Children’s Fear of Standing Out Highlighted in Education Report

Last year, at a certain elementary school, the relay for the field day was cancelled.

When the teachers selected several children who were fast in the sprint as relay runners, they received a number of comments such as the following.

Please don’t choose me as a relay runner. Otherwise, I will not attend the field day.

Seventy percent of the selected children wanted to withdraw.

After consulting with the teachers, they decided not to select the relay runners in order of speed, but rather to invite those who wished to be selected. They also decided not to have the children compete for speed, but to have them all join hands at the end and finish the race together.

Speaking of relays at athletic meets, they must have been the flower of the sport until a certain era. Recently, however, it seems that an increasing number of children do not want to be selected for the relay, fearing that they will “float,” “stand out,” or “be seen by others.

When and why did this happen?

In my recent book, “Reporto: Smartphone Childcare is Destroying Children” (Shinchosha), I interviewed more than 200 people involved in education, from nursery school to high school, to reveal the effects of modern society on children. From these interviews, we would like to look at the realities of the anxieties faced by today’s children.

They don’t want to be commended.

In schools, dozens to hundreds of children live in groups, and competition is inevitable.

Test scores, creative works such as art and music, grades in club activities, competitions and debates ……. In such a situation, children compete with their classmates and try to gain an advantage by showing as good a result as possible.

In recent years, however, there seems to be a growing tendency among children to avoid such competition. A principal at a junior high school in Tokyo told us, “In the old days, competition was the norm at school.

In the past, competition was the norm at school. In the old days, competition was the norm at school,” says the principal of a Tokyo-based junior high school. But in the past few years, there have been many children who don’t want to expose themselves to such competition. They all say the same thing: ‘I don’t want to float.

What kind of things do they feel this way about? The principal introduced the following case as an example.

The number of children who do not like to be told “good job” or “excellent” by their teachers in class has increased. The teachers may mean it as praise, but the children seem to think it makes them look bad. Therefore, when praised by their teachers, children sometimes do the opposite of what they are scolded for.

When they achieve good results in club activities or competitions, more and more children do not like to receive awards at morning assemblies or other occasions. On the day of award ceremonies, they either miss school or arrive late in order to avoid being presented with an award.

More children do not want to be captain of their clubs. It seems that some children think that leadership is a bad thing.

I think there have always been a certain number of children who are not good at standing out. However, according to teachers in the field, the percentage is increasing to the point where competitions, arts and crafts events, and club activities at some schools are no longer viable, just like the relay at the athletic meet I mentioned earlier.

The principal of the school said.

Some children excel in academics, others in drawing or singing, and still others in sports. As a teacher, I hope to build self-esteem by praising children in these various areas, not just academically.

However, only children who excel in their respective fields are strongly inclined to avoid standing out. If that is the case, then what is the point of assigning scores or giving awards in front of everyone?

In fact, if the purpose of “competing for the fastest leg” is lost from the relay at athletic meets, there is no point in having the relay in the first place. The same thing is happening in competitions and club activities.

Why do children think this way? Another principal of a junior high school in Aichi Prefecture says, “The students stand out, for better or worse.

Students don’t like to stand out, for better or worse. They have a strong desire to be uniform and are afraid of standing out. This could also be described as synchronicity. Being the same as everyone else is stability and security. To stray even slightly from that and ‘float’ is too scary to bear.”

The result of the quest for cooperation: ……

In terms of construction, the modern educational field is supposed to demand independence from children. By thinking and working on their own, they are to establish their identity and create their own status. The situation the principal describes may be at odds with what education is striving for.

The principal continues.

The principal continues, “In terms of schools, I think that the elimination of competition and the demand for cooperation since the Yutaka period is a major factor. Until then, schools had encouraged competition, as represented by relative evaluation, and required students to push through, but they have stopped doing so and require everyone to work together equally and do their best.

With the emphasis on equality, students tend to hide their individuality and avoid standing out. I think this is what gave rise to the term “floating. For today’s students, standing out is just a risk of being looked at strangely by those around them.

It is true that schools are more conscious of equality than in the past. While this is a good thing, the principal points out that there is a tendency for some schools to go too far.

Take, for example, the school mentioned at the beginning of this article. This school made the decision to “stop ranking” in all things. This has resulted in everyone finishing hand in hand, whether they are the fastest or slowest runner in a race, and children being praised in class no matter how off-the-wall their answers or opinions may be. At another school, he said, refills of school lunches are banned, and the teacher decides in order where all the students will play during recess.

When “equality” in schools becomes this excessive, it is not hard to understand why children would want to avoid standing out. However, according to the teachers, the COVID-19 crisis has dramatically increased this tendency. In Part 2, we will introduce the current trend in the educational field, which is demanding uniformity in “equal time for theater performances.

Part 2: “Theatre Performances are Equal” – The Shocking Educational Scene Calls for Uniformity