Getting to the Heart of Public Junior High Schools in Japan

Abstract

THINK OF any public junior high school you know in the U.S. Where is its heart, the hub of activity wherein you can, often in a matter of moments, find a convincing representation of the of the school? Would you look to the principal's office? Other administrative offices? The lounge? The playing fields during recess or after school? The halls between classes? The classroom of a particularly inspiring teacher? Perhaps a better question would be this: Is there such a revealing place in a typical American public junior high school? Probably the heart of one school, if you could indeed identify it, would not necessarily be the heart of another. And what if the stakes were raised by requiring this core to serve, among other things, as a central information network, resource center, and counseling center? Where would you think to look then? With little doubt, Japanese public junior high schools do have a heart, a central core around which the day's events revolve and within which relationships between students and teachers and among the teachers themselves reflect the overall atmosphere of the school and the school's attitudes toward education. No, the playing fields, the halls, and even the classrooms in Japan do not reveal so much about a school. Neither do the offices or lounges. Where, then, is this heart? In Japanese public junior high schools, at least, all of the above and more can be learned by taking a peek into the teachers' room. Since no parallel can easily be found in most American schools, a little explaining is in order. As an assistant language teacher with the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program from 1996 to 1998, I was fortunate to be able to experience firsthand life at the seven public junior high schools in a town of approximately 120,000 in central Japan.1 My home base was the regional office. I was shared by the seven schools and averaged one month per year at each school. I spent hours -- more than 400 during my second year alone -- in the seven rooms, talking with teachers or students, looking through materials for lesson plans, grading compositions, helping with the daily cleaning, or simply observing (and occasionally eavesdropping on) the goings-on. My undergraduate degree in Asian Studies, coupled with Japanese- language ability, prepared me well for my placement. Furthermore, I had spent one summer in Japan as a high school exchange student and had read such books as Thomas Rohlen's excellent Japan's High Schools (University of California Press, 1983) as part of my undergraduate coursework. In one part of his study, Rohlen describes life in the rooms in Japanese high schools; I found much that was similar in my junior high schools in Japan. Envisioning a shokuin shitsu, or room, in a Japanese junior high school requires understanding at least a few basic characteristics of public in Japan. First, all students have a homeroom, and they stay in this classroom, with the same classmates, for the majority of the day. When students venture to other rooms, they do so primarily for such nonacademic courses as physical education, music, art, home economics, industrial arts, computer courses, or the occasional science laboratory exercise. The majority of class time is spent on the five core academic subjects -- Japanese, English, mathematics, science, and social studies -- and this teaching almost always takes place in the homerooms. Even lunch is typically eaten in the homerooms. (None of my seven junior high schools had cafeterias, but each homeroom was provided with two kettles of hot tea at lunchtime.) A homeroom teacher traditionally monitors the lives of his or her students quite closely. This teacher, who primarily appears in the morning for attendance and announcements, at noon for lunch, and in the afternoon for dismissal, may lead moral education classes once a week or twice a month. …