I am an Assistant Language Teacher at Niiza High. It's a public high school run by the Saitama Board of Education with just over 500 students. It's not regarded as an academic school and a lot of the students leave before graduating in their 3rd Year.
The school system in Japan is designed like this:
6 years of compulsory Elementary School (from Year 0-7 in NZ)
3 years of compulsory Junior High School (Year's 8-10 in NZ)
and 3 years of optional Senior High School (Years 11-13 in NZ)
Even though Senior High is optional, most children go on to complete it.
You may have heard that all students in Japan study hard in school and pay attention and are disciplined well, but this is not the case. While I was an exchange student in 1998 in a private girls' high, I was shocked to see the number of student's who slept in class and not pay any attention to the teacher. It's the same here at Niiza High and my friends who are also teaching in Public Junior and Senior High School's have the same observations. There is no detention at my school and the teachers just work around student's who sleep through class and ignore the one's that disrupt. These kids need to come abroad to see what school is really like I think!
Apart from the students who sleep (well actually, I wake them up when I'm taking a class! I haven't come halfway across the world to help them learn English and then they ignore the fact that I am here!) school's pretty cool. It's definately a whole different experience now being a teacher rather than the exchange student I was in 1998. It will be something I will value for the rest of my teaching career.
Links to school stuff:
Niiza High School Homepage (in Japanese only sorry! I'm trying to get one of my 3rd year classes to help make an English site as part of a project this year, but you can see some pictures etc)
Photos of students
Teachers and the crazy things they get up to at drinking parties!
English Teachers
Pictures of some English Lessons I taught
Graduation March 2003
Entrance Ceremony (coming soon!)