This is my essay.



The old building of the Ministry of Education and Science




@@Contents
1. Prologue
2. 100 Calculation
3. The Disruption of Family
4. My Wife's Policy
5. The Graduates of Tokyo Univ.
6. Soaring up Tution Fees
7. Reality of Rich and Poor


1. Prologue

As it was the continuous holidays in Japan, so-called "The Golden Week", I took a train for the travel. At the station I bought an economic monthly magazine, whose title was "The President". I expected to read some economic articles for useful to my investment. However most of the articles were concerning the education matters in Japan. The Japanese readers of this magazine seemed to face not only hard company jobs but also serious education matters on their own children. Of course formerly I was one of them. However my role of education to my daughter and son had finished more than 10 years ago. Even if I read this kind of educational articles, I would feel as if it was a matter of somewhere in a remote country. In short, I realized that I had finished my job of education as a father. But once I bought this magazine, I started to read it and these articles reminded me of many happenings of more than 10 years ago in my family.

2. 100 Calculation

It is quite rare for me to read some educational articles. Most of them were very fresh for me. Three articles impressed me. The first article was the interview to the principal of a primary school. His name is Mr. Hideo Kageyama. I knew his name, because he is famous for inventing an educational method of the 100 columns' calculation. It makes children to calculate of 100 multiple 100 calculations. But his theory is not only that. He stresses that to keep a good and healthy family relation is important for education. The second article that I thought nicely was the shifting of CEOs' universities among the famous companies in Japan. The third articles were the sudden increase of the number of NEETs (People who are Not in Education, Employment or Training) and freeters (Those people who work as only temporary staffs).

Mr. Hideo Kageyama insists that only the method of the 100 columns' calculation cannot give a perfect answer to children's education. The true problems that we should solve are how to keep a healthy family life. The children are affected by commuting to the prep-school, long time watching TV, the divorce of their parents and so on, which claim children the power to life. So Mr. Hideo Kageyama wrote in his book that "To sleep early, To get up early and To take breakfast" are important. Through keeping these three principles, the family habit should improve and children will be able to get good scores at school. Only under such situation, the method of the 100 columns' calculation would be dramatically effective.

In addition to this, the method of the 100 columns' calculation will give the chance for parents to get in touch to their children. Through doing this calculation, children will be easy to talk to parents what happened in their school lives. The parents should know what children are thinking at the moments. The time of the calculation will also give them the goal to overcome. This will bring them good effects on not only the education but also our family lives.

After reading this, I was forced to remind of my stupid trial of education. When my children reached to the age of third and fourth grade of the primary school, I was asked by my wife to teach them. I agreed and I started to make questions. Although I thought the questions were so easy for them but actually they were quite difficult, because of beyond curriculum. Children could not solve and I was angry about it. Finally I stopped within a few months. I found that it was quite difficult for parents to teach their children, because we could not tore late to each other's. If there were such method of the 100 columns' calculation, I might be a better coach to them. This is only one excuse for me.

Another article of the President illustrated a father, just like as me. He was so educational. For example, he had taught children, every time when they finished their dinner. His father scolded his son. He said to him "Why didn't you understand such a simple questions?" After this experience, his son challenged to the examination test to a high school, but he failed. He wanted to start his work, but his father urged him to go to a specialist's school, which get rid of confidence on working from him. Since then, he has repeated working for a while and stopping it soon.

This episode reminded me of my false on my coaching to my children. Luckily they were still so small and I stopped my coaching only after a few months. If I would continue my coaching until they had grown up, I might trial the same road as this educational father. Anyway, as the Chinese proverb says, "Good things would easily turn to bad and vice versa, which is our life." In my case, my daughter found that she didn't like to be forced to study. So she kept studying by herself and finally she had become a doctor. This is a good side effect of my coaching.

3. The Disruption of Family

Returning to the article of the President, the children's mal-attitude was reported. Some children wear strange style and others cannot attend to their school. But these are only a start of their crime and so on. A researcher of the family issue court, the reason of these problems would be only superficial. The real reasons come from bad circumstances of their family or divorce of their parents. The writer, Mr. Shinsuke Ogino pointed out the factors as below.

(1) Parents compare their child's ability or character with their brothers and sisters' abilities or characters and scold he/her.
(2) A husband scolds or looks down his wife or vice versa.
(3) Parents evaluate their children with only the scores of their school.
(4) Parents make up some ideal image on their children and force them to become like the image.
(5) When a husband needs his wife, she doesn't like to help him and vice versa.

He said, "In short, it is important to make up a common understanding among a family and to think about family members on their sides and communicate each others"

To think of myself, I had done (1) and (3), which seemed to be very bad. Now I repent it, but too late. When I was young, I didn't think about it. The person who covered my failure was my wife. I deeply appreciate her. For example, she praised me in front of children. She said, "Your father is doing a very important job and a very great person, and so on." This is why my family has been doing well. However the only one problem that we can't evade was the entrance examination war of children's school.

4. My Wife's Policy

My. Hideo Kageyama mentioned about a mother staying a suburb of Osaka. She is very educational mother. Once her daughter was diagnosis that she was so-called a Learning Defect child, she has always taught her side-by-side every day. Finally she succeeded in entrance examination to a private secondary school and her scores are so wonderful. He observed that this mother was very eager to help her daughter. She was not only educational but also very gentle to her handicapped daughter. Although she is not a specialist, she makes up hand-made textbook only useful to her daughter. She has a special talent to know her daughter and how to teach her.

My wife was exactly similar to this mother. I was so impressed by her that she had never scolded children, when she coached our children. If I were she, I would scold our children, accusing why they could not get right answers. Then they would easily lose their incentives for study. However my wife was completely different from my way. She is very patient. She observed our children's situation, even their mood of that time; she selected what and how to teach to them. For example, my daughter was a type of studying by herself. My wife has already known about it and she had suggested necessary materials for her study in time. To the contrary, my son was the type to study by coaching, she had prepared sold materials in advance and taught them to him every day.

Their primary school was located in front of my apartment. When my children were playing in lunchtime on the playground on the top of the school building, my wife could see them from the veranda of my house. Then they moved their hands to each other. As soon as my son came back to my house, he rushed out of my house for playing outside. When it was 6:00pm in the evening, the chime of the school delivered a song, which gave a sign for children to go back to their houses. After hearing it, my son came back. Then he took a dinner with us. Soon he watched TV program of the baseball. The program would finish around 9:15pm. After that my wife started coaching to him for about one hour. According to my wife, as she had not enough time to coach, she had to condense the contents of coaching of that day through studying by herself in advance. She had done an intensive coaching to him. On those days, I asked her to let me see the textbooks that she was coaching him, I was surprised to see what high level text books they were. I thought they were more than high school level. The primary school children are studying such things now!

Still, my wife happened to have a doubt on her own way for coaching to our son. She thought whether she should send him to a prep school. When an autumn came of the 5th grade of our son, she visited a famous prep school for asking them to accept him. Their reply made her shocked. They said to her that it was already very late for him to join and asked her to give up. She made up her mind that she had to coach him by herself. He enjoyed playing baseball on Sunday as usual. She also continued to coach him as usual until his challenging day to the examination day of a famous private school. During the first one year, his score was not so good. However a few months before of the examination day, his score suddenly had soared up. My daughter and I told to each other that it was because he gave up to watch TV program of the baseball. When I told about his behavior, no one could believe that it happened in the middle of the present Tokyo. As a whole, I think that he could pass good days when he was in the primary school.

On the examination day of a February, he challenged to the private school on a snow-falling day. He successfully passed the examination of one of the most famous three private schools in Tokyo. Our surrounding people were surprised to know about it and they could not find the proper reason why he passed without going to a prop school. It was no wonder, because I was the one who was the most surprised.

After entering the private school, he was said to be only one who passed the entrance examination without going to the prep school. In general, it is often observed that some students would have already burnt out after entering to the private school, because they had exhausted their mental energy for going to prep school before entering the school. Luckily my son did not belong to such group, because he had already played enough when he was in a primary school. When other children were doing hard study at some prep schools for a few years, he could escape it, owing to his mother's coaching. As the result, he directly passed the entrance examination of the University of Tokyo.

The half number of the students of his class passed the entrance examination of the University of Tokyo, which is said to be the most difficult university to enter in Japan. It shows how his private school is high level. But even if his high school were good, to depend upon his school too much would be not so appropriate. For example, when my son was the second grade of the high school, I asked him what he was studying in the Japanese history. He replied that he was studying farmers' rebel of the 7th century. It was in spring, when his new grade just started. And in September I asked him the same question. He said that he was studying farmers' rebel in the 18th century. Then I realized that the teacher of the history was strange, who was not an appropriate teacher for the study of the entrance examination to the university. So I let my son to study only the subject of the Japanese history at the prep school. He seemed to be happy to know the whole history of Japan. This was only one experience to study at a prep school. As for the mathematics, on which my wife is a specialist, his school had taught to the students as their teacher thought best. So they didn't follow to the official curriculum authorized by the Ministry of Education. One day a parents and teachers' meeting of the secondary 1st grade was held. One mother asked the teacher whether there is a suitable side-study book on mathematics. The teacher said, "No, I don't think there is, because we teach them the high school level". All of the parents who attended were surprised.

5. The Graduates of Tokyo Univ.

Returning to the article of the President, they showed us a statistic the graduated university of the CEOs of the Japanese top 1500 companies. Formerly most of them were the graduates of the University of Tokyo. However recently it has been changing to the Keio University and the Waseda University. The top 5 universities are as below.
@
2004 1995 1985
No.1 Keio.....312 Tokyo......369 Tokyo......403
No.2 Tokyo....209 Keio.......237 Keio.......160
No.3 Waseda...170 Waseda.....150 Kyoto......144
No.4 Kyoto....104 Kyoto......149 Waseda.....134
No.5 Doshisya..68 Hitotsubashi..67 Hitotsubashi..76

This table shows that the University of Tokyo and the Kyoto University have been declining constantly and the Keio University has been increasing. Of course the number of graduates of the Tokyo and Kyoto universities are smaller than the Keio University. So to compare with them only the number of the gradiates seemed to be unfair, but still we are impressed by the change of the top university. Of course the nation-made universities such as Tokyo or Kyoto started to change themselves. A few years ago, they were forced to change their style from nation-made to an independent cooperation. On this occasion they are considering to improve their alumni policy. So far what they did was only contacting to their alumni, when they needed donations. Can you imagine how poor it was before?

There are many graduates of the University of Tokyo in my office. I would like to say that all of them are very excellent and... However that is not true. I can't understand why some of them are so stupid. The problem is that the number of stupid graduates has been increasing in these days. It might be the matter of recruit. But I think it is mainly because of the changing trend of the students of the University of Tokyo. The reason is very obvious. About a quarter-half century ago, A Governor of Tokyo, Mr. Ryokichi Minobe, destroyed the public high school's system. All of the public high schools in Japan followed this bad policy. Since then public high schools have been unable to produce good students. On the other hand, the private school, having not only a secondary school and a high school, has taken over their roles to produce elite students. It means that without rich parents could not send their children to good universities. Also this change of structure would invite another phenomena. The "elite" students have to be the same kind of type, that is. They are very obedient but not having their own good idea.

However when I was a student, the various kinds of students were going to the University of Tokyo or Kyoto. Some of them were poor, but most of them have their own characters and abilities. For example, I entered a prefecture public high school. This high school is very famous for collecting good students from half of the prefecture. Only the top class students could enter this high school. After entering this school, I was so surprised to see a female student. She came from a very rural area. No one knew the name of her secondary school. This is no wonder, because for the last 15 years no student had entered our high school from her secondary school. She was a very smart girl. However she seemed to have difficulty in the English class. I was wondering what happened on her. I looked into her notebook and I was astonished. The Japanese language, Katakana, occupied all of her notebook. She said, no one taught her proper English pronunciation at her secondary school. So she had to study by herself. She memorized all pronunciation in Katakana.

I was so impressed by her, because under any bad circumstances, we can do and survive through doing our own devices. When the public high schools still had a very good reputation, many excellent students. Having various kinds of background, had studied by themselves, with using their own brain. Also as there were almost no prep schools, students had to do by themselves. Under such situation, to be rich or poor would not be so important in nature. However situation ahs drastically changed. Children are forced to go to the prep school from the age of only 10 years old. They are only taught, but they have no chance to make use of their own idea or devices. They are no more ambitious. Naturally only such obedient students enter the University of Tokyo. This would cause a lot of trouble, not only to them but also to the society.

However there are some good points at private schools. I think the happiness and future would depend upon the education policies of each private school. For example, the Kaisei private school in Tokyo and the Nada private school in Osaka are famous for the Sparta education. The graduates of these schools can bear difficulties or hard situations. The Azabu private school and the Musashi private school, both in Tokyo, are known as the free education. The principal of these schools says that they are aiming at the spontaneous attitudes of students. However it is said that a French student criticized it. He said that this was too much free, which was no so good for education.

6. Soaring up Tution Fees

By the way, the President mentioned about the amount of money to the education. It means how much money parents have to pay to schools and universities for their children. They calculated as below. These are the necessary money of one child to their tuition fees and living costs.

(1) Public Course (from house)

> National University 2,980,000 yen
> Public High School 1,580,000 yen
> Public Secondary School 1,310,000 yen
> Public Primary School 1,750,000 yen
> Public Kindergarden 460,000 yen
_________________________________
total cost 8,100,000 yen (US$ 77,000)

(2) Private Course (renting a house)

> Private University 8,660,000 yen
> Private High School 3,110,000 yen
> Private Secondary School 3,690,000 yen
> Private Primary School 7,770,000 yen
> Private Kindergarden 1,050,000 yen
__________________________________
total cost 24,300,000 yen (US$232,000)

(Note)
(1) is the case of going to the public university from their houses. (2) is the case of going to the private university by renting houses. In addition to these costs, it is necessary for parents to pay extra costs for the prep school. If the child goes to the prep school from the age of 10 and one extra challenge to the university, his parents will have to pay 5,880,000 yen (3). So in total of the cheapest course (1) + (3) is 13,980,000 yen (US$ 133,000).

Such a huge amount of money for children's education it is! So far I have not calculated accumulated money for my children. So I tried to calculate the amount of my case. Only amount that I remember is my children's university tuition fees and my son's private school's tuition fees. So I made use of the rest of costs above. I have already paid 25,000,000 yen (US$ 238,000) to my daughter, who is now a doctor. In addition to this I paid her travel fees to oversea, but I could not remember how much they were. Also I have paid 15,000,000 yen (US$ 143,000) to my son until he had finished the graduation from the University of Tokyo. In addition to this, I have paid the tuition fees of 13,000,000 yen (US$ 124,000) for his master's degrees in both in Japan and in the U.S.A. It means that I have paid 2,800,000 yen (US$ 267,000) to him. In total to my daughter and son, I have paid 53,000,000 yen (US$ 505,000). I could buy a good condominium in the midst of Tokyo, if I would pay this amount of money to the estate agent. No wonders why I have still a house loan. However my situation will be better than the parents to stay in some rural areas in Japan. In our case, we can let our children to go to the universities from our house. But they have to rent a house for their children to stay, which needs more cost for them. In addition to this the tuition fees keep soaring up, which causes big problems for parents to take care of their children. Isn't a nation7s loss, is it?

7. Reality of Rich and Poor

Finally I would like to mention about the freeters, who have only a part-time job. According to the statistic of the Ministry of Education and Science, the percentage of freeters out of total workers has been increasing dramatically. In 1990, it was only 10%. From 1995 to 1998, it is 20%. However in 2002, it was 35%, which made me so surprised. There is another statistics on the wage how much a worker has earned in his life. The most earning people are the salaried graduates of big companies. Their lifetime earning is 251,180,000 yen (US$ 2,392,000). The workers of the small companies with high school diploma can earn 179,200,000 yen (US$ 1,700,000) in their life. However the freeters' lifetime earning is only 67,800,000 yen (US$ 645,000). They cannot afford to pay their children's education fees. After the end of the bubble economy in the beginning of 1990s, Japanese companies have emphasized on cost cutting and the shifts to China. These bad effects have appeared in such labor market.

Since the end of the World War II in 1945, Japanese people faced the burnt houses and buildings. The big business and big landowners were prohibited. At that time people have once become equal. They were forced to work from zero. So they have devoted themselves in the development of economy. It was very successful. In 1960s, Japanese economy had developed very much. However after the end of the bubble economy in the beginning of 1990s, the difference between the rich and the poor among Japanese has been becoming bigger and bigger. I think that the typical index data of these phenomena is the drastic increase of freeters. Considering these situation it is necessary for the Government to make up a social security net for the poor. For example, it is important for us to increase the number of scholarships, to supply cheap but good foods and enough education at public schools, and so on.

( May 3, 2005)




line




Essay of My Wonderful Life

(c) Yama san 2005, All rights reserved