“Japanese kindergarteners are like a group of untrained synchronized swimmers”

[nightmare]

You can learn a lot about Japanese culture from kindergarten classes


When I walked into the Japanese kindergarten on my first day as an English teacher, I had to fight the urge to duck and run for cover. It was like stepping foot into a giant birdcage at the zoo. Everywhere I looked, children were loudly screeching and clawing at one another, leaping off the plastic slide and hanging upside down from the basketball hoop. It was terrifying.
And braving the front lines was my ballerina-frail Japanese co-teacher, a 24-year-old in pigtails and a Big Bird apron.

“Sit down, please” she repeated to each child, in the same soft, barely audible tone of voice. It had about as much of an effect as trying to catch a flock of wild geese with a butterfly net. What she really needed was a tranquilizer gun.

This wasn’t how I’d imagined it. Before coming to Japan, I’d pictured my co-teacher as a middle-aged, no-nonsense Mary Poppins-type, with a bun and a soft spot for Disney songs. My students would, in turn, be well-mannered, docile children who respected and revered their English sensei.

But as I discovered in the months to follow the reality was different. Kindergarten teachers in Japan are more “human piñatas” than “highly-respected figures of authority.” In my first week alone, I had erasers hurled at my head, chalk dust thrown in my eyes, and my handbag tossed out of a second story window.

“Japanese children are monsters,” I raged to my English teacher friends. “Haven’t their parents heard of ‘Time outs’? Or better yet, clear, consistent rules?”

As an American, I’d grown up with the idea that a “good mother” or a “good teacher” was someone who set strict boundaries and consequences. And I’d assumed that these standards were the same the world over.

But in Japan, rules aren’t considered nearly as important as fostering the development of a mutual child/teacher friendship. The theory is that if children have close bonds with their teachers they won’t misbehave because they’ll be afraid of disappointing them. As Roger J Davies and Osamu Ikeno put it in their book “The Japanese Mind,” a “good parent” does whatever possible to “avoid creating any mental distance from their children,” even if it means giving in to their children’s demands. Or in the case of my Japanese co-teacher, not reacting when 5-year-old Kenshiro slaps her across the face.

“Ouch, you really hurt me,” was all she said. She didn’t scold or punish or arrange a parent-teacher conference. She simply rubbed her cheek, made an exaggerated show of wincing in pain and then continued on with the lesson as if nothing had happened.

But apparently, this non-reaction is all part of a bigger plan. By drawing attention to the pain he’d caused her, my co-teacher hoped to shape little Kenshiro into a good team player, a sensitive soul acutely tuned in to the feelings of those around him. And according to The Japanese Mind, this isn’t limited to the feelings of family, friends or pet goldfish — it’s even applied to the likes of the lowly houseplant or piece of old furniture, as I would learn when I caught little Kenshiro trying to knock over the classroom bookshelf.

“Kenshiro!” I hollered, for the third time that morning. “Don’t do that!’” He stared at the floor, his face as blank as a chalkboard.

“You’ve hurt the bookshelf,” my Japanese co-teacher translated softly, as she crouched down to his eye level. She gently touched the spot which moments before, Kenshiro had been bashing with a hula hoop. “He’s crying.”

I stared at her incredulously. Did she really think that hippie mumbo jumbo was going to work? If the kid didn’t care that he was about to cause his teacher to suffer a nervous breakdown, he certainly wasn’t going care about the hypothetical feelings of an inanimate object.

But then, something truly amazing happened. Kenshiro gazed at the bookshelf reproachfully and mumbled: “Sorry.”

I recounted the story to my English teacher friends over beers later that night. They dragged on their cigarettes and regarded me thoughtfully.

“Japanese kindergarteners are like a group of untrained synchronized swimmers,” one friend commented philosophically. “Right now they’re flailing around, half-drowning. But give them a few years and they’ll be swimming in sync like robotic pod-people.”

I was dubious. I could imagine the children making an entertaining half hour of “Super-Nanny: Japanese Kindergarten Edition,” but well-mannered and disciplined? No way.

My teacher friends looked at each other smugly. “Just wait until you start working at a Japanese middle school. You’ll see.”

By D. Muth
R. D. Muth is an English teacher from Hawaii.

[SamBo]

for some reason the method of trying to get the kids to understand the feelings of a bookshelf really does remind me of japanese culture ie how the teacher doesn't get angry but instead goes with an exaggerated facial expression when hurt for example. something very different, which is most probably why i have a fascination with japanese culture :P

[wrobic1]

This person needs to realize that those are horrible generalizations and only apply depending on the area, school, and the people. I am having the OPPOSITE experience and I mean 100%. And I teach at a kindergarten not just a lil group that comes in from special extra behaved families. Theyre not exactly docile, and if I didnt speak to them directly on the very first day maybe theyd be like any other typical KINDERGARTENER lol. But how fast they learn to adapt to your style, your rules, your methods, its amazing because you could teach and enforce the same damn thing in the states and it wont even get close to being applied by the children even after years of it.

This person needs a reality check, and definitely needs to learn Japanese. Might as well add she hasnt learned jack about Japanese culture from this kindergarten experience.

BTW I am not some joe schmoe either I was a Jr High Science teacher back in the States so yeah dont try to say I dont know what its like to be an actual teacher. Ive been there so I have my references =)

[altaisenimpact]

I also agree on how the generalization was made simply accounting from one experience and one experiences only.

You cannot say for certain simply just how one area more specifically follow this type of behavioral pattern, it become the "say" for rest of that country.

Also, one of the main point i would like to make is, every country have their own way of doing things, and specifically, every parts of that every country have their go about ways as well.

Simply because what one side of the world doesn't meet the standard you have of another side, that doesn't mean it's "like chasing flock of geese with butterfly nets."

Maybe they had some sort of reason for what they were doing? possibly because the kids are on recess or was just really relaxing themselves over the fact someone new is coming, children get often excited at the thought that someone new is coming, the same way someone get excited if they win a lot of money (or in a much worse comparison, kind of like Tom Cruise did when he announces about his marriage with Katie Holmes in the Oprah's show or so.)

But you have to ultimately keep this in mind, kids are just kids, you can't simply place control over them because to you, that seems orderly, there is always certain way to interact with them.

I like to propose a linguistic study perspective here that I believe might somewhat be relevant to this. Often a native speaker of one language will (or intuitively do) impose the grammar/sets of rule to whichever language they are learning.

How that relate here is, the person who apparently wrote this whole spill seem to impose the rule derived from his/her side of the world onto a area he/she is not familiar with

And maybe, to the author of this apparent entry that the kids seems like wild, uncontrollable flocks of animals, why not this in inverse. What if today he was a Japanese teacher teaching in America for the first time? Maybe then he/she will say something like "These children seems spiritless, timid, and uptight, they are quiet and would not speak until I have allowed them to do so, as if I am walking into a class full of children-shaped computer waiting for me to input functions and commands.

I looked on over to little kenny when he accidentally knocked off the book of the bookshelves, he was heavily reprimanded by my assistant teacher for his lack of carefulness before I can reach onto him. My assistant teacher then, seems to me like a army drill instructor in disguise."

[Mizuki]

Perhaps I am severe, but I think that traditional methods are better.
Therefore I think that these children are extremely rude and that should be punished. It's good to be permissive, but to a certain extent!

[Wind]

I'm not sure if I could take teaching American Kindergartners either to be honest though. I have every intention of starting at either a Jr. High or High School level for teaching over there. Best case scenario is a job at Temple (an American University in Tokyo) as a teacher in my actual field (History with a minors in Anthropology and Sociology).

Anyway - I can understand the flabbergasted nature of this teacher. Especially if things are as bad as she claims. Though, she is young - at 24 I cant imagine she had THAT much previous experience (maybe a year or two at the most). So it's possible that these kids were actually a pretty rambunctious bunch. Since only her examples are given, there is no other account to base it against.

[bangbangtang]

Naitomea was it really your experience ? It seems like u copy paste that from others blog, lolllll

[Oolong]

I agree that you can't assume that all Japanese children are like that. And I would highly disagree that Japanese people don't know about discipline. It just depends on the family and how you were raised. My family is Japanese and I grew up with that kind of upbringing and the kind of discipline I got compared to the discipline and upbringing of my American friends and the American children of today is just weird to think about because I was hit or thrown out of the house if I did anything bad while other kids I knew just got their desserts taken away or they had to stay in their room. I honestly think time-outs and grounding is a little redundant and enforcing those kinds of punishments in Japan would be so out of place and I don't think it would work. I was never grounded or put on time-out and many adults around me thought I was such a well-mannered kid. Same could be said about a lot of other kids with all kinds of discipline. Some methods work on some kids, some don't. But like what altaisenimpact said, kids are kids. I'd be more freaked out to see a kid who was always behaving, quiet, and obedient.

[wrobic1]

I still say the original writer went to a bad kindergarten. The one I work at has quite the strict and no-bullcrap teachers who dont mind being direct and firm with kids. That stuff described, Ive never seen once here. Thats why I found it BS to base everything on that 1 experience at what seems to be an inept kindergarten that does NOT represent the typical Japanese kindergarten

[nightmare]

Naitomea was it really your experience ? It seems like u copy paste that from others blog, lolllll

R. D. Muth is an English teacher from Hawaii.


It's not about me ! Maybe it wasn't clear enough. Sorry...