EEducation in Japan

I don’t think I can ignore this anymore

After being here for 3 years now I don’t know what to do. Animals, typically fish are abused on a massive scale based on how many classes and each school that uses them as a way to teach kids about life. Do they follow any proper proceedures for taking care of these specific animals. Not at all. I am constantly seeing 5 or more goldfish, a pond type fish being put into single gallon or smaller containers. I do not use the word tank as I have seen them thrown into those beetle boxes that are sold here. They don’t even use a bubbler or filter to at least create oxygen diffusion… Watching a goldfish gasp at the surface for air is soo sad.. I see a lizard in a bug box when thats not at all the proper habitat to keep one in either. especially with no heat lamp or proper bedding. A kid literally picked up what was obviously a very scared lizard and tried scaring me by shoving it in my face. It’s just horrible, and this is what kids are learning. Don’t give a crap about animals as long as it isn’t a cat or a dog. I get that they are kids and don’t know what they are doing but the parents and staff have no excuse.

14 comments

  3. No offense man but welcome to the planet Earth Japan is hardly a standout on this regards.

  4. Japan, as a culture has different attitudes towards animals than western cultures, they don’t see it the way you do. That doesn’t mean its right or ok, but you also need to realize that its going to be difficult/impossible to broadly change that attitude here, at least in any significant way, anytime soon. While I’m sure there are animal protection groups you can join/support in Japan, and you could certainly try to make some small changes at your school, its something you also need to recognize you may not be able to change in your immediate environment and you have to decide whether its something you’ll be able to tolerate. If not, teaching at that level or in that location at least might not be for you, at least in Japan.

  6. Room in the kindergarten I used to teach at had two tanks … one with a couple of goldfish, and another with three crabs in it …

    When I came back after summer holiday, the two fish were floating upright in a semi-skeletal state …

    One crab had survived by eating the other two 🙁

  7. I have seen home stores selling foxes, owls, and other birds of prey. Just is what it is. Not for it, but can do sht all about it.

  8. I can’t stand it. One school had a rabbit in a habitat outside with a gaping wound on its belly. I tried to do something but was shut down at every turn.

    Classrooms with rows of bug boxes of rotting crab, crawdad and lizard corpses baking in the sun.

    Goldfish in plastic bags. Lizards in ziplocks.

    What are they teaching exactly? Not how to care for animals thats for sure.

  9. Depends on the school. THe schools I’ve been would teach the kids properways to care for them. Although, I did have to mention to quite a few teachers that they should move the tanks OUT of the sunlight, especially during the summer as they were right by the windows.

  10. I quietly return the fish, frogs & crabs back to the ponds and rivers…no one seems to notice the transformation everyone just assumes that they escaped 👍

  11. I started talking to the teachers in charge of the animals at my school and suggesting changes at the end of my first year. I was put on the animal care committee my second year and gradually became the one responsible for the animals. I had the kids vote on names for all the school pets, and now everyone is much more invested in them.

    I’m not allowed to do purchasing on my own, but because it’s a private school with a decent budget so far everything I’ve asked for has been provided. They had a giant tank with one fish in it and no filter, and a turtle living in a plastic box. The fish is now in a 10 gallon aquarium and the turtle is now in the 65 gallon with a massive filter (turtles are nasty), water heater for the winter, and a basking area with heat and UV lamps. I’ve convinced them to upgrade the school eel to a 65 gallon next fiscal year. We are slowly getting automatic feeders for all the tanks so that kids/teachers forgetting to feed/vacations when no one comes to school are no longer issues.

    Even if you can’t make those kinds of changes, if you start asking gentle questions and showing interest you might be able to make the lives of the school pets better, even if it’s just a little bit.

  12. On a field trip with SHS, one of the girls picked up a little green frog. I thought it was cute, expecting her to look then put it back. She put it in a paper cup and tried to fashion a lid.

    I felt pretty uncomfortable as it seemed like she expected to keep it. The history teacher came over. Almost retirement age, friendly and wise I thought he would tell her to put it back.
    He handed her a PET bottle to keep it in.

    Since then in a lot of different schools and situations I totally overcame the initial culture shock of kids being able to collect animals out in the wild and keep them in plastic boxes. (Giving them a death sentence, basically.) It still saddens me. The adults here just don’t have the same feeling.

  13. Your only option is to move to somewhere else in Asia, where I’m sure they treat animals better.

  14. I work at a kindergarten with a few friendly reptiles that the children mishandle. Throwing turtles on top of each other while saying “nakayoshi nare!” and burying tiny frogs in sand out at the playground. It’s unfair to hold children to the same moral standards as adults. They are psychologically incapable of the same type of moral understanding. They hardly even understand other people have feelings until 3 or 4.

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