Perhaps I am vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaastly overestimating the interest in this subject, but I see a lot of posts with false information about the way bullying is handled here in Japan, especially in schools…so if anyone is curious to learn more about it….ask away.
I should probably explain why I just magically assume I know better than everyone else, and it has nothing to do with me being an arrogant ol shit.
I am non-Japanese, but I went to university in Japan to get a teaching license, took the teaching emplooyment exam, passed, and now work as a public school English teacher. So I see the way bullying is handled on the daily. It is nowhere near as blaise as everyone thinks, even the tiniest of infractions are taken incredibly seriously.
So if anyone wants to know more about it, go ahead and ask, if not, I will see myself out.
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Teaching licenses no longer give you enough literacy to read rules and see the questions thread, good to know.
And you had to open another thread for this..
Though this is a well-intended post, I imagine how it’s dealt with depends heavily on the individual school
Not willing to diminish your experience, but you can’t make a generality out of your own experience.
Obviously the school you are working for is great at handling it, but that doesn’t mean that’s the case for everyone.
A Mainichi article from March 2023
“According to the education ministry, there were a record 615,351 bullying incidents at Japan’s primary, junior and senior high schools in the 2021 academic year.”
And that’s only the reported incidents.
Nice extrapolation. Any school with different people to your school will differ how they handles things regardless of protocols rules etc. Humans are involved.
Just because rules are in place, doesn’t mean people are following them though…. I understand it’s Japan, but humans are humans. I was lucky that I had only one major issue of bullying that I was aware of, at one of my five schools when I was in Japan.
Here in Korea, for the most part, my school is good, just the standard arguments/fights between kids (but not so much targeted bullying). But then I have a teacher friend of mine who works in another school not only run under the same Dept of Education, but literally in the same regional district as my school, that has really bad bullying problems that aren’t being handled well, both by the school and the parents.
As you’re a person on the inside, it would be nice to hear about how it’s handled.
You framing the thread as “bullying and how it’s handled is noooo way near as bad as y’all make it out to be” is super super weird. Ruined a potentially good thread with that bs.
For what it’s worth, I am happy to hear more about the official process.
This sub (like most subs) is going to anchor on the negative stories, rather than the base case in which actually everything works out okay.
Jeez people, “The system for handling bullying is reasonably thought-out and well-implemented” does not mean there is no bullying, no failure modes, etc.
Kids are always little shits, but they can be more/less shitty, and better/worse managed. From what OP says, it sounds like the system is pretty deliberate and sincere in reporting on bullying issues. Good data is an important foundation for action. Neat.
Lol k
To what extent does the intervention start?
I will assume the first level responder will be the teacher, then the school board, then the police.
Would like to read details for example because everyone’s definition of bullying is different. Is it to the point that kids bombard other kid’s social media and tell them they should die; or something physical like nails in someone’s shoe or sexual violence.
Also some details about the bully/bullied would be nice. In the past it would be the non conventional kid (like a half foreigner with different physical appearance) or a socially awkward kid gets picked on, but there must be something different these days.
My late wife was a public school elementary teacher.
So, from that perspective, I have *some* personal insight into what you all have to deal with on a daily basis.
I simply wanted to log my support and sympathy.
Keep fighting. Don’t let the general ignorance drag you down.
I’ve seen a teacher grab a kids face which was supposedly playful, clearly was not appropriate nor did the child look to be enjoying it at all – had to pull her hand off, that was the point I knew I would be ending my contract
As an ALT this is my experience as well, with all incidents being discussed at the faculty meetings, and escalating issues resulting in cancelation of lessons for extra training on the issue.
As all the faculty are transfered every few years, and every faculty group I have met follow the same procedures, it makes sense that most schools will be following the guidelines pretty strictly.
This subject I don’t know about before 2 years ago, but my experience in Japanese schools has been sometimes daily meetings before and / or after school regarding student bullying or tensions if they exist, and attempting to get ahead of it and correct the behavior. It seems to be the primary concern of my schools’ principals to address these issues right away.
Even after having new principals and vice principals, the process seems to be set in place.
I also find the argument that ‘well, xyz school may do well, but that doesn’t mean all schools’. The faculty within a prefecture are virtually completely interchangable and will all follow the same procedures. If anything, schools in Japan are creepily homogenous in their beauracracy.
Everyone go home.
OP says there are no problems with bullying and I trust him. He has experienced this epidemic from a position of power in one school and has declared all other schools in a nation of millions are the very same.
If your child is bullied, please tell them they are mistaken.
OP : I wasn’t bullied at this certain, specific school, so that means everyone else who is-who has experiencing-ed such things is a liar!
Scary… Even with an ‘education’, we get reasoning like this…