Kids These Days

Why does everyone want to be young again? Kids are everything adults are not. Kids don't follow the rules, they don't think about consequences and they believe anything can happen. Adults play it safe and fear the unknown. Adults need kids to feel alive because their lives have become so molded that their minds can never break free. That empty feeling they felt at age 21 is still present but it's covered up with bills, alarm clocks and errands. Kids can achieve whatever their imagination can perceive and don’t think anything is unattainable. They don’t worry about: how am I going to pay the mortgage next month? OMG did you hear that Charles is sleeping with Anna and cheating on Grace? What am I going to do when I get out of college and have debt up to my eyeballs? What I wouldn’t give to be a kid again, riding ATVS around the strawberry field with my brothers, playing on mounds of dirt pretending they were our castles or jumping off the roof of our fort and house, thinking that we were immortal. This is the happiest times our lives where innocence truly prevails and worries are as serious as, “I wonder if the tooth fairy will know that I lost my tooth today…hopefully she doesn’t forget, how will she know where I live?!”

This is why it is soooo sad for me to come to Japan and teach students who are so bogged down with studying and responsibility that their lose part of their youth. I was talking to one of my students yesterday and she told me her schedule.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday = school all day until 5, cram school until 10, homework until finished then up again @ 6:30 a.m the next morning

Saturday= cram school for 7 hours

Tuesday + Thursday =school all day until 5, club activity until 8, then home for homework

When does she sleep? More importantly when does she hang out with friends/gossip about boys or go shopping? It seems like my students are forced to grow up so fast that they lose a big part of themselves and their identity so early on that it hasn’t even had a chance to fully develop. I see it so many times, they are afraid to stand out in class or have personalities because Japanese culture has taught them that “the nail that sticks out the furthest will always be hammered down” – blending in is best and try to make as few waves as possible. More importantly, they feel that it’s okay to settle and underachieve if it means that they will be accepted.

The other day in class I was teaching: I want to be ~ in the future. They were so embarrassed to speak about their dreams for fear if they wanted something great that their classmates would make fun of them. Over 90% of my girl students said, “I want to be a: office worker, secretary, wife, bride, housewife” and many of my boys said, “Office worker or pro athlete.” In a society where education and knowledge is put at such a high priority and technology outranks the entire world, why do their children want so little from themselves? When I pass back papers that I’ve graded, the “A” students turn their papers over just like the C students to conceal their success. Someone needs to be the best. Someone needs to be the doctors, lawyers, teachers and even the Prime Minister. If you can only achieve what you set your mind to then Japan’s future is definitely not looking too bright.

Everyday I go to class and see it getting worse as they get older. The 1^st years are fullest of life, attempting speak English and not afraid of making mistakes. The 2^nd years have become quieter and although they pretend like they are too cool, they still raise their hand to ask some questions. The 3^rd years (ready to go on to high school) are lifeless clones of each other who sit there barely awake staring at me with blank ghostly faces. As we get older, we are supposed to be discovering who we are, not taking steps backward to lose our personalities and individuality. In a society where diversity is not found through outward appearances it is vital that people distinguish themselves through humor, personality, character and virtue.

Maybe this is just my American get-ahead-at-all-costs/diversity is good outlook, but there is nothing wrong with a little competition to give underachievers a kick in the butt AND there is nothing wrong with being the BEST and taking pride in it, or of being different and embracing that uniqueness instead of trying to bury it so deep that it cant be found even if they wanted to!