Teachers end up bringing ruin on themselves by working long hours out of good intentions to help their students. They have to sacrifice their private lives and are left with little time to learn more

raising concerns about the quality of education in Japan.

Raising concerns? Sounds mild. There should be flashing lights, big noisy sirens and alarm bells. After working with the elite outcome of this "education" for many years, we should be regarding it as mutilation. The teachers in school are only as good as the system - a system which sees no need in even producing students capable of writing an essay, a prerequisite of university education.

Most of the teachers I work with have zero life outside of school. Hence they have zero stories to share with their students. I remember the teachers from my childhood who all had stories about living abroad, serving in the armed forces, playing rugby for England, travel and so on. They were interesting people. Teachers here know about THE test and that is about it. Sadly.

Yeah, about 9 out of 10 JHS teachers really don't have much of a life outside of school. They just don't have time.

If you're in charge of one of the sports teams or clubs, forget about it. You only get about one day off a month. Unfortunately, so do the kids in them.

Like the poster above mentioned, some of my favorite memories from school were hearing stories and the experiences that my teachers had. They'd often say just afterwards, "Sorry for going off on a tangent," but I usually enjoyed and learned something from them.

Why does the teachers' labor union, Nikkoyso, allow this? It seems it spends all its time on dumb and outdated political issues, and prefer to avoid the nuts and bolts issues, like the rights of its members.

With bukatsu and homework, the students are often doing 60 hours too.

I have never understood why anyone would want to be a teacher in this country considering the stress, the parents, the work load, the lack of holidays... Teachers need to stop wasting time with countless events at schools, stop having club every day and GO HOME before 6:00. The amount of events in itself at a Japanese school is far beyond what is needed. Add in the stress...

Its not just the teachers. Why stop there? Everyone in Japan seems to do this.

Teachers end up bringing ruin on themselves by working long hours out of good intentions to help their students.

Salarymen and OLS end up bringing ruin on themselves by working long hours out of good intentions to help their companies.

They have to sacrifice their private lives and are left with little time to learn more for themselves, which will ultimately lead to a degradation of the quality of education.

They have to sacrifice their private lives and are left with little time to learn more for themselves, which will ultimately lead to a degradation of the quality of their performance.

You can apply this to any vocation in Japan. This is not a teacher problem and shouldn't be treated as such. This is a Japanese mentality problem. The culture has to change, and how we do that is the discourse we should be having now. People don't understand the law of diminishing returns. The longer you work the less productive you will be. And I cannot tell you people how many times I've explained it to the Japanese people I know. Water off a duck's back. Sigh.

Great and very true statement. They have to be everything for everyone. Takes a certain type to ride it well. Not much time to brush up on their own subject , read journals and keep up with the latest educational trends and methods. Very far down on the list, if at all. And the mountains of other stuff is a big weight to carry. Long days, no weekends or holidays if you run a bukatsu which most end up doing. Quite remarkable to watch actually. Oh, and the paperwork ! Some manage to raise families on the side an all! Schools are like factories here. Many can't hack it, but those teachers that rise to the occasion and excel are quite incredible.

A 5 day, 35-40 hour work-week is quite enough and also healthy. More than that, unless you're a neurosurgeon or astronaut (you get the idea), is destructive. Take a break Japan! Hospitals are not vacation resorts! Family is more than just roommates! Death will come soon enough. Don't tempt the reaper.

Shallots@hospitals are not vacation resorts! Lol Well said.