puberty, academic success and failure, and any number of personal issues.

While the parent is still needed to coach and support a student (mothers are also a fundamental part of a child's education in Japan), she is still second-in-line to the teacher. I boserved this one Saturday when I accompanied a sannensei girl to her English speech contest in Osaka. Yoriko, her Japanese English teacher, and I arrived separately from her mother and grandmother. During and after the event, Yoriko and her mother hardly spoke. At intermission there were no encouraging words from parent or teacher concerning her performance, but her mother commented instead on the skillfullness of the other contestants. This, of course, reflected the Japanese way of humbling oneself by not praising one's own kin. Further, some Japanese tend to see it as defeatist to have the attitude that even if you don't win, you deserve praise for having tried. Yoriko didn't place in the contest, nor did she win, and as we walked back to the train station her mother and grandmother walked ten paces behind as Yoriko walked ahead and talked with us--perhaps symbolic of the complex dynamic of our relationship.

Nowhere was the Japanese teacher's dedication to the school and its students more evident than during the aftermath of the Great Hanshin Earthquake which rocked the Kobe area on January 17, 1995. It was surprising to learn that the first thing most teachers did after the quake was go to their respective schools, sometimes a three to four hour trek by foot, to help out.

Their allegiance was to the school, to make sure students and their families were okay, and to immediately commence with the business of recovery. The schools themselves became active in food and supply deliverty to community members whose homes were destroyed, and many schools were turned into temporary shelters. Still others were completely destroyed or damaged beyond repair--the tragedy of which greatly dampered, yet also unified the spirits of the students, families, and teachers of those schools. In school meetings and ceremonies throughout 1995 there were frequent references to the hardships survived and the ganbare (do your best...hang in there..) mentality everyone strove for in the face of adversity. The bonds between teachers and students were even further strengthened by the catastrophe.

Though it is the aim of the Japanese education system to create a well-disciplined, harmonious, unified whole, there exist several deeply rooted problems which continue to challenge this aim. In February a large meeting was held between Otsukadai and all its neighboring junior high and elementary schools--about 200 teachers in all--to discuss various issues related to discrimination. Under that category there is ijime, the infamous bullying which has brought international attention to this form of psychological and physical abuse, as well as the problem of students who cannot, or will not, come to school because they are in fear of being bullied, or because of various emotional and/or mental problems. Then there's the issue of discrimination against Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Filipino students who have immigrated to this country, have parents of mixed origins, or who where born in Japan but do not assert themselves as Japanese.

Japan is not the entirely homogeneous society it appears to be, and although one might expect discrimination to be directed towards Anglos and those with very different physical features and cultural backgrounds, the fair-haired, light-eyed Westerner, in fact, is some kind of twisted ideal in this country. The mannequins in the stores are tall and blond and foreign, and Westerners are often recruited as photo models and as spokespeople for TV commercials. One of the most popular children's cartoons, "Sailor Moon", stars a little blond girl. We gaijin experience varying degrees of preferential treatment, both positive and negative (Japanese sometimes avoid sitting next to us on the bus or train, and it's sometimes difficult for foreigners to rent an apartment in Japan as we have a reputation for "smelling funny" and being destructive, among other things). However, the real discrimination is suffered by those who look the same as the Japanese but are not. At Otsukadai I know of two ichinensei who are Chinese but have taken Japanese names, a gesture which usually improves acceptance of them by their peers. Both have been in Japan for less than one year but they're extremely bright, have been able to pick up the language pretty well, and most importantly, have made friends. Another boy has a Korean father and a Japanese mother. He was in fact born in Japan but his father was insistent that he retain his Korean identity. This has caused him some problems as many of his classmates tease him, and he sometimes gets bullied. And what if he were to change his name and nationality? "Then there would be less of a problem," Mariko Tanaka, another English teacher explains, "but still a problem." It seems that if the parents are willing to present their kids as Japanese, then the kids will suffer less, but as is the case with the Korean father, and considering the history of Japanese humiliation and domination of Koreans, it is a question of national pride to have one's child retain their cultural identity.

Tanaka told me of several other students (about 15 altogether) who have similarly mixed heritages but have been able to conceal their identity because they have Japanese names. The only ones privy to this information are the teachers themselves. There is one extremely intelligent girl in an ichi-nen-sei class who speaks and understands English very well, is quite popular with the other students, but is in fact Chinese and none of the students know it.
"Yes, it's too bad, really," Tanaka continues.
"What's too bad?" I ask her.
She explains that Akiko is really gifted, and will probably get into a good high school, but she will begin to have trouble when she tries to go to college, or to get any kind of higher level work in this country. The reason being: it is then that her heritage will be exposed and she will be denied opportunities based on who she is, regardless of her abilities. If this demon doesn't catch up with her in college, it will ultimately come back to haunt her when she tries to get married. The "tainted" blood alarm is still very much a consideration in Japanese marriages. In fact, though many Western men marry into Japanese families and are not always received well, it is even more difficult for a Korean or a burakumin (social outcasts in Japan; descendents of peple with "questionable" occupations, such as leather-tanning, during samurai times). Unfortunately, these unjust distinctions are made at a very early age making it even more difficult for many young people to thrive in this society.

In a land of contradiction, however, where there is rejection of "outsiders", there is acceptance of another type of "outsider": the mentally handicapped. Though these people are sometimes a source of shame to their families (there's some residual belief that such "blemishes" reflect misdeeds of family members in a previous life), oddly, they are included in the regular school community. There are very few special education centers and most "slow learners" and those with varying degrees of mental handicap, attend school alongside their peers up through junior high school. It is believed that the group can learn from every type of student and that the weaker students may similarly benefit from interaction with stronger ones. Though the special education students often have separate classes, they usually mingle with their peers for courses such as art and PE, and participate regularly in all their homeroom activities. I have not observed ridicule, in most cases, but rather gentleness and gracious assistance on the part of the other student who seem to overlook all differences when it comes to teamwork.

In seeking answers to questions regarding Japanese culture and society, I have learned from many native Japanese that the paradoxes they're confronted with are equally baffling to them as they are to me.

As I observe the regimentation undergone by the new students, I contemplate their futures. Their faces are bright and eager and when asked what they think of junior high school life, I'm surprised at their reply, "Tanoshii desu! It's fun!" I often meet and greet these same students in the morning on the uphill walk to school, a street where we all converge before entering the school grounds. The essence of this daily journey--and perhaps symbolic of a young person's life in Japan--is profoundly captured in a poem written by a ni-nen-sei for English class:
This road is long.
This road is steep.
But I walk this road.
Because I like this road.