Graduation

Thursday, Nishinomiya held their twenty or so junior high school graduations. In Japan graduation from junior high school is an extremely big deal. This struck me as strange at first, but when I thought about it, it made better sense.

What makes junior high school graduation so big is the fact that this is the last time these kids will attend a neighborhood school. After Kawaragi, the students will attend high schools all across the Kansai area. Some students will spend more than an hour commuting to school each way. Add onto this the stress of ‘high stakes’ testing.

‘High stakes’ testing begins in kindergarten for many students. They will test to get into the right school. If you see an elementary school student in a uniform, they are in a private elementary. Japanese public school students begin wearing uniforms at the junior high level. With each level of school, kids can test into different programs. By the time they get into junior high school, the tests are more difficult and they have greater repercussions. The high school they get into determines the college they are likely to attend. The college they attend will determine their eventual career. Those are the stakes that the kids face at 15 in junior high school.

Parents will sacrifice many things for their children in helping their child prepare for school. The ‘high stakes’ testing, coupled with these sacrifices actually work to stunt the emotional development of many Japanese. This, in part explains the Japanese fascination with adult cartoon books, Manga.

You can see that I am reading too much.

Graduation began at 9:30. It is almost the same ceremony as it is in the US. There are just different songs and simple formalities that set it apart. It is a very formal ceremony, all of the teachers where suits and some dress in a more traditional dress. The graduation ceremony lasted an hour and a half. Besides the graduating students there were probably 200 parents in attendance and less than 50 students from the other grades. Seating was limited and so only student leaders, and students actually performing in the ceremony are allowed to attend.

The best part of the ceremony was the reception in the field afterward. They had drawn lines in the field for the graduating students to walk through on their last stroll through campus. They actually left the school, walked around the outside of the school grounds and returned to the field. They then spent a couple of hours taking pictures and saying goodbye. Here are just a couple of kids I wish I could get to know better.