Questions about Canadian schoolkids

Hi there.

As I’m sure most of you know, I’m teaching English at a Japanese junior high school. We’re doing a section on school in other countries, and I’ve been getting a few questions from my students that I don’t know the answer to. Plus, school has no doubt changed quite a bit since I’ve been there. So if anyone could answer these questions for me I’d appreciate it.

  1. About what percentage of Junior High students have cell phones? (Note: junior high in Japan is roughly equivalent to grades 7, 8, and 9 in Canada).

  2. Are students allowed to bring cell phones to school?

  3. Are students allowed to bring gameboys and whatnot to school? For that matter, what are they allowed/not allowed to bring? (eg., magazines, books, cards, etc.)

  4. What do students usually have for lunch? Do PRSS/CHSS have cafeterias?

  5. What clubs are available at school? Are students allowed to belong to more than one club?

  6. What kind of events do schools have? (eg., sports day, arts revue, school play)

That’s all I’ve got for now, but I may come back with more as more questions come up.

Thanks for your help in advance!

Stardog Champion.

Edit: here are a few more:

  1. How many classes to students have each day?

  2. How long are the classes? (When I was in school, it was five 60-minute classes per day. Is it still the same?)

  3. What are the rules for going home from school? Are kids allowed to go off downtown after school, or do they have to go straight home first?

  4. Are students still allowed to go home for lunch if they live close to the school?

[quote=“Stardog Champion”]

  1. About what percentage of Junior High students have cell phones?

  2. Are students allowed to bring cell phones to school?

  3. Are students allowed to bring gameboys and whatnot to school? For that matter, what are they allowed/not allowed to bring? (eg., magazines, books, cards, etc.)

  4. What do students usually have for lunch? Do PRSS/CHSS have cafeterias?

  5. What clubs are available at school? Are students allowed to belong to more than one club?

  6. What kind of events do schools have? (eg., sports day, arts revue, school play)

  7. How many classes to students have each day?

  8. How long are the classes? (When I was in school, it was five 60-minute classes per day. Is it still the same?)

  9. What are the rules for going home from school? Are kids allowed to go off downtown after school, or do they have to go straight home first?

  10. Are students still allowed to go home for lunch if they live close to the school?[/quote]

Lets see… it’s been a lil while since I was in school… but I’ll answer how it was in grade 12 so others will have something to compare it to:

1- When I graduated in 1997, I’d say possibly 1% of middle school students would have had cell phones. I got my first one my first year of college.

2- We wouldn’t have been able to bring them to school if we had them.

3- We were allowed to bring gameboys and discmans to school as long as we didn’t use them during class time, or if we asked the teacher we could listen to our discmans while doing work.

4- CHSS and PRSS didn’t have cafeterias per say, but they had eating areas and a small place where you could buy things for lunch, like slices of pizza, salad, sandwiches, chips, popcorn etc, and they had one hot meal a day (that usually only 20 or so people got if they were fast.)

5- Students could belong to as many clubs as they wanted to, as long as they had time to juggle meetings for each one. There was drama club, art club, outdoors club, science clubs, yearbook club, and possibly sort of an auto club too.

6- Schools had events like dances, plays, musicals, track meets, big basketball games, and other sports events. PRSS always had a musical and the Fashion Show every year.

7- We had 5 classes day.

8- Each class was around an hour long.Our lunch was only 40 minutes.

9- Kids could go wherever they wanted as soon as school was over.

10- Kids could go wherever they wanted for lunch, as long as they were back by the start of class. McDonalds was a good spot to go.

I gradudated in 2001 or 2002, and although most of my answers would be the same as smartass’, cell phone ownership was higher, and I’m sure it’s even higher now.

For myself at least, when I think of a typical Japanese student, I think of some girl who can type 75 WPM on her cell phone with her thumbs.

[quote=“Eso”]I gradudated in 2001 or 2002, and although most of my answers would be the same as smartass’, cell phone ownership was higher, and I’m sure it’s even higher now.

For myself at least, when I think of a typical Japanese student, I think of some girl who can type 75 WPM on her cell phone with her thumbs.[/quote]

Yeah, they sure can. Then again, so can I. We did a straw poll in my first year class (grade 7) and about a third of them had cell phones. By third year (grade 9), it would probably be about 60-70%. But of course, they’re not allowed to bring them to school.

When we graded, 2001/2002, there wasnt a “cafateria”, but there was a food buy bar, with an eating area. by the time i graded, I would say about 20% of the grad class has cell phones. From what I’ve noticed though, I’d say the cell phone %'s are way up since then, and I see alot of younger kids with them now. I guess there are 4 classes a day at PRSS, and they are slightly longer, 75-80mins?

Another question: when does the winter vacation start at the two high schools?

Edit: Also, thanks for all your answers. They were really helpful. Things are VERY different over here, as I’m sure you can imagine.

Last day of school before christmas here is December 16th.

Yeah, that’s kinda what I figured. Thanks.

Stardog: For our own curiousity, can you post the answers to all of the above questions from the perspective of the school you teach at?

I’ll post or pm you later. I am in a different part of Canada so it might be interesting for you to see the differences.

This is my first year teaching in a 850 students, grade 6 to 8 middle school in New Brunswick after being at both CHSS and PRSS for many years.

1 & 2. Cell phones are not allowed in the school unless a special permission is granted by administration from a parental request for valid reason. I haven’t seen any kids with phone permission yet. I confiscated an unauthorized phone for a day. A quick poll of about 20 grade 8 students yielded 3 with personal cell phones.

  1. I haven’t seen any gameboys. These students are more hooked on FPS games and MMORPG. Music players ( disc, mp3) are ok during lunch but not in class.

  2. Lunch is a 55 minutes break when students eat in class or at the cafeteria for 20 minutes and then go outside for the rest depending on the weather.

  3. Sports teams, yearbook club, spirit committee, are some of the clubs.

  4. There is a school play later in the year. There is some kareoke contests sometimes. I think their is a band show later. We had a Firefighters challenge recently.

7 & 8. Students have 6 classes of 45 minutes. I personnally dislike the short periods after being used to the 60 min at CHSS and the 77 min at PRSS.

9 & 10. Most students are coming to school by bus so they must remain on school property during the whole day. Those who live near need a lunch pass. The students not taking the bus can go home or wherever after school.

Last day of school is December 23rd here :cry: . Dismissal will be at lunch time.

PM me Stardog, maybe we can discuss more. Maybe I was your teacher too!

Sure, no problem. But first, I thought I’d mention a few basic facts about my school. This is a little long, but I think you’ll find it interesting. If not, feel free to skip ahead to the answers to the questions.

I teach at a junior high school in a small city near Tokyo. I won’t say where exaclty, except to say that it’s close enough that become something of a Tokyo suburb, but far enough away that most Japanese still consider this area to be out in the boonies.

Junior high school runs from grades 7 to 9. Unlike in Canada, each grade is subdivided into different groups, called “kumi.” These groups are like the classes in Elementary school: they do all their classes together, they eat their lunch together, and they even clean up the school together. Yes, you read that right. We have no janitors over here–the students and the teachers are responsible for keeping the school clean.

So, with a little background, the answers to these questions may make a bit more sense.

  1. About what percentage of Junior High students have cell phones?

I did a straw poll in my grade 7 class, and about 30% of them had their own cell phones. I’m sure that grade 9’s have even more, and the numbers would be higher still if you were to ask at a school in a major city like Tokyo or Osaka.

  1. Are students allowed to bring cell phones to school?

No. I don’t know what the confiscation policy is, but I do know they’re not allowed to bring them.

  1. Are students allowed to bring gameboys and whatnot to school? For that matter, what are they allowed/not allowed to bring? (eg., magazines, books, cards, etc.)

No electronic devices of any kind are allowed. For other things like board games or playing cards, the policy varies from school to school. Mine’s pretty strict; students may not bring anything not directly related to their studies or club activites. Nor are teachers allowed to provide such things.

  1. What do students usually have for lunch?

While there are some exceptions, most schools have a school lunch program. Each meal is made at a central distribution center in the city and delivered to the schools.

They’re actually quite well balanced meals: they get either rice or bread, a soup or a stew (or sometimes noodles like spaghetti or udon), a meat or fish, and a salad or vegetable dish, as well as a small carton of milk. They sometimes even get a little dessert.

And no, they’re not allowed to bring anything of their own to eat, though I suppose if a student had serious allergies they might be flexible. Also, teachers have to eat the same lunch, and if they’re in charge of a kumi, they have to eat in the classroom with the students.

The students get 45 minutes for lunch, then 15 minutes afterwards to go outside or play indoors.

  1. What clubs are available at school? Are students allowed to belong to more than one club?

Nearly every student joins a club, and most of them are sports clubs. Most are the same as in Canada (baseball, soccer, tennis etc.), but some are more, shall we say, exotic. For example, ping-pong is considered a legitimate sport in schools here. Many schools also have judo, kendo, and kyudo (Japanese archery)

Other clubs include science, multimedia, art, calligraphy, shogi (Japanese chess), go, and in high schools you might also find tea ceremony and ikebana (flower arrangging). Band clubs are also quite popular.

Students are only allowed to join one club. Also, as a rule, they can’t switch clubs, though I’ve seen exceptions made in some circumstances. Each club runs year round, and most have daily pratctices after school. Some even have morning and weekend practices too.

  1. What kind of events do schools have? (eg., sports day, arts revue, school play)

Every semester usually has a couple of major events. In fall, the students have a sports day, which they actually spend a week or so practicing for. They also have a “culture festival,” with an inter-kumi (see above) choral singing competition. They often also have a free-stage section where students are allowed to do something like play the piano, sing a song, dance, etc. I actually played bass with a couple of my kids who wanted to do an Ozzy Osbourne tune. It was a lot of fun.

Also, the students in each grade do one field trip per year. At my school, the grade 7s go on a ski trip, grade 8s go to Yokohama for a day, and grade 9s go to Kyoto and Nara for three days.

  1. How many classes to students have each day?

Five or six depending on the day of the week.

  1. How long are the classes? (When I was in school, it was five 60-minute classes per day. Is it still the same?)

Each class is 50 minutes long, though they may be shortened to 45 minutes if the need arises.

  1. What are the rules for going home from school? Are kids allowed to go off downtown after school, or do they have to go straight home first?

Students must go straight to school and straight home on pre-assigned routes. They must wear their uniforms or P.E. clothes to and from school so they can be easily identified. These rules have been quite striclty enforced in recent months due to some high profile cases of young students being abducted and murdered. This is coupled by the fact that the school is technically responsible for the students’ wellbeing from the time they leave for school till the time they go home.

  1. Are students still allowed to go home for lunch if they live close to the school?

No. They may not leave the school grounds at all during school hours.

If you have any other questions, feel free to post them and I’ll answer them as best as I can.

It seems that your school is more authoritarian than we’re used to. But I think the most glaring difference is that the students can only belong to a single club (although that club is more intensive than our equivalent).

Question about the food: Are any of the students (or teachers, for that matter) vegetarians? Or is veganism “non-conformist” and outlawed?

For anyone who’s interested, I’ve followed Mig’s advice and I’m starting up a photo blog of things I’ve seen in Japan. It’s still in the developmental stages right now, but I’ll post the address as soon as the first post is ready.

If you want, we can add it to the rotation on the front of HTMF (like the other photo blogs). Are you using blogger or something that can produce an RSS feed?

Wow, that’s be great. Thanks! I’m using blogger, so it should be easy enough.

I should have my first post ready in a few minutes.

Edit: It may take a little longer. Blogger’s giving me trouble when I try to upload images for some reason :frowning:

  1. About what percentage of Junior High students have cell phones? (Note: junior high in Japan is roughly equivalent to grades 7, 8, and 9 in Canada).
    –> Maybe 50%.

  2. Are students allowed to bring cell phones to school?
    –> As long as they’re not camera phones. Must be turned off during class.

  3. Are students allowed to bring gameboys and whatnot to school? For that matter, what are they allowed/not allowed to bring? (eg., magazines, books, cards, etc.)
    –> No gameboys in class, “appropriate” magazines only (no maxim, stuff, playboy, guns, etc.)

  4. What do students usually have for lunch? Do PRSS/CHSS have cafeterias?
    –> I saw lots of sandwiches, chips and cup of soup. We had a cafeteria at caledonia with hot lunch (hot dogs, soup), cold lunch (veggie trays, etc.) and vending machines full of junk.

  5. What clubs are available at school? Are students allowed to belong to more than one club?
    –> Umm… photo club, physics club, newspaper club, magazine club, breakdance club and lots more. I was in 4 clubs.

  6. What kind of events do schools have? (eg., sports day, arts revue, school play)
    –> Coffee house (free coffee & donuts, listen to students play music, recite poetry etc), school spirit week (lots of stuff).

  7. How many classes to students have each day?
    –> 4 individual classes, 5 if you include the fact that one class is repeated twice in one day; double-block system.

  8. How long are the classes? (When I was in school, it was five 60-minute classes per day. Is it still the same?)
    –> Hour and 15 minutes each x5. so i remember my schedule being like: carpentry, info tech, physics, physics, english.

  9. What are the rules for going home from school? Are kids allowed to go off downtown after school, or do they have to go straight home first?
    –> Do whatever they want. Many of them go home for lunch, many go home for spare block classes, just do whatever you want after school. You can’t just leave and skip a class though, obviously. Well… you can, but you’re easily caught on to.

  10. Are students still allowed to go home for lunch if they live close to the school?
    –> You bet. I think I drove home (15 minutes each way) once during a lunch because i forgot something at home.

[quote=“Eso”]It seems that your school is more authoritarian than we’re used to. But I think the most glaring difference is that the students can only belong to a single club (although that club is more intensive than our equivalent).

Question about the food: Are any of the students (or teachers, for that matter) vegetarians? Or is veganism “non-conformist” and outlawed?[/quote]

Good question. Most people don’t even have a clue what vegetarianism is, which is strange considering that most people here are Buddhists, and Buddhism traditionally frowns upon eating meat. It’s not outlawed, but people will frown upon those who deviate from the norm. Ditto for those who don’t drink alcohol (only for those who are of the proper age, of course.)

Vegetarians are annoying

[quote=“Stardog Champion”]

[quote=“Eso”]It seems that your school is more authoritarian than we’re used to. But I think the most glaring difference is that the students can only belong to a single club (although that club is more intensive than our equivalent).

Question about the food: Are any of the students (or teachers, for that matter) vegetarians? Or is veganism “non-conformist” and outlawed?[/quote]

Good question. Most people don’t even have a clue what vegetarianism is, which is strange considering that most people here are Buddhists, and Buddhism traditionally frowns upon eating meat. It’s not outlawed, but people will frown upon those who deviate from the norm. Ditto for those who don’t drink alcohol (only for those who are of the proper age, of course.)[/quote]

I also ostracize people who don’t drink alcohol.

If it’s good enough for Bing Crosby, it’s good enough for you.