Lessons to be learned

I realize that this blog was supposed to be about my experiences in Japan and most of what I’ve written about has been political. It’s time to get this thing on track. The next two posts will be a partial list of things that I thing the American and Japanese systems can learn from each other. Today, what the Americans can learn from the Japanese.

1. Seisou: Pronounced say so, this is a set period of the day, (usually after lunch or the last thing of the day) where the students clean the school. The students are split into groups and assigned an area of the school to clean, supervised by a teacher. The students are armed with dust mops (essentially over sized swiffers), brooms, dustpans, and damp hand towels. Other groups also clean the bathrooms and the first floor windows. Due to the danger involved, adult janitors clean the windows on the second floor and higher. The duty roster is rotated weekly so that students get a verity of experiences . . . and only have to clean the toilets once every few months. Seisou typically lasts about 10-20 minutes.

I believe American schools should implement a similar program immediately. The start up costs might worry some districts because the schools would have to buy the cleaning supplies. But in the long term this will actually save the school money because A) they might be able to cut a janitor and B) the school will be less likely to have to clean up after major messes once the students are conditioned to think “If I make a mess, I have to clean it up.” Or “If I make a mess, my classmates have to clean it up and then they will be pissed at me over it.” The schools will also have to rework their schedules to allow 10 to 20 minutes a day for this, but that shouldn’t be too hard.

I can hear the American parents complaining already. “That’s the janitor’s job!” “It’s not fun.” “You are NOT teaching my child to be a janitor!!” No, we’re teaching your child to clean up after themselves, work within a group, and to respect public property by not making a mess in the first place. Got a problem with that?

Of course, the biggest obstacle would be the students, who would flat out refuse to do this. Since there is no real system of punishment in American schools (another issue entirely) the teachers have no way to force the students to do anything.

2. School Lunch: American school lunches are a disgrace! Burgers, fries, coke, pizza, and “food” that is so full of chemicals that you can’t even tell what it’s supposed to be. (What part of the chicken is a “nugget” anyway?) No wonder we are known around the world for our legendary waistlines. The Japanese have this crazy concept that since children have this one meal a day that the school provides, it should be as healthy as humanly possible.

The typical Japanese school lunch consists of a bowl of rice, a bowl of soup or stew, a salad, a protein item, and a box of milk. About 65% of the time the rice is plain but will occasionally be served with other foods or flavorings mixed in. The soup is usually a vegetable soup or a mix of vegetables and meat. The salad is usually a cold salad with little or no dressing. The protein is usually grilled, baked, or fried fish but will occasionally be a meat item instead. Roughly once a week, a desert is served. Every so often they mix up the menu and will have ramen day, bread & cream soup day, sushi day, etc. The average calorie count is 725kcal at the middle school level and 675kcal at elementary school.

These lunches are prepared at the district’s Lunch Center, a HUGE professional kitchen with a staff of 15 to 20 depending on the size of the district. From there, the fresh food is trucked to the schools daily. A great deal of time, money, and research is put into making the school lunch as nutritional as possible.

School lunch is compulsory and is free to elementary school students while the middle school and older must pay $30 a month. Many schools have alternate programs to deal with families who can’t pay.

Again, this is something we need to start doing and something the parents and schools will never stand for. The main reason: Yes, it’s expensive. However, it actually costs more to the students under today’s system. When I was in high school, the hot lunch cost between $2 and $2.50 a day. With a $30 fee for a month, that’s a dollar a day at most. The thing I see most parents complaining about is making school lunch mandatory. “You’re stealing our children’s freedom of choice!” No, we are trying to teach them healthy eating habits and save you time and money in the process. Got a problem with that?

3. Break Homework: Yeah, this is never going to happen. Japanese students have a packet of home work that they have to do over all of the major school breaks. Typically, it’s a packet of worksheets that review material from the previous semester and prepares them for the next. Since it is all but assumed that students will put this off until the last minute, this gives them a chance to refresh their memories right before they are dropped back into a full school schedule. Considering that American school take the “treatment is better that prevention” method and spend the first month or two of every school year re teaching what came the year before, this is probably the best idea of the bunch.

Other ideas that didn’t make this list because I know they would never fly in an American public school: School uniforms, 220 day school year, physical discipline, and home visits by teachers.

Stay tuned for the opposite side of the scale, things that the Americans can learn from the Japanese.

Soiling my childhood.

Before I begin, I should remind the reader that I am a proud Military Brat. I grew up on international Air Force bases. I love the American military because I understand it at a level that people who have never been associated with the armed forces, whether in uniform or not, can't understand. That said, I can no longer remain silent.

Fredrick Douglass once said, "A patriot is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse it's sins." It is in that definition of patriotism that I read with a heavy heart yet another example of crimes committed by American servicemen against Japanese citizens. These are not minor crimes either, I'm talking about theft, rape, gang rape, and murder. Not a month goes by that another of these stories doesn't hit the news cycle. It's always the same. An enlisted man gets drunk and then does something so mind buggeringly stupid that it damages a 60 year old political and military alliance. It's been going on for years but the most recent dust up started about 11 months ago when a marine allegedly raped a 14 year old girl. Although the case was later dropped, reportedly because the parents didn't want to put their daughter through the ordeal of a trial, accusation is the same as conviction in the court of public opinion (and too frequently in the Japanese legal system) and so the damage was done. Today's story was about a naval petty officer who allegedly stabbed a 61-year old Japanese taxi driver to death.

I understand that this has received little or no coverage in the US news media. Considering the current political climate, that is understandable if not excusable. I can provide links to sources for these stories if it is requested in the comment section.

That's it for the reporting, now for the commentary:

What the hell happened to the military I grew up in? More specifically, what the hell happened to the discipline and training that made us the envy of the world? The people who have allegedly committed these crimes, guilty or not, have brought shame and dishonor down upon a worldwide organization. When you put on that uniform, you become a part of something bigger than yourself and your successes and failures, professional or personal, reflect on that group.

I preface this next statement with the following: I have never gone through basic training for any branch, nor do I intend to and it has been over a decade since I was a part of military life. Last I checked, the group connection that I spoke of in the previous paragraph was the first thing taught to the recruits. That's also why Conduct Unbecoming a (insert name of branch here) has been an offense meriting discharge since time immemorial. Regardless of whether or not the military justice system throws the book to them, the men involved in these crimes clearly didn't get the message and the armed forces will be better without them.

I believe that this is a symptom of a larger problem. Specifically, the current state of recruitment practices. Understandably enough, war time is when recruitment rates in an all volunteer army falls like a stone. Considering that our forces are being stretched way too thin at the moment, we need all the men and women we can get. Therefore, all branches have been forced to drastically drop recruitment requirements in order to meet quotas. This includes a lower passing bar on intelligence and psychological testing and a willingness to permit those with criminal backgrounds to train with firearms. If this sounds like anything but a bad idea then you need reading lessons.

When you take dumb, psychologically unsound, former criminals, put them in uniform, arm them, and force them to face the fact that death is a real possibility for the immediate future, you are asking for trouble. Add to that the fact that many of the younger enlisted men and officers see military service as the world's greatest frat house (an image the USMC seems to actively encourage) and you have a recipe for disaster. The people who fight for our country, who we trust billions of dollars of equipment to, need to be the best and brightest and not the lowest common denominator.

After all this, I still hate to say anything against the military. But when a culture that you
love (and that's what the military is, a culture all its own) is under siege, then you have to say something. I started this post with a quote, so I'll end with one.

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." --Mark Twain