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Originally Posted by Autumn Demon
The schools in my district (a small town in north NJ) have been a lot more about writing/thinking than about testing/memorization. History classes are largely about testing during earlier grades but by high school testing is a much smaller part of the class and the tests we do have are usually more about writing. I think I've written more essays in my history classes than I have in my English classes.
But my high school is probably in the top 10 or 5% in the country for public high schools because my town is rich, which brings me to my next question about schools in Japan...
In America, how good schools are in a school district is largely about how rich the school district is. Towns with lots of wealthy people will usually have lots of money going into the town's schools, so the schools will consequently be among the best of public schools. Towns with mostly poor people will usually have small amounts of money going into the town's schools, and consequently the schools will usually be of poorer quality.
The difference between good public schools and bad public schools can be GIGANTIC within the same state, and consequently the achievements gaps between the rich and poor are huge in education.
Does Japan have an educational system like this where children of richer people are given better education than children of poorer people? I'm asking about public schooling foremost; but am also interested to know what private schools can do for people of the various socioeconomic backgrounds.
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Not really since funding of schooling is done by prefectures and not by counties like the US.
Also the education curriculum is fairly regulated by the national board of education so what is taught should not vary from one area to the next. In other words, it is much a cookie cutter type education system.
One thing I like to say in defence about history classes in Japanese schools is that Japan has a long history, about 1500 years in recorded history so it takes time to cover it and then we have to spend about the same time to cover world history again 1500 years so you don't get much time to do in details of a certain era.
Memorizing all the dates, names of people, places, treaties and so on, is a pain and more over it is completely a rushed job but I guess it can't be helped if you want to give an overall view of history.