I was watching “A Silent Voice” and became confused as a specific scene in the movie where the student was caught jumping off of a bridge into the water so he could retrieve something. Someone took a photo of it and it ended up online. The principle of the school suspended him. And then the student was at his house and asked to take his niece to the park, to which he replied: “Im not allowed to leave the residence, im still suspended.”
Im confused… if it did not happen on school grounds, what does that have to do with them?
And, they can control if you leave your own house or not?
Im very confused.
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Schools do tend to overreach and expect to have power over what students do when they aren’t in school. This is because if a student is wearing their school uniform, or if they get caught doing something and their name appears in the media, it tarnishes the image of the entire school. In Japan, you’ll be judged pretty harshly if you’re caught doing something illegal.
Keep in mind, the collectivist culture means that an entire group can be judged by the actions of one of the group – so if one student at the school does something illegal, the school, the class, the teacher, and the principle, all look bad, and have to take responsibility. That’s why you often see the principle apologizing to the community when one of the students misbehaves.
If he was a private high school student, then, yes, the princip**al** probably can control what happens outside of class. It’s common: I used to have students who had to pledge to take only a certain route home and be home within *x* amount of time from leaving the school.
I’m very fresh but as I understand it’s a reputational thing? People have told the school where they’ve seen me or what I do (Nothing bad just being dumb:P) I thought it might be a rural or gaijin thing but I’m told the bigger the rep of the place you work, the more you’re always representing them even in your “off-time”
Yes. Just this week some students were seen at 711 and about in town during spring vacation. They weren’t in uniform. But they were spoken to by the school for not being at home studying.
My daughter’s 7th grade teacher told parents not to assist their children in any school work.
From what I understand, having been to Japan, schools are allowed to punish students that do illegal things or misbehave outside of school if the student is caught in the act or seen in uniform. Most Japanese high schools have a uniform and each school usually has a different one, so it’s easy to distinguish a student from a particular school. Its encouraged for students to go straight home and change out of their uniform before going out if they don’t want their actions to be reflected on the school, or have the school butting in to their business.
It’s just the same as in America though, if a student were to be wearing a school sports uniform or anything else that publicly represents the school outside the school grounds. Here in the states, it’s not uncommon to hear about fraternities or sports teams being reprimanded for lewd behavior/racist behavior/etc outside of school that ends up getting them into well-deserved trouble. That kind of stuff should not be tolerated. Even if it didn’t occur at school, I think a school should have the right to punish actions of student that made bad decisions while representing the school.
Tbh I just like the idea of people being held responsible for their actions. So many people in America are selfish and say stuff like, “Well I’m only hurting myself so it’s fine”. in response to actions like drinking and driving, breaking the law, etc. But In truth, I think some people could stand to learn a few lessons on how to be ashamed of themselves. No one is perfect, but some people will just do whatever they want without a second thought to others around them.
I don’t think a little shame is bad, but obviously it should be in moderation. Public shaming for every little mistake is ridiculous but no shame at all breeds selfishness.
Happens at both public and private.
It is pretty common for Japanese schools to tell students what to do outside the school or even inside the house.
at Meiji, in Kitakyushu, a girl was expelled for going to karaoke
this comment section boutta burst
When I lived in Japan a coworker sent her daughter to a private middle school. She, the mother, had to dye her hair black to fit the school’s codes. (The mother was European and had naturally brown hair.)
Private schools have absurd rules.
When I was studying abroad in high school, my fellow Kanagawa exchange student from organization got in trouble with his school because his tie wasn’t done properly when he was riding the train. Someone on the train saw his tie and the rest of his uniform indicated which school we went to, so they called the school and told them that their student wasn’t wearing the uniform properly. He got chewed out for this pretty badly. Another exchange kid not in the same prefecture got in big trouble for wearing her uniform to an arcade after school. Some schools were scary. 😬
But on the other hand, my school had no uniform and allowed students to dye their hair any color (even pink/blue) and wear makeup.
I think it can also depend on the school/area.
Like another person commented, in general teachers have lost a lot of power over the years. Just 10 or 15 years ago teachers could straight up punch a misbehaving student.
This year I’ve seen middle schoolers tell their teachers 死ね！ and do whatever they want in class on an almost weekly basis. Now a big part of that is the teachers are boring af and don’t make an effort to understand the difficult kids. But that doesn’t change the fact many teachers are afraid to simply grab the arm of misbehaving kid half their size.
Also if the parents don’t cooperate I’ve seen the principal stressed to no end because they can’t do anything either. The average parent might be susceptibility to the public shame but some just don’t care and their kids do whatever.
Out of the 17 years I lived in Japan, two were spent at an Eikawa and two at a BOE as an ALT. This was between 2002 and 2006.
From my years at the BOE, it always surprised me how much control the schools had over the teachers and students. I remember a JHS teacher going to a parent’s house to apologize to them because they (the teacher) didn’t control the kid enough outside of school hours when the kid got in trouble for trying to buy cigarettes at the local conbini.
I had a lot of good times in Japan, but memories like this make me happy I no longer live there.