There's certainly sething to be said about the team-building effects of sports events, club activities, and the organization of class schedules keeping the same group of kids together all day, but there are certainly downsides to that sense of solidarity that have led to a slew of social problems.
I totally agree on this. but there are a lot of thing about the japanese teaching system i don't like.
teacher can't use their own teaching method as every school has to use the exact same textbooks and way of teaching prescribed by the government.
I believe this is done separately for every region (ﾅ陳ｧ).
and the whole status thing about schools doesn't really feel right to me.
I have lived as an exchange student (highschool) in japan for a year, and it actually bother me a little.
there was an elementary school, a middle school and a highschool at the school i attended. in the region it was one of the best school, and i even had a classmate attending from shimonoseki (to center hiroshima) every day. point is, people that entered from elementary school, and middle school for that matter, will automatically move through the grades even if they don't study at all. offcourse if your grades are extremely bad, there might be a problem, but this is very very rare.
if this is the case i don't really see why japanese value a school good name that much if it works like this.
Btw, this might be different in every school and region, and what i wrote above is all just my own opinion.
most of the facts are from things my mentor at the time told me.
if i am wrong, please correct me.
but i also think there are a lot of really good things about japanese school.
the bonding between students is a lot stronger i think. mostly because of extracurricular things as clubs, cleaning of the building, and as pointed out above the fact that a class is almost always together in the school building.