Cramming...

There are often a few juku (cram schools) near the train stations. I would often see a teacher teaching students on the whiteboard on weekends as I'm riding on the train. And that would be late at night around 10-11 p.m. Many 3 nensei at my schools go to juku too. And sometimes when I ask about their weekend, they would always say they spent it at juku. Now I get the idea why people say Japanese students work really hard to go into a good SHS and university.

But the thing is the education in a JHS is not as stressful as a secondary education in Singapore. I find the kids here pretty relaxed in school, as lessons are often cut for other activities in school. And club activities take up a lot of time in school too. Maybe that's why parents feel the need to put their kids in juku, as the public education in Japan is not adequate. Seriously, I find the Japanese education pretty disturbing because the level is so low compared to most developed countries.

As far as I know, their English is the worst. :-( Some of them can't even respond when I ask them "How are you?" outside the classroom. It's as if they've never heard that greeting before when in fact they're asked that every single English class. I love my Japanese students, but I feel irritated sometimes when I see how scared they're to listen to and speak English. I probably can't emphatise with them as I've always loved foreign languages.