Us and Them. A Comparison. Japanese High Schools.

Both American and Japanese schools have the same scheduled layout, however in America students are offered more freedom chances and in Japan they have set schedules that don't usually change. In America, a lot of high school students drive to and from class or school activities. This is a freedom that Japanese students don't have because the train or a bike is a much more efficient way of travel for a lot of the kids. In America, students are automatically accepted into the high school according to where they live in relation to the school whereas in Japan, you have to test into the high school that you want to go to. What that means is during a kid's middle school career they have to take an entry test to see where they will end up in high school. Some kids don't take the test and instead decide not to go to school, but rather work instead. Usually, in a Japanese high school, the vice principal will do most of the work that American principals do instead of the principal doing it themselves. Rather than the students moving from class to class, the teachers do. The students sit in the same room while each teacher rotates and teaches their subject. Because the students don't move, a Japanese school doesn't have a cafeteria like in America.

I mentioned before that the students in Japan who chose not to enter high school work. The kids that are in high school do not have jobs, unlike in America, because they focus on education and extra-curricular activities as being most important. In America, students can enter in many different extra-curricular activities and try more out to see what they like, but in Japan students choose one activities. These activities range from band club to baseball and students decide where they want to invest all of their time before they enter the high school. Kids rarely move from one activity to another because of the bonds that they have made with the friends in that group. If they were to switch, they would be looked upon as a bizarre outsider who doesn't have a place because they weren't bonded originally with that new group.

American schools have summer break, spring break, and winter break. In Japanese schools, they have all of the same breaks, but they are spread out at different times. Japanese students advance to the next grade during spring break that lasts about three weeks, instead of summer break in America.