Education System Demands Shocking Uniformity Among Students

The excessive egalitarianism in today’s schools is causing children to fear competition. Even if it is a good thing, they tend to think that they are the only one who will “float” and try to avoid it. This tendency has been growing especially since the COVID-19 crisis.

We saw this trend in Part I: Children Afraid of “Floating,” but what has been happening in schools since the COVID-19 crisis? In this article, we will introduce the voices of teachers from the recent book “Reporto: Smartphone Childcare is Destroying Children,” in which we collected the opinions of more than 200 educators from nursery schools to high schools.

Part I: Children Afraid of “Floating”

Many teachers point out that the COVID-19 crisis, which began in 2008 and lasted for practically three years, has drastically changed the school system. Until then, there was an atmosphere of trying to develop the individuality of students, but after the COVID-19 crisis, it seems that the atmosphere is changing to one of trying to suppress that individuality.

The principal of a junior high school in Aichi Prefecture said the following.

The COVID-19 crisis has made people say, ‘Don’t do anything. For reasons of infection prevention, they suppressed everything the students wanted to do, and required the same discipline and lifestyle for all students. After three years of this, the school lost its desire to bring out the students’ individuality, and I think the students became reluctant to show themselves because of the trauma.

The “division” within the school has progressed.

In the COVID-19 crisis, everyone wore masks together and did everything from classes to school lunches under strict rules. The slightest deviation from these rules meant, “Masks! No talking!” and “No talking! As a result, the children stopped showing spontaneous thoughts, words, and actions.

However, children will change their attitudes and behavior as long as the environment changes. If schools lose the atmosphere of uniformity, children will be able to develop their independence. The problem is that even now, after the COVID-19 crisis has ended, the situation continues to be administrative and cramped.

First, teachers point out that the COVID-19 crisis has led to a “division” within the school. Another teacher at a junior high school said.

The COVID-19 crisis has changed the rules of the school. Children used to spend recess wherever they wanted, but now they are assigned to a certain place: this class goes to the gymnasium, this class goes to the roof, this class goes to this block in the school yard, and so on. They were also forbidden to go to and from other classes.

Field day was now only held in the morning, and each grade was held separately. The first grade was divided from 9 to 10 a.m., the second grade from 10 to 11 a.m., and the third grade from 11 to 12 a.m. While one grade was having its field day in the schoolyard, the other grades would have their regular classes in their classrooms, without observing or cheering.

This practice has continued even after the COVID-19 crisis ended. What was done during the COVID-19 crisis as a countermeasure against infectious diseases has continued even after the COVID-19 crisis is over because it is convenient for managing the children or because it reduces the workload of the teachers. Some principals and school boards call it ‘streamlining athletic meets’ or ‘reforming the way teachers work,’ but do the children really want that?

If this is widely practiced, children’s relationships within schools will be fragmented, and only narrow relationships will become more intense. If this is the case, children’s identification with each other will have to be heightened.

It seems that schools are now demanding even more uniformity from their children. Another middle school teacher said.

“With all the things being revamped after the COVID-19 crisis, I feel that more and more uniformity is being demanded of the students. For example, in the past, when it was decided to put on a play at a school festival, some children would play the main roles with many lines, while others would appear only in one scene, say a few words, and then be excused from the role. So I felt like I wanted to be a leading actor, and on the other hand, I realized that I was more suited for a behind-the-scenes role. That is how children grow up. Nowadays, however, it is considered a good idea to have everyone perform for the same amount of time and give them lines of the same length.

The same is true in the classroom. It is now considered discriminatory to give only the children who can do well a lot of speaking. It must be equally applied to the children who cannot do it. For me, it would be cruel to give even a child with a learning disability the same amount of credit. In any case, this tendency existed before the COVID-19 crisis, but it seems to have increased in the post-COVID-19 crisis period as we reevaluated school management.

Each child has different strengths and weaknesses, as well as different personalities. Essentially, what school teachers should be doing is finding out the individuality of each child and providing opportunities for that child to flourish.

For example, children who are good at sports should be given opportunities in physical education classes and athletic meets, and children who are good with their hands should be given opportunities in technology and art classes.

Seven or eight out of ten cannot speak for themselves.

However, if we ignore children’s individuality and push for equalization in all areas, it is inevitable that children will be extremely afraid of “floating” because they want to be like other children.

According to teachers, what is happening in schools today is this form of homogenization. And these children are characterized by a certain trait.

The teacher says, “They are imitating everyone else, and they are trying to grow up.

There are many students who have been imitating everyone else, or who have only followed the rules told to them by adults. These children try to hide themselves. They don’t show their true feelings not only to teachers but also to other students.

My concern is that there are many children who lose sight of their true selves as a result of this kind of behavior. Hiding their true selves means that they lose the opportunity to find themselves. When that happens, we don’t really know who we are.

What does it mean to not know oneself?

When I say to my students, ‘It’s okay to say what you think,’ seven or eight out of ten just nod their heads and don’t answer. They are not facing themselves. What is symbolic is that they don’t know their own strengths and weaknesses. When asked what they are good at or what they like, they answer, ‘Well, what is it?

What’s worse, you hand out a printout and ask them to write down their strengths and weaknesses. Then there are kids who write exactly the same things that their good friends write. When I asked him if it was okay if his strengths and weaknesses were the same as those of his friends, he replied, “I think they are probably the same.

Is this what awaits children who continue to avoid “floating”? In the book “Reporto: Smart Phone Child Rearing Destroys Children,” we introduce various other examples, so we would like to give you a hint to think about the current situation.

This raises the question of whether After Corona’s school system is the best for children. Rather than lumping all of these together under the terms “work reform” and “school reform,” I think it is necessary to review each one from the standpoint of the children.