School Rules

This article discussed the education system in Japan and how certain schools in the country have overly stringent rules that lean to the disturbing or downright ridiculous. To name a few examples cited by the author: no foreign words to be used, no dialect usage, to applaud the teachers upon entrance.

The author emphasises how the severe enforcement of these rules can have drastic impacts on the education and well-being of the child. Several children have been playing truant and some have even been driven to suicide. There was even a case in Osaka where a high school student bought a law-suit to the school that made her die her naturally brown hair black.

Teachers have also been accused of being creepy and abusing the students under their care. There have been cases of sexual harassment where male teachers have checked the colours of students underwear and bras. In addition to this there are rules that force children to be cold in the winter by enforcing the wearing of skirts and the banning of scarfs or stockings.

Such conformity contributes to the lack of incentive to break out of the norm and challenge the status quo, arguably destroying the creative spark of Japanese children from an early age. The consequences are even worse for those that come from a minority group such as those from the LGBT community or those with foreign descent.

This article was interesting to me because I deeply resonated with the content since I too attended an extremely strict high school. Rules bordered on the ridiculous and it made us feel like we were in some sort of prison, waiting for the bell to ring and for us to be set free of the confines of the school. I do believe that rules are necessary in order for a school to function well, however, that does not mean that educators are at liberty to demand anything they deem fit. These rules ought to stem out of an actual necessity and not an old fashioned idea of discipline.