Japanese School Life

After having worked in Japanese public schools (both high school and junior high school) for a while now, I thought it would be appropriate to highlight some unique Japanese ideas on school life that would be interesting to Westerners.

The School

Generally all public schools regardless of the level, look pretty similar. They tend to be made of the same concrete that is the same colour and pretty uninspiring. This is true of my current school and me previous 2 schools. The design also tends to be similar too, with 1 or 2 buildings connected by a walkway and a separate gym also conected with a walkway. The grounds of each school are not covered in grass, but rather a quasi-dirt/gravel mixture where all sports are done (by sharing the field as all sports teams practice at the same time). There is always fencing around the exterior of the property with a few access points with heavy gates (these tend to be closed during school hours in elementary and junior high schools, but not so much in high schools). All of these factors might lead the average Westerner to imagine that a Japanese school is more like a prison than a school, and in some ways, it does look like a prison.

Inside

Inside the schools there is more of the same look as the outside with very little in the way of wall decorations in most hallways. Generally, all of the classrooms are located on one side of the hallway with windows on the other side. The newer schools, like my previous 2 schools had air conditioning in the classrooms, while my current school (much older) does not. Heating and air conditioning are not used in the hallways.
There is one teacher's room where all the teachers have a desk. Unlike any western school that I ever attended, students are encouraged to come into the teacher's room and talk with teachers and even walk right up to their desks (this changes during exam times where the students can enter the teacher's room, but are limited in where they can go). Teachers usually come back to this room between classes to rest or get ready for their next class.
In older schools (like my current school) the classrooms tend to have wooden floors and the newer schools have tile. Each student is assigned a desk and chair (to which their name is written). When the seating plan is changed, the student moves their entire desk and chair to the new location in the room. There are no lockers in the schools so students are required to carry all of their books and papers with them to and from school everyday (some of these are left in their desks too). Typically, students will leave one of their bags at the back ot the class on a shelf, and bring the other bag to their desk.
No one is allowed to where shoes inside the school (except for in the gym, and those cannot be worn inside the rest of the school), so students usually have special slippers they only wear at school (can be purchased at many stores). Teachers will wear their own slippers or other type of shoe/sandal, provided that they are not worn outside. Students and teachers each have their own entrance and have a place to change their outdoor shoes for their indoor ones (a sort of shoe locker). Anywhere there is carpeting (quite rare, but there some rooms), no slippers/shoes are allowed, so you have walk in your socks. For visitors, there is always a number of slippers provided at the entrance for them to use while in the school.

Students

All school kids from junior high to high school (and some elementary) are required to wear a uniform while on school property. There are usually 2 uniforms, a summer and a winter. The summer uniform is worn from June 1 to the end of September, due to the heat in Japan and the uniform is lighter, i.e. short sleeves. The winter uniform is worn the rest of the year. There is also a gym uniform for sports activities as well as gym classes (sometimes this uniform is worn in class). A boys uniform generally consists of a pair of blue or black semi-dress pants and a white shirt (with tie in winter and without in summer) with white socks. The girls uniform is generally a skirt (usually a tartan-like design, but occasionally a solid colour) and a white shirt with a ribbon (bow in the West) with white or blue socks worn almost to the knees. Since some school clubs practice on weekends, students are required to wear their uniforms to school even then, so many kids wear their uniforms almost 7 days a week.
Students are responsible for cleaning the school as there is no janitor in any school. At the end of every day, the students move their desks to the back of their classroom and clean the room. Then each class will also be responsible for another part of the school to clean, like the teacher's room, the stairways, etc. Typically this cleaning outside of the classroom is done a couple times each week.
The students themselves ore typically not that different from Western students, as kids are the same around the world, as there are the smart ones, the ones that want to study and the ones that don't. It seems that the older the students get, the less excited and eager they become. At least in my classes, the younger students tend to be the most active and enthusiastic whereas the older students (including those in High School) tend to not participate until forced to.

School Life

The main purpose of school is the same as the West, to educate children. There are many other things for the students as well. There are numerous club activities from all kinds of sports, to educational clubs as well. All schools, no matter what level, have a Sports Festival during the school year where classes compete against other classes in their grade for essentially bragging rights and a trophy. Everyone participates in this festival in one form or another. Events are varied, but usually running events are featured. This year's Sports Festival at my school had 100m races, 800m relay races, class jump-rope, and some other events (I even was in one relay race with a team of other teachers and school staff that had every member of each class race 100m).
High Schools tend to also have a 3-day School Festival where they decorate their classrooms in a theme and parents and members of the community are allowed to visit and see presentations and performances by the students and buy items from each class too.
Each year and each grade also go on a school trip, longer for the older kids. Examples of this are in High School last year, the students went to Okinawa for 3 days. The first grade junior high school kids went for a one-day trip to the mountains, the second-grade went for a one-night camping trip, and the third-grade kids went to Kyoto and Nara for 3 days.
As an ALT, I am the only foreigner in the school and the only non-Japanese speaking teacher in the school most of the time. There are always many English teachers to communicate with (as I have to teach with them, it is important) and always a handful of other teachers that will try to communicate with me in English too. It can be frustrating a little bit, as the only one not able to understand what is being said, but if it is important for me (usually not), someone will translate for me.

All in all, school life is much different from what I remember growing up in Canada, but each place is different.