2018年3月26日月曜日

EDU-JPN:Tis the Season…for the Flu

Education in Japan (Natalie Collor)

In most places, the influenza virus is hard to avoid, even though many people receive a yearly vaccine to improve their odds of contracting the virus. Japan is no different, but its schools have measures in place to help prevent large-scale spreading of the virus.

One tactic most schools have in place is to ‘suspend’ students if the number of students with the virus is between 20% and 33% of the whole homeroom class. For three to five days, students are not allowed to come to school. Unlike the American use of ‘suspend,’ this action does not punish students or reflect badly on their academic record. They simply stay at home and do whatever homework they are able to without attending class and, for some, while managing sickness. In terms of the schoolwide spread of the virus, if just 10% of students in a specific grade to contract influenza, the whole grade will be suspended for a short period of time. Since the influenza virus is spread very easily through skin-to-skin contact, school administrators believe the best way to prevent mass spreading throughout schools is to suspend students in the given ways.

Although January and February are typically thought of as flu season, there were schools in Gunma Prefecture that announced the first cases of influenza spreading as early as November of 2017. There were several schools that suspended individual classes and whole grades, so flu season is already well underway in Japan.

While students may be quick to celebrate this guilt-free suspension which allows them to stay at home to rest, watch TV, or play video games, teachers are not as pleased when their students are suspended. They cannot move forward with the material according to the curriculum when all students are missing, therein making homework very repetitive. Teachers may appreciate having an extra break period or two, given the busy day-to-day workload, but the result of numerous cancelled classes due to the suspension puts them in a difficult position. The more students that are missing, the less teachers are actually able to accomplish during the school day. No matter how long the students are missing from school, they are expected to finish the standard curriculum for each subject by the end of the school year, which means teachers have to find ways to add in make-up classes and homework assignments. This situation reflects the snow day phenomenon in American schools, where students are happy to have time off in the winter, but unhappy to be making everything up during the dog days of summer.
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2018年3月19日月曜日

EDU-JPN:How Influenza Affects Exam Season

Education in Japan (Natalie Collor)

Once the new calendar year begins in Japan, and sometimes even before, many middle and high school students’ minds are occupied with thoughts of one thing: university entrance exams. A previous post has addressed the specifics of the exam schedule and the vigorous preparation these students undergo to score well on the standardized exams. However, an additional variable at play in exam season is, in fact, influenza.

Not only is the number of third-year middle and high school students who receive the vaccine more than any other grade level, but it is also very likely that these students do not receive the vaccine every year. Students and parents in Japan know the importance of being well during the exam, not to mention the months leading up to it; therefore, they do all they can to prevent contracting the virus by getting the vaccine. In some cases, all members in a family are said to get the vaccine in order to protect the examinee. News programs and school nurses also encourage students to wear masks and wash hands regularly as other preventative measures.

Vaccines are not a guarantee, however, and as the importance of entrance exams grows, so does the necessity of students being able to take the exam in a healthy state. Despite taking all the preventative measures leading up to the exam, some students still end up sick during the exam day. A makeup test day, which would certainly give those students unable to take the exam due to illness a second chance, is an idea that has recently been implemented by high schools in some regions. Although makeup test days are not available for every high school, this special option for ill students may improve their chances of doing well on the test and gaining admission to the high school of their choice. Each high school offering a makeup test date likely announces the date ahead of time and a corresponding process to follow to register for said test.

Although a similar makeup test day equivalent does not yet exist for college entrance exams, one can only wonder, given the extremely competitive nature of the exams and the unpredictability of contracting illness, if this option will exist in the future.
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