Making students pass in Japan
Something happened at work this morning which got me thinking. Now for anything to happen at my workplace at the moment is something of a revelation; the students have their summer classes at the moment and my services are not required for those. In addition, today is the last day of summer classes before the summer “holiday” for students. I use the quotation marks because it’s called a holiday, but the students get 10 days off school maximum, and a lot of them will be in school each day doing either clubs or extra study of some sort. Not like the 6 weeks or longer that students in the UK get. It is even busier schedule for teachers. The local government (and this is the case throughout Japan) is of the opinion that, seeing as they are getting paid during the summer, they should come to work each day, regardless of whether or not they have any real work to do. The longest time teachers in Japan have off work is usually 4 days break over New Year, although a lot of teachers from my school went into work at about 7am on New Years day this year as the students had tests that day. The summer and spring “holidays” is when the majority of teachers use their paid leave. They have just over 20 days of paid leave per year but it is very rare that a teacher will take time off during term time. I think they would be allowed to if they wanted, but it’s just not the done thing.
But I have gone off on a bit of a tangent. Anyway, a fellow English teacher approached me this morning for some help with marking homework they had been set. As we chatted, the conversation moved to a student in the 2nd year who wasn’t great at English. She wasn’t a bad student, but everything we did in class went over her head. Consequently, despite doing what I could her homework and exam scores suffered accordingly, culminating in her actually failing this term. Now when a student fails at a subject, you usually think that they would have to repeat that particular subject, or it would just be noted down in their report to be discussed with the student’s parents. But we are in Japan, where things are just a little bit different. Here, students are not allowed to fail. So additional questions were being made for this student so she could answer them, and be made to pass the subject this term. It sounded like whatever this student wrote, they would be given a score that meant they would just get a passing score. I believe that it is because it is seen as a very bad thing if the student fails a subject. The subject and homeroom teachers are made 100% responsible for any students that fail, and understandably do not want any of their students in this situation. It’s one of those things that I don’t particularly agree with, but I’ve got to respect it as I’m in no position to go changing the school system. I recall a year or two ago, we were grading a group of students and had come to a final grade and percentage for them. The problem was that average score for these students was deemed to be too low (or that too many students had fallen below the 40% pass mark; I forget at this time). So it was decided that each student should be simply given an additional 10% on their exam score, as it had been “a difficult test”. We ended up with the farcical situation whereby one student got 102% in their exam! The bizarre thing was that I was the only person who thought this was a problem. It’s been a while since I was a student but I was sure that 100% is the highest percentage you can get in a test.
It’s all down to meeting performance targets, and manipulating figures and scores to do that. It happens worldwide in different ways and is a saddening indication of the way education seems to be heading. It made me think back to when I first taught in English on an island called Malhos in the Maldives. The previous English teacher on Malhos decided that he would please the parents and students by giving almost every student an A grade in English. Parents are happy their children are learning, students are satisfied that they are getting good scores, and the the teacher looks good in the eyes of their peers. Due to a lack of standardized testing, and the fact that almost none of the students would go to senior high school, nobody was any the wiser. When I arrived, I started giving them grades according to their actual ability, both in relation to the class and the material that they were studying. Suddenly, students who had been getting A grades in their subjects were getting C’s and D’s. Parents were unhappy at the teachers as they see it as a new teacher coming in and straight away their students level drops by 2 or 3 grades. The issue could be cyclical though; my successor could have easily repeated my predecessors actions and opted for a simple life by giving the students higher grades, pleasing everyone in the process.
More from Japan, and possibly the Maldives, soon. For now I will leave you with a Maldivian sunset. For more pics like this, be sure to check out my Maldives online gallery.
or Discuss this Article
Hi Dave,
Unfortunately since you’ve been away, the education system over here continues to plummet (apart from in Miss Evans’ school obviously!) and two of your assumptions no longer hold true.
1. You would probably need an abacus and a lot of flip chart paper to explain why 100% should be the highest possible mark - the A* grades are looking to increase further, rather than admitting than 50% doesn’t really deserve an A grade in the first place!!
2. Which brings me onto the second point - the number of schools avoiding events such as sports days where some people and win and some people, well, er.. don’t, increases further. The notion that no one can fail and you can have anything you want whether deserved or not is being drilled into the country’s children. It’s not going to get better anytime soon…
Rant over!
Bim
That’s the way education in the UK is going I’m afraid. Everybody is expected to be a genius and study for a degree at their local university.
In my experience the pressure on 11 year olds is unacceptable. The powers that be want children to be like robots, quoting the level they are working at. I hate having children telling me they are a level 4A or 3B, they are a child! Parents are paying for private tutors to ensure their child achieves level 4 (the expected grade for 11 year olds) so they can face the competitive parents in the playground or workplace. We now teach children to write to a formula to achieve the expected level. I hate myself for teaching children to create a checklist before they write to include connectives, clauses, a range of punctuation etc. It doesn’t improve standards in writing, they do it for the test and never again!
As for sports day Bim, I am proud to say we had a competitive sports day this year with children competing in races, with some winning and some loosing. We even had a winning team and three loosing teams! The opportunity for children who do not excel academically to excel in sport was fantastic.
I love my job and wouldn’t do anything else but what makes it special is the times when a the fog clears and a child understands something I have been teaching them. When a child learns something new, the look on their face is priceless. I want children to love learning, to go through life always learning. I have high expectations and expect children to achieve, but everyone is different and brings their own skills to the world. Some will achieve higher grades than others, but the most important thing is to be happy with who you are as a person.
(rant number 2)
K
Hi Dave!
I’m not in the teaching profession myself but your commentry on the state of current Japansese standards just seems to reflect a general obsession with targets. It’s not just Japanese schools I’m afraid. UK schools are under immense pressures to have their students perform well.
A recent headline over here went something like “low performing schools advised to improve or be closed down”.
Now that, to me, seems slightly bonkers. Overcrowding is a problem still, as far as I know, and so rather than take a “can do” attitude towards schools that are in need of help from the government, they get a threat of closure instead. Thus leading to kids having to be moved to new schools and that gets us back to the overcrowding issue.
It’s not just schools either. Teaching might not be my thing but I work very closely with the NHS. The doctors, nurses and consultants that I speak to on a daily basis are plagued by targets. Patient care anyone?
Back in my days involved in customer service *shudder*, we were under scrutiny as to how fast we were able to move from one call to the next. Hang on a second….what about taking time to actually help the poor bastard who has been shafted by retailer x?
I’m not surprised that schools “help” their students by boosting their grades. Albeit doing them a disservice in the process.
I’m not surprised that a certain company that I used to work for would phone their own helpines and advise the employee on the end of the phone that it was a “test call” at the end of the month. Thus bringing down the average call length in order to avoid getting fined by the company that had employed them to run their contact centre.
I’m not surprised that hospitals ask for as much urgency to be allocatated to sorting out an issue that means their daily reports might not get presented in time as they do for when their records system has stopped flagging up patients who have recently contracted MRSA.
It would seem that reports that look nice are far more important than the actual goal.
This is my first post on your blog. I’m not normally quite so jaded and cynical.
1. 102% is the new 100%
2. it gives whole new meaning to the term giving it your 110% effort
3. true story, i worked for NCS-Pearson …which is a mega monopoly on standardized testing business-wise for the US…on their NAEP Project (national assessment of education progress [or lack thereof!] –what’s typically referred to as the “Nation’s Report Card”. i engaged in countless shenannigans of statistical manipulation of a varying nature which not only was tolerated by managment, but which was rewarded by my getting promoted quickly as a matter of fact. it was deemed a win-win situation if you will.
4. i went to school as a white person at a HCBU (historically black college & university) and i saw an onus on teachers to do this same very thing that you speak of…find ways to pass people…who would eventually later on get set up for failure either in grad school / other schools / or the real-world workforce.
5. unionized teachers in south africa (peace corps experience) did the same thing. and also, similar to maldives…it didn’t really matter. it doesn’t matter in the philippines either. corruption, high unemployment, political instability, poor infrastructure & sanitation….who really cared if actual merit was seemingly just a state of mind…..people of principles?