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This is Sparta

November 19, 2019

This weekend the local boy scout troop is doing their annual overnight Bataan Death March: elementary boys (and girls as the scouts here are open to both sexes) will be marching 30km; junior high schoolers, 60 km; and high schoolers, 100km.

Out of curiosity I checked what kind of mileage a Marine recruit puts in over his 13-week-long bootcamp and came up with about 200 miles (320km), which is nothing compared to what these Japanese kids are doing in one night.

Welcome to Sparta!

Note: Looked into the “Bataan Death March” and learned that, one, it was about 100 km long, give or take 5 kilos, two, half of it wasn't on foot, but in rail cars, and, three, it took place over a period of about three days. It always sounded like hell on earth to me—and I'm sure it wasn't easy (heat, lack of potable water)—but, geez, little Japanese boys and girls here are doing it overnight with little more than a water bottle and a couple of o-nigiri. These kids are tough!

In Family, Life in Japan, Raising Kids in Japan Tags Boy Scouts in Japan, Naraigoto
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all or nothing.jpg

All or Nothing

November 16, 2019

Been thinking about attrition rates in karate recently. My elder son went to Kumamoto for a friendly soccer match early this morning. Every time I go to his practice, it seems the number of kids on the field has been getting bigger and bigger. Meanwhile, although the number of kids at the dōjō has increased, every year there are fewer and fewer of the older kids. And it's not just our dōjō. At last week's tournament, for instance, there were 27 third graders among the boys, 20 fifth graders, 11 seventh graders (中1), and only 2 thirteenth graders (中3).

I think there are a number of reasons for this, not least of which is that it ain't fun getting punched and kicked in the head on a regular basis. The biggest factor, though, has to be the all-or-nothing, total commitment mentality to your chosen hobby here. The notion of a season for a sport doesn't quite translate.

When I was a kid in the States, I played baseball in the summer, soccer in the fall, basketball and skiing in the winter, and track and field in the spring. Each season was just long enough to help you improve your skill, but short enough to keep you from burning out. If you wanted to take a break from sports for one season, there was no penalty. Thanks to that, a healthy active kid can continue playing the sports he likes all the way from elementary school through high school.

Here, it's the opposite: you join a soccer team or swim team or whatever and you do it all year long. If you are bumped up into a higher class, like my sons with karate, then you are doing it two, three, four, even five times a week all year long.

My wife and I used to have arguments about this. She'd get upset that our boys weren't doing better in tournaments or weren't focusing during practice. I would counter, "They're only five and eight. There's no hurry. Let them enjoy it and later on they can take it more seriously. I mean think about it: nobody is going to be impressed by a twenty-something-year-old who boasts: 'I was a karate baddass when I was seven years old!' It won't matter in the end. Continuing, however, will."

I wasn't very convincing, I'm afraid, but she eventually gave in and let them practice at their own pace which is twice a week rather than fourth. More before a tournament.

The other day, my wife and I were talking about what our sons will do when they start junior high school. She said she was thinking of letting them quit karate. Again, I said, "Why does it have to be all or fucking nothing all the time? I want them to continue. They don't need to go to the dōjō five times a week, but they should try to go at least twice a month to blow off steam. Jump into a tournament every few months where all they have to do is win one bout to bring home a trophy because everyone else has quit and there's no competition."

It was like an epiphany. "Oh, I hadn't considered that option."

So, my elder son is contemplating joining kendo when he enters junior high. I guess it looks like Star Wars to him. I'm hoping he'll try to stick to a team sport, like his soccer, so that he can have a good cadre of friends throughout his junior high school years.

In Family, Education, Sports Tags Karate, Naraigoto, Bukatsu, Club Activities in Japan, Hobbies in Japan, Raising Kids in Japan
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Naraigoto IMG_0240.jpg

Gotta Naraigoto

March 18, 2019

Ask a group of Japanese under the age of, say, thirty-five if they'd had lessons—what the Japanese call narai goto or o-keiko—when they were young, and you'll probably find most, if not all, did. Having been in the Eikaiwa (English conversation) trade for many years and having personally taught many preschool and elementary school aged children, I know from experience that Japanese children maintain schedules that would have American kids on their knees, crying, "Uncle!"

The whole business of training, cultivating, and educating children would be interesting to research some day. In the meantime, here are the results of a half-arsed survey I did the other day.

Of the twenty university sophomores (18♀/2♂) that I surveyed, 17 had had lessons of some kind before starting elementary school. By the time they had enrolled in elementary school, all of them were taking some kind of lesson. The most popular lessons were piano (15), swimming (13), calligraphy (11), and English and cram school, i.e. juku (10). Asked if they would also send their own children to these kinds of lessons, 19 said yes. The type and number of lessons they would like their children to take, however, changed.

I've long been interested in knowing not only what people studied and when, but also whether they feel they had benefitted from the lessons and whether they would do the same for their own children. Most, it appears, feel they did and would make their future children do likewise. 

As a father myself the time will come soon enough when I will be forced to decide if I will make my own son take these kinds of lessons and what I will have him study. I am already leaning towards lessons in a third language, guitar, calligraphy, soccer, abacus, and swimming. The poor kid.

I originally wrote this blog post back in 2011 when my elder son was only a year old. Now that he is almost nine, I can say that the third language probably won’t happen until high school—getting the boys to be bilingual is hard work enough—musical lessons won’t happen unless they decide to pick something up themselves. Calligraphy? What was I thinking? That said, the older boy has nice handwriting thanks to his mother’s constant berating. The final three narai goto have worked out alright. The boys love soccer and have played on “teams” for several years now. Abacus, or soroban, can’t be more highly recommended. As for swimming, with their tight schedules it’s hard to put them in regular lessons, so we drop them off at intensive courses every long holiday. In addition to those, the boys have been doing karate two to four times a week. They also have English lessons with Daddy a few times a week.

In Family, Life in Japan, Parenting, Raising Kids in Japan Tags Raising Kids in Japan, Raising Kids, Naraigoto, Early Childhood Education, 習い事, Extra-curricular Activities
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The magazine Keiko to Manabu, a subsidiary of Recruit, publishes an annual survey on extracurricular activities.

The magazine Keiko to Manabu, a subsidiary of Recruit, publishes an annual survey on extracurricular activities.

After School Activities in Japan

January 22, 2019

I have been trying to put a piece together on extracurricular activities in Japan with comparison to the situation in the States. There are loads of stats on naraigoto (習い事, after school lessons) here, but much less information concerning extracurricular lessons and activities in America. The Census Bureau claimed that 6 out of 10 kids in the US participated in some kind of extracurricular activity, but didn’t give much detail as to what kind or how often. One interesting nugget in the report was that only 8% of children in America were taking part in all three activities (i.e. sports, clubs, and lessons) at the same time. Children referred to those in grades K-12.

As for our family, my second-grade son does karate 2-4 times a week, soccer 2-3 times, soroban (abacus) once a week, and English once a week with his friends from kindergarten. He has mini English lessons with me a few times a week in addition to the lesson with his friends. During school breaks, we enroll him in swim lessons. For half of last year, he was in a shōgi (Japanese chess) class a few times a month. His 6-year-old brother has a similar schedule, minus the shōgi, and soccer is only once a week. In the winter months, I take the boys ice skating every other week.

Living downtown as we do, almost all of the lessons are a short walk away.

When my elder son was in his infancy, I had ideas about what lessons I would have him take—English, of course, but also calligraphy, classic guitar, and so on. None of that happened, except for the English.

His first activity was Play School. A bit expensive, but highly recommended. Shortly after he entered elementary school, though, he grew tired of it. Karate became the focus. At first it was only 1-2 times a week, but after getting his arse whooped in a tournament, he told his mother that he wanted to become stronger, so she started taking him to the main dōjō. Soccer was started as a way to maintain the friendships with his kindergarten friends but last year he changed teams, again in order to be a better player. Soccer is his passion at the moment and he doesn’t mind going to every practice. He insists even though he is exhausted afterwards.

The other day, I was walking past the Eishinkan Juku (cram school) just as the kids were getting out. It was Saturday evening and they kids looked as if the life had been sucked right out of them.

Cram schools like Eishinkan offer tests free to the public as a way to, one, check the level of the eggheads who study at their school with that of non-juku kids, and, two, to scare parents whose kids don’t go into following the herd and sending their own children as well. It’s a funny business.

We had our boy take the test a few weeks ago are now waiting the results. Ideally we would like to avoid jukus as long as possible, but I wonder how feasible it is. At the moment only a handful of his second grade classmates go, but by fifth grade apparently it’s the reverse. Even kids who are not going to take a private junior high school’s entrance exam go to juku which always has me scratching my head.

The Keiko to Manabu report had some interesting stats on narai goto in Japan.

graph_1121_01.png

44% of kids surveyed engaged in one extracurricular activity. 34% two part in two. 16% had three. 5%, like our sons, had four.

d25184-96-224977-3.jpg

40.8% of kids had swim lessons

27.7% had English lessons

20.3% Piano

14.1% Calligraphy

13.5% Cram School

12.8% Gymnastics

8.6% Soccer

7.1% Soroban/Abacus

5.1% Other Sports

4.3% Dance

4.3% Karate

In Life in Japan, Raising Kids in Japan Tags Naraigoto, Extra-curricular Activities, Afterschool Activities
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