During this week, I experienced two similar part time jobs. This was the coordinator of the practice examination. The one was for the third grade junior high school students, the other was for the fifth grade elementary school students. Both of them were pretty similar in terms of the contents of the work itself, but the attitude or the response of the students was quite different. It seemed to me that the differences imply the reality and the problem of the contemporary society. In this paper, I will reveal the differences between the two different groups of the students from my observation, and then, analyze some important points. Finally, I will discuss the educational system in Japan comparing my experience with those groups.

Last Sunday, a regular practice examination was held all over the Saitama region. Over 55 thousand third grade junior high school student took the exam. October is the important season for the high school entrance examination, especially deciding the school which they are going to apply (because they won窶冲 have much time to get better score.) Therefore, the students in my class seemed to be comparatively nervous. They reminded me of my this very experience – I was also the one who suffered from the high school entrance examination. The subjects were Japanese, Math, English, Social Studies and Science, and 45 minutes were given for all of them to answer (the exam itself ended within the morning). 45 minutes is a very appropriate and enough time to get all the questions done. But there should definitely have been the gaps between the better-grade students and the not-better-grade students, and it was easily observed during the exam time. The better grade students usually pay careful attention to the answers they have made when they finished first time and make sure if their answers were really correct repeatedly by the end of the exam time or by the time they think enough. On the other hand, not-better-grade students don窶冲 usually check their answers out once they finished the questions. As soon as they get the test done, some try to sleep, some try to play with pencils, some just watch the outside, some even try to watch me! They totally lose their concentration on the exam and hope that the quick ending of the boring day.

The similar situation was seen in the fifth grade elementary school student窶冱 class; high motivated students paid careful attention to their answers, but the low motivated students wanted the early end of the test. This examination for fifth graders was held at a private cram school in Shibuya, Tokyo, and it was just for deciding their promotion or their recession of the class. This cram school is known for a number of the graduates who passed the examinations for the prestigious private schools. The educational quality should be rather higher. Most of the students get into this school from the forth year of their elementary school (some get into in their first year of the elementary school!), and since the fifth graders have one more year to take an entrance examination, they are kind of in between year, so sometimes it is very difficult to keep the concentration on their study, and it was observed very easily even in my class. Of course, even though it is called in between, some are able to keep their concentration on studying. For them, one year passes so early, and the exam will come soon, therefore, there窶冱 no time to waste even though the test was just for the promotion and recession. Otherwise, they will not get into their desired prestigious school. However, since they do have one more year to study, it could be said that they don窶冲 have to study so hard right now. This discussion is quite reasonable. (If really so, they don窶冲 have to go to this cram school right now though.) Some students at this cram school obviously lost their concentration on the test totally in the first 10 or 15 minutes and started to try to play. Interestingly, some started to observe me as I experienced during the test for junior high student. This wasn窶冲 different from their ages.

Watching their answer sheets in both groups, bored students usually gave up very easily, on the other hand, highly motivated students tried to get them done or already finished. The attitudes must have influenced on their scores. I am not going to deny these kinds of practice exams because it does have some good effects to some extent in terms of their proficiency. But there definitely should be some more important experiences that the adults will not have, will not able to have. That is, for example, playing with animals or friends in the park, collecting insects by going into the depth of a forest, or going fishing to the river or the sea. Of course, sometimes interaction with my friends caused a fight between me and my friends. It was a very tiny trouble when I think of it right now though, in those days it was a really big problem, and I learned a lot from these confrontations. I strongly understand how nice and enjoyable they are. I am sure that part of my way of thinking come from these experiences. They are not just my memories.

Compared to that, I don窶冲 think kids in Tokyo also experience this my very situation during their childhood as I did. They go to the cram school instead of going to the park. There should be some other elements that should be learned during their childhood. The interaction with all the living things that surrounds us definitely enriches our thoughts. I think part of the problems that happens among children have its inception in this less interacted society. Even though my fifth grader students have classes everyday t in the same class room, they don窶冲 seem to be friendly, for that matter, maybe they think their classmates of enemy for themselves in order to get into the desired prestigious schools. As for me, there always certain people that I dislike everywhere, but I do know how to live our school life with them even though we had a fight often. We have got the solution learned from the various confrontation experiences. However, children in this contemporary society don窶冲 have much time to play, rather they will study for the test. I think this is just unfortunate. Would it be tough to ask them the cram school is really important?