School in Japan

[Solais]

Originally Posted by Patrunjelu

@ solais - don't worry, no offense taken
I know that Romania is known to be a poor country. The bad thing though is that no one is trying to fix that... too bad. Soon every Romanian will leave our country leaving nothing but dust behind. Can't blame them though... I intend to do the same thing :\

True, same here, same here! It looks like, the EU is actually ruins the Eastern European countries like ours.

However, this thread is about japanese schools, so move onto the topic.

As I know, from my research.

"About what percent of schools require their students to wear uniforms?"

All of them, except elementary schools. It looks like in elementary schools they don't wear uniforms.

"Does every school have 7 mysteries?"

Ummm... Maybe. My school actually has a secret laboratory where there is an android of the namer of the school. However, that is Hungary, and that is Japan. < /joke-mode off>

"How rare is it to see a teacher throw chalk at a student?"

Well, I think is pretty normal. Think: Would you do the same?

[LiberLibri]

Thanks Patrunjelu, Amray, -KarumA- and Solais. I've once heard about Lingua and related Action Plans, driven under the strong initiative of the Parliament, but I'm really pleased to hear the ongoing practices in each State.

Originally Posted by -KarumA-

yep English is always standard. Here we had our mother language, English class and in the first 2 years of highschool French and German, in the last two where you get to pick special courses you'll need to chose between French and German. Unless you're in the more intelligent class then you keep both and if you're even higher you can add Greek and Ancient Latin to it X3

Although I have no knowledge on Dutch except some terms introduced into Japanese, but I sometimes find myself being able to "read" Dutch scripts when aboard in KLM. The grammar and vocabulary of Dutch has many in common with the two neighbouring languages, English and German. Latin and French may be worse, but they are after all in the same branch of Indo-European languages. I believe you have less hardship than you sound; imagine, for example, you have to learn just two languages instead of the five, but they are Nabajo and Chinese...

[LiberLibri]

Originally Posted by Autumn Demon

About what percent of japanese schools have swimming pools and require their students to take swimming classes?

According to the statistics, more than 90% of the public schools hold swimming pools. In particular elementary nearly all elementary schools own ones.

Originally Posted by Autumn Demon

How many students would a typical elementary, jr. high, and high school have?

It depends on the area where the school is located. In urban districts, it is often one grade has about 200 students. An elementary school has 6 grades, jr-high does 3, and also a high school does 3 grades. So you can calculate the volume of the school. On the contrary, rural areas are suffering from rapid aging and fewer children.

Originally Posted by Autumn Demon

Are school grounds usually surrounded by walls with a gate at the entrance that closes when classes start?

Yes.

Originally Posted by Autumn Demon

Do most schools have flat roofs that students are allowed to go on?

There are flat roofs but usually students are prohibit to go there. Such prohibition is nothing to mischievous children like I was, though.

Originally Posted by Autumn Demon

Do all schools require students to do chores before and after school?

No. However, a number of schools pursue to win the inter-school chorus concours (like this). Such ones impose everyday training on students.

Originally Posted by Autumn Demon

Does every school have 7 mysteries?

Of course no . However, as time passes, some students try to forge ones until the number reaches seven.

Originally Posted by Autumn Demon

How rare is it to see a teacher throw chalk at a student?

Very rare nowadays.

Originally Posted by Autumn Demon

Do students really have to memorize square root values of non-perfect squares in math class? (The square root of 2 is 1.4142 for example.)

No. But it is easy to memorise such numbers as

3.1415926535897932
2.71828182945904
1.41421356
1.7320508
2.2360679
2.44949
2.64575
2.8284

I did in my jr high days. In Japanese, there is a way to memorise numbers as short poems.

[C.A.]

Originally Posted by LiberLibri

No. But it is easy to memorise such numbers as

3.1415926535897932
2.71828182945904
1.41421356
1.7320508
2.2360679
2.44949
2.64575
2.8284

I did in my jr high days. In Japanese, there is a way to memorise numbers as short poems.

You mean the mi hitotsu yo hitotsu -something and also the one about the bird on a mountain? Really interesting lol when I first heard of those in the DS game Subarashii Shin Sekai.

And also you mentioned being able to understand ancient chinese and not modern. Something similar happened to me, as I speak chinese and learnt japanese. I found that I begin to understand ancient chinese much more than before.

I'm really interested in anything Japanese, so this thread was a nice read lol

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by LiberLibri

All students in EU are required to master two languages used there other than the mother tongue, right?

According to the EuroBarometer, 34% of French people know English, and 10% do Spanish. I wonder what the rest do, and how the minority languages such as Català and Breton are treated in France.

IIRC, they're treated like a third or maybe second foreign language. You can learn them, use them to get your high school diploma, but they don't count terribly much.

Not many high school teach them, except maybe in the relevant regions.

[-KarumA-]

Originally Posted by LiberLibri

Thanks Patrunjelu, Amray, -KarumA- and Solais. I've once heard about Lingua and related Action Plans, driven under the strong initiative of the Parliament, but I'm really pleased to hear the ongoing practices in each State.



Although I have no knowledge on Dutch except some terms introduced into Japanese, but I sometimes find myself being able to "read" Dutch scripts when aboard in KLM. The grammar and vocabulary of Dutch has many in common with the two neighbouring languages, English and German. Latin and French may be worse, but they are after all in the same branch of Indo-European languages. I believe you have less hardship than you sound; imagine, for example, you have to learn just two languages instead of the five, but they are Nabajo and Chinese...

Nabajo o.o heck I don't even know what country that belongs to. but yes dutch has a lot of simularities to german, specially if you're near the border like I am. Those who speak with an accent here can just talk dutch to germans and they still understand it. Unlike England here in Holland we have kept all Indonesian and Chinese terms when it comes to cooking and food, so we don't do prawn crackers we do Kroepoek. My Father is an Indonesian and he has taught me a lot about Asian cooking. French is pretty easy because French has a lot of words that resemble the English version, as well as latin (never studied it but some simple things I can read and several lose words I can translate here and there). There are Chinese schools here, as well as Japanese I presume. I know the owner of a large Chinese restaurant who let their childeren, beside the languages in the normal school, go to Chinese school once a week to learn Chinese. you can take those kind of extra languages but only in University (if avaliable, most of the time it is not) or you'll need a tutor on your own costs

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by -KarumA-

Nabajo o.o heck I don't even know what country that belongs to.

USA. It's that big country between Canada and Mexico, on the other side of the Atlantic.

[teachopvutru]

Originally Posted by LiberLibri

Yes. They make decisions according to their interests and expecting careers. The latitude of choice is much narrower than in the US, though. We have no cooking or orchestra class; if you want, you do as Club activity (bukatsu).

Btw, do Japanese students establish their own club like in anime/manga?

[bbduece]

So is the schools in Japan as fun as they depict in the animes????

[FateAnomaly]

Ok stupid question. What time does school start and end. How long is the lunch break?

[Zoned87]

From what I understand the Japanese education system and grading scale is much more harsh than it is in the United States. Students have to study harder and "just passing" isn't good enough. Grades seem to be taken very seriously in general.

I'm somewhat glad I live in the U.S. because I could have probably never made it through a Japanese school.

[teachopvutru]

Originally Posted by Zoned87

From what I understand the Japanese education system and grading scale is much more harsh than it is in the United States. Students have to study harder and "just passing" isn't good enough. Grades seem to be taken very seriously in general.

I'm somewhat glad I live in the U.S. because I could have probably never made it through a Japanese school.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that "just passing" isn't good enough here, either, although they allow you to move up a grade.

As far as I know and hear, a whole bunch of countries educations are harsher than the US's.

If you were born in Japan, though, I'm sure you would have gotten used to it. (Note: I have never lived in Japan)

[LiberLibri]

I think it might be better to append the thread to Japanese Culture.

Originally Posted by C.A.

You mean the mi hitotsu yo hitotsu -something and also the one about the bird on a mountain? Really interesting lol when I first heard of those in the DS game Subarashii Shin Sekai.

Yes.

1 hi / i
2 hu / ni / ji
3 mi / sa
4 yo / shi
5 go
6 mu / ro
7 na
8 ya / ha
9 ko / ku
0 re / o

square root 5 = 2.2360679 , therefore you can remember as
ふじ さんろく おうむ なく (a parrot sings at the foot of Mt. Fuji)

The same method can be used to memorise historical events:
にちろせんそう へいし たりない ひとくれよ
(Japan-Russo War, we need more the soldiers, give us men / 1904)

Besides, such technique is often applied to non-decimal data.
For ionisation tendency,
かそうかな まぁ あて に すんな　ひどすぎる しゃっきん
(Should I loan to him money? Anyway I cannot trust him; the debt amount is too bad)
K > Ca > Na > Mg > Al > Zn > Fe > Ni > Sn > Pb > H > Cu > Hg > Ag > Pt > Au

Can you tell what it means?
ポチはん ゆるして ブルブル あるよ
Hint: Po - Cz - Hun - Yu - Ro - Bul - Al

However I think students in other countries employ similar techniques; otherwise, how can they remember?

Originally Posted by bbduece

So is the schools in Japan as fun as they depict in the animes????

You know the answer. It is unimaginable that every school in a state holding more than 120 millions population is equally enjoyable. And Japanese schools (or the whole society) have innumerable bad aspects as well as good ones. But it is fact that many adult people have precious memories for the days of their school-lives so that anime producers draw them beautifully.

Originally Posted by FateAnomaly

Ok stupid question. What time does school start and end. How long is the lunch break?

In model cases elementary schools commence at 8:30 and end at 15:30, with lunch time break of 12:00-13:00 and cleaning time 13:00-13:20. The temporal unit of classes is 45 minutes with 5 minutes break. So, as you see, pupils have 6 classes a day. Jr.- and high schools offer 7 or 8 classes of 50 minutes a day, with shorter lunch-time break (30-40 minutes), and the ending time is around 17:00.

[Autumn Demon]

Originally Posted by tiachopvutru

If you were born in Japan, though, I'm sure you would have gotten used to it. (Note: I have never lived in Japan)

Meh, i would say that statement would be largely untrue for many people. I'm sure a lot of Japanese students aren't really used to the system either and find it exhausting.

[teachopvutru]

Originally Posted by LiberLibri

However I think students in other countries employ similar techniques; otherwise, how can they remember?

Not sure about other other countries but if it's multiple choices like here, you just take everything in at the last moment, and forget them as soon as the test is over.

Originally Posted by Autumn Demon

Meh, i would say that statement would be largely untrue for many people. I'm sure a lot of Japanese students aren't really used to the system either and find it exhausting.

In the same way some/many American students find schools here exhausting...

[bleachfanxd]

Interesting, I'm learning something here.

[Solais]

Originally Posted by LiberLibri

However I think students in other countries employ similar techniques; otherwise, how can they remember?

No. We just study, study, study, until we broke. Then we make cheat papers (everyone cheats during test here, there's no way to pass a serious test without cheating), but it not really means that we will succeed. I remember an awful memory from last year, when I studied 'till 1 AM everyday, and cheated too, but I still failed, and had to repeat the year. And now, again I have to study this summer, or I will repeat a year again... except that I can't repeat it anymore, because I can repeat a year once, so I gonna be a dropout, if I not succeed. <worried and exhausted>

Originally Posted by LiberLibri

In model cases elementary schools commence at 8:30 and end at 15:30, with lunch time break of 12:00-13:00 and cleaning time 13:00-13:20. The temporal unit of classes is 45 minutes with 5 minutes break. So, as you see, pupils have 6 classes a day. Jr.- and high schools offer 7 or 8 classes of 50 minutes a day, with shorter lunch-time break (30-40 minutes), and the ending time is around 17:00.

Oh, so good timetable. I want to go there. The school here starts at 7.45, and we have usually 7 or 8 lessons a day, all of them 45 minutes with 10 minutes breaks. And we don't have lunch-time, because "it's not necessary".

[FateAnomaly]

Lets compare a bit. In Singapore, school work in 2 sessions, morning and afternoon. Classroom are shared between the 2. I do not remember exactly what time school starts for the morning session but i remember that i had to leave my house before the sun even came out. It ends at noon so no lunch break. There is a short recess at about half way point. Lessons are continuous with no breaks unless the teacher leave early or the next teacher is late. Afternoon session is pretty much the same except it starts after noon and end in the evening.

[Zoned87]

When I was younger I was a master of cheating, I would write answers on my palms, double up papers.

I also managed to shift my eyesballs on other papers without physically moving my head. Texting answers back and forth on cell phones also worked wonders... or sometimes taping a paper under the desk and retrieving it when the teacher wasn't looking. During lunch hours when the teachers were gone you could sneak inside and copy test answer keys as well.

After class I would always find a nerd and ask if I could borrow his homework. teachers became suspicious sometimes so I would occasionally get a few wrong on purpose to make it look slightly different than the paper which I copied.

[LiberLibri]

Originally Posted by Solais

No. We just study, study, study, until we broke. Then we make cheat papers (everyone cheats during test here, there's no way to pass a serious test without cheating), but it not really means that we will succeed. I remember an awful memory from last year, when I studied 'till 1 AM everyday, and cheated too, but I still failed, and had to repeat the year. And now, again I have to study this summer, or I will repeat a year again... except that I can't repeat it anymore, because I can repeat a year once, so I gonna be a dropout, if I not succeed. <worried and exhausted>.

One of the most famous Magyar in Japan is P. Frankl, and he writes how advanced the mathetical education in Magyarország is. Seeing their achievements in IMO, I have an impression that Magyar people really are Math lovers. Is it Math that is torturing you or any other subjects? I hope you manage this year well.