Toyama
City Yamamuro Junior High
The lower- secondary
school covering grades 7, 8, and 9 is called junior high. 2/3 of the teachers
are men here.
I
visited Toyama City Yamamuro Junior High.
There are 722 students with 51 staff members. It has seven 7th grade classrooms, six 8th
grade rooms and seven 9th grades with 1 special ed. room. The principal stressed that his students
were cheerful yet stressed. Bullying
and school absenteeism are major problems.
Since students don’t
repeat grades students are guaranteed to graduate junior high at age 15 whether
they come or not.
Students must pass tests
to enter high school and college.
Students study hard for these exams.
At least 94% of all lower secondary school graduates enter upper
secondary schools.
Students have different
teachers for different subjects. The
teacher, rather than the students, moves to a new room for each period. Each class spends the entire day together
like a team.
Students take Japanese,
social studies, science, math, English, music, fine arts, health, physical
education, industrial arts or homemaking. moral education and special
activities. Club meetings are during
and after school hours.
Subjects are offered at
different times each day throughout the week so the schedule is different on
different days. This girl is checking
her schedule.
Outdoor shoes are left
at the entranceways and indoor slippers or shoes are worn.
Since school size is
declining I noticed many empty rooms.
This school has Earth KAM, the educational program that communicated with astronauts in space in 1999.
I
observed and participated in the English class. In the science class I observed the students copy the board of
experiments exactly including the colors the teacher used. Everyone listened
carefully, sat quietly and worked
Students did the experiments without safety goggles. I watched students play Ping Pong in a
physical education class. Boys have gym classes with boys while girls have
classes with girls.
There was a fire drill
after an earthquake drill. The students
ran outside and lined up by grade.
Students were then roped off by teachers as a fire master spoke to the
group of the amount of time the students took to get out of the building and
the importance of speed.
I felt like a celebrity
since the friendly students and teachers waved good bye to all of us at the end
of this great day.
