- 4 Jun 2006
- 511
- 38
- 38
From what I know of the situation (which is only based on reading), the system is broken b/c
1: Students are fed facts... not trained to think.
2: School prepares them for absolutely nothing other than how to sit there and shut up (something they will do while playing Minesweeper when they get into the real world).
3: Your kid is completely screwed if he goes to the wrong preschool.
I've become a bit of a non-traditionalist when it comes to work these days... and school in Japan is pretty much the same as a company.
Add that school exists to build a a false sense of self-esteem in kids that is not based on accomplishment, and you have also summed up the American education system.
As for the problems and difficulties in Japanese society, and accrediting them to the school system, well, that sort of connection is unavoidable. But, like in the U.S., the society feeds back into the education system, and like the Laws of Thermodynamics, the closed system is constantly loosing energy and decaying. Entropy is taking over. As an historian, I imagine this is an inevitablility in cultural evolution and development. But I'll leave it at that.
Anyway, the education system, then, does exactly what it is supposed to do. Which is exactly the same thing as Frederick the Great of Prussia designed it to do: create expendible grunts, officers who buy into the system, and ostracizing those who refuse to accept the system.
The school system of the modern era is extremely different from the ancient academies or medieval/renaissance universities. It is designed specifically to do what it is doing, and it is doing it well.
If we don't like the results, both Americans and Japanese, we should completely revamp the system. But there are too many in both cultures who benefit from the current system, or have a lot to lose from change. Thus, there will never be a big enough push in either culture to set the system right.