School priorities

I am by no means an expert on what I’m about to talk about, so I would love to hear what others have to say if they know more on the subject!

But one thing I’ve noticed about my school in particular, and about schools here in general thanks to Japanese media, is that grades and behavior are not important. Attendance and test scores are all that matter. If you fail a class, you still may continue to the next grade. If you missed the vast majority of your classes, and you fail all of them as a result, you still step up to the next grade. Nobody is held back, though similarly nobody is advanced forward prematurely. Moreover, it’s nearly cause for celebration if a class has zero absences, and there seems to be tests every other week at certain points in the year, but when it comes to overall performance, if it’s below average, it’s not really a cause for concern, unless of course it’s a sudden change in behavior and they do take that into account (one would hope). I have a few students that don’t do any class work and probably no homework in any of their classes, and while I have no idea what their test scores are like, I know that most of my teachers back home would not let that fly, and would fail the students in question and not let them advance to the next grade level. But here they just ignore it and shrug it off with an, “It can’t be helped” sort of attitude, or worse they just laugh it off with a, “Kids will be kids” sort of attitude.

Once it's time to get ready for college entrance exams, however, THE PRESSURE IS ON. And once you're in the college, the pressure is OFF. And once you are ready to join the work place, THE PRESSURE IS BACK ON FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.