Japan’s schools battle to keep kids cool, with or without AC

10 comments

1. It’s wild to me that my local schools only installed AC about five years ago. It’s sure nice when the windows aren’t left open for some reason.

2. As someone from a First World country, I am shocked by how crap and under-funded Japanese schools are.

3. Can anyone get past the paywall? Also, haven’t seen a school without AC in the teachers room and classrooms since….4 years ago now? I wonder how many areas still don’t have it.

4. Just give them all sunglasses. Increases the coolness factor by 70%.

5. In all seriousness, it shouldn’t be legal to subject kids to no AC in schools.

6. I’ve begun teaching at a new senior high school alongside my regular one. New one doesn’t use air conditioning in the classrooms, just has a fan up the back blasting at insane levels, drowning out the class, and only really reaches maybe the 2nd row from it with any level of breeze. Its absolutely insane, and there’s quite a few students who just give up and sleep because the heat is too much. The teachers room is the same! Just a bunch of fans positioned around, but the room is long as hell. You’d be hard pressed to fling a ball from one end to the other before it hits the floor.

7. I remember nearly passing out when I taught in some schools in the summer. And that was when I was young, skinny, and healthy. I’d probably die these days.

8. And then they cheat the law about stopping club activities if the temperature and humidity go too high

9. I tried to get on JET a long time ago. The lack of AC was a total dealbreaker for me. Been there, done that, as a kid in the 80s.

10. My entire school has currently moved to a temporary building built next to the actual school. But the aircons in the temp building are terrible. This afternoon it was 32 degrees in there for my last two classes with aircons on full blast all day, windows and doors shut. Teachers room is ice cold though, so not all bad