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Sayonara, School...Hello, Home Learning
Humboldt Homeschoolers newsletter
１９9９
Humboldt Homeschoolers newsletter
１９9９
Bundled up for the winter cold, my son and I headed out to the train station near our home in Osaka, Japan on a morning early this year. We were soon joined on the walk down the hillside road by an elderly Japanese man, Mr. Kawanishi, a retiree who works part-time as a gardener for the apartment building where we live.
My son Kenya (born in Japan in ’94 and raised in that country) bounded ahead of us down the slope. Conversation turned to children. Mr. Kawanishi had a son of his own, a company “salary man” about my age, and a grandson about Kenya’s age.
The elderly man and I talked in the local dialect about the mess that was Japanese public education: Recent government research in Japan had shocked the nation by revealing that a good portion of college-age Japanese students lacked the skills needed to do the basic mathematical equations taught in elementary school. After 12 years of rigid public education and after-school cram classes, Japanese youth appeared to be growing more ignorant instead of more intelligent.
(continued...)
My son Kenya (born in Japan in ’94 and raised in that country) bounded ahead of us down the slope. Conversation turned to children. Mr. Kawanishi had a son of his own, a company “salary man” about my age, and a grandson about Kenya’s age.
The elderly man and I talked in the local dialect about the mess that was Japanese public education: Recent government research in Japan had shocked the nation by revealing that a good portion of college-age Japanese students lacked the skills needed to do the basic mathematical equations taught in elementary school. After 12 years of rigid public education and after-school cram classes, Japanese youth appeared to be growing more ignorant instead of more intelligent.
(continued...)