Japanese Middle Schools - The School Year

Japanese Middle, or Junior High Schools, have a number of interesting differences. I'll start from the minor items and work up to the more interesting things in different articles.

First off, the school day. There are usually six periods in a day. The classes and the order of classes are different everyday. For example, first period could be math on Monday, and then science on Tuesday. The subjects include: Math, Science, Social Studies, Japanese, English, Physical Education, Technical Education, Art, Music, Ethics and Home Economics. The standard subjects such as math and science are usually everyday. The other classes are rotated in and out, or are once a week. First period starts at 8:40AM at my school. The kids have to be seated for "homeroom" by 8:15AM. Unless you live the mountains or the middle of nowhere, there are no buses. They have to either walk or bike to school. Each period is 50 minutes and after classes are finished, club activities start almost right away.

There are all kinds of clubs for the students to join. To name a few: Basketball, baseball, volleyball, tennis, soccer, brass band, and art club. Since the time that the sun sets in Japan changes drastically from summer to winter, the times for clubs change as well. In the summer, it's usually from 4PM to 6:40PM. In the fall, it's from 4PM to 5:15PM. In the dead of winter, clubs are only until 4:15PM because it's pitch black by 5PM. This is a safety measure since most of the students do club activities, and most have to walk or bike home.

Lunch time. Lunch is after 4th period everyday. The students eat in their own classrooms in most schools. The meal is usually cooked up in a lunch center somewhere in the city, then delivered to the schools. The students get their lunches from where the lunch was dropped off, take it to their classrooms, then serve it to each of the students. Only after each student has been served can they start eating. After they've finished, they take it all the trays and dishes to where they got it from, so it can be delivered back to the lunch center for cleaning.

Next, cleaning time. After 6th period (or after lunch in some schools), the students clean the school. Each class is broken into groups, and each group has an assigned area to clean. One group could be the classroom, another the hallway or the bathroom. Most schools only have the standard weapons for the war against dirt: dust cloths, brooms, sponges and etc. There is almost always no running hot water in the schools, so using dust cloths to clean the floor in winter can be... not-so-fun.

Breaks are also different. Winter break starts before Christmas and ends "some time" after New Years. This year the break started from 21st of December, and school starts January 7th. Here, the school year starts after spring break, in April. Spring break starts from the third week in March, to the second week of April. Those breaks are relatively long, but their summer break is quite short. It starts from the third week of July until September. As a matter of fact, they still come to school after summer break starts in Elementary schools. They get weekends off, but since most of the students have clubs, they usually come back on Saturday and some Sundays for practice or tournaments. In middle school, they have club activities throughout all of their breaks.

That's most of what I can say about the most basic things for now. Next time, I'll talk a bit about the role of teachers in schools. If you have any questions, please ask!