Hi Renz,
It turned out, the "golden ideas" were just chunks of mud my jeans gathered as I raced against "salary men" who were in a hurry to go home after 14 hours of "slave labor" late last night. The streets at Minatoku, Tokyo, where the embassies are, just couldn't look so attractive during freezing temperatures worsened by drizzles of rain. Like a wet kitten, I just "purred" in one corner of the train station, waiting for the express train to arrive to take me home. During these moments, youd always wish for the warmth of the sunburnt Philippines, the true land of the rising sun, where the sun always rises...
Today, I will share you PART I (chapter 1) of my long and winding whining and ranting....
You asked for my personal observation?
In general,
it is not true that Japan creates better students, better than the Philippines. If we are to study 30 Japanese high school students, and 30 Filipino HS students of
equal economic status and similar parental educational background, you'd be surprised to find out that Filipino students would achieve more.
. Let me give you some points of focus for a more guided discussion:
If these 60 high school students would go to college, and then graduate from their four-year university course, what are we likely to find out?
1. Filipino students would have better mastery of their majors and fields of study than the Japanese.
Despite the 12-year previous schooling (elem to high), Japanese students would yield poorer skills in
many of the aspects of their study. This is because, the university system here follows something
like the "mass promotion" in our public elementary education in the Philippines, allowing students to pass regardless of the degree of their educational achievement. Passing the high school and college entrance exam seems to be the most difficult tasks in their entire lstudent lives, not passing every course in high school or college. So you see how each school disregards their usual curriculum for a more exam-passing syllabus. Once you pass the entrance exam and you got into the Uni. system, that's already a sure ticket to getting a degree...you just pay your tuition
. (It makes me mad seeing girls and boys in the college nearby, conscious only of fashion
, without anyone holding a book, notebook or anything...when in the Philippines, students read their books even in jeepneys.
)
Filipinos get tougher requirements; they have to pass every subject, every quiz or test, so studying every day is important; if they fail the licensure exams, there is no guarantee to getting employed.
2. Filipino students are happier in their entire student lives than their Japanese counterparts.
Don't you know that there are about 980 suicide cases just among elementary and high students in Japan last year? Yearly, there are about 32,000 cases of suicides from children to seniors in Japan. (Do not envy life here. How do you measure success in life? ) What are the possible causes of these situations?
Apart from this bushido spirit of sacrifice and self-lessness affecting their contemporary lives, the absence of religion and strong faith just makes many think that life is useless if they are not happy or successful. Two out of ten individuals here have no religion, no God to fear or love....nothing to serve as inspiration. Though their mothers stay at home fulltime after marrying, their fathers come home late, burnt out of their daily jobs as "slaves" of the company that values "organization and work" better than family. No one complains (shoganai-can't do anything anyway) and everyone is trained to be patient and enduring (gaman).
There is lesser bullying in the Philippines, as we are more socially-inclined. The "grouping" system in Japan, and the idea that everyone must conform to the wants of the majority, make many young people bullied by groups, or feel depressed. To the Japanese, it is a taboo to talk about your personal feelings.
SO WHAT ARE THE ROOT CAUSES OF THIS JAPANESE BOOM AND MATERIAL SUCCESS THAT MANY COUNTRIES ENVY?
1. Japan controls the mind of their people through this bushido spirit towards uniformity, moving into just one direction, manned and supervised by the senior expert minority. The young, unskilled, and inexperienced, will eventually adopt the expertise of the seniors out of decades of training. But as they get trained, they are ever obedient, and working to the strict command of their "masters" (senpai).
The Philippines has lots of bright individuals moving in various, opposing directions making the flow of progress stagnant and static. Just imagine how we row our boat. And, although the Philippines creates highly-skilled individuals and rare experts, the country is happier to just send them abroad to find their own luck, research opportunities, and dig their own gold mines, live and help enrich their new homes. For the Philippines, it is more convenient to just open the gate, than think of ways to produce wealth for its people, or providing a green pasture for their citizens' abilities to thrive and yield economic effects for the country in return. It is a hopeless case freeing ourselves out of this colonial mentality- that we can not stand alone, that our own products and people are inefficient against others
. Our government policy makers must adjust their principles to the current needs , and study the examples adopted by Korea, Singapore and China in making progress possible in just a short period of time.
2. Young people here just play "electronic games" and have less communication with their parents at home, but they are pampered with lunch rations in school providing them enough energy and nutrition to stand their lessons everyday, and play numerous sports throughout the week. No wonder they have pools of Olympians, while the Filipinos, able bodied and bigger, have no one to send except boxers. Japanese athletes are always Olympic contenders, but no one from the Philippines except in this "violent boxing sport" and so, theres Manny Pacquiao. Sports and sports products here contribute so much income for the economy.
Probably, if the 40 million young people in Japan, and the 60 million young people in the Philippines would have equal economic status, have same nutrients digested every day, and our Philippine government re-educates itself and open its eyes to reality, we'd far surpass all other G8 countries
. No?
Japan is now sliding from number 2 to number 3 in economy, while China is getting towards the second slot. Japan's population is aging, and young people do not marry due to the worsening economic conditions, and lesser government support. Hopefully, with the new ruling party, family subsidies would encourage young people to start their own families, increase the population , and would produce more workers to stabilize pension and security system, and earn taxes to maintain the high standard of living.
NOW BACK TO YOUR ORIGINAL QUESTION...ARE STUDENTS HERE ANY BETTER?
1. The Japanese learn ideas though their mother tongue, but our Filipino youth, from childhood, suffer from numerous language barriers just to understand the foreign concepts.Japanese high schoolers' degree of understanding of any science or mathematical subject matter may be higher than that of any Filipino's comprehension at HS level due to English language barrier/difficulty. But the momentum is suddenly cut; Japanese high schoolers' energies and the school curriculum concentrations are then diverted into cramming for college entrance exams. These young people don't get productive until they are absorbed into companies and begin to be law-abiding, obedient, never complaining manpower even if many of them die of work exhaustion. Japans scientific and technological secrets lie in this principle. They have experts and hi-tech companies pampered by the government, so they could design world-class products funded by billions of their country's wealth. The Philippines never invests in its peoples scientific abilities and research. This results to the Filipinos' total reliance on other countries to provide coveted science and technology that runs modern life.
2. The Japanese youth enjoy the same forms of entertainment other adolescents of the world experience. The dominant and affecting factors lie in the way the surrounding society reacts to their welfare and situation, and the way their government supports their upbringing.
If we think the Filipino youth's education is not comparable to our neighbor nations' status because of the results of their second language proficiency, our analysis is flawed. Measuring their intellectual ability constitutes employment of various instruments, not just English competence. If we think that our youth has not achieved as much, basing our judgement on the current economy of the Philippines, and of the average family income, our assumptions are short-sighted. Somewhere between the start of the educational process...towards the end of work/economic results, are the policies and contributions of the government, work environments, society, religion, family....It is HOW we utilize our people's energy and potentials that affect much of our current state.
Well, I think I have chatted a lot longer today than usual.....Gtg....Time permits, I'll share more personal thoughts tomorrow. Apologies for my disorganized thoughts. Being "madgirl" is always an excuse for not writing well
