Shijo-Tsushin #8 September, 1996
Many overseas Japanese schools teach a few hours of the host country language but at the junior high level, English is often the only foreign language taught, even in the schools of non-English speaking countries. Even then, few students are able to go beyond "Hello. How are you?" It's quite comical when you think about a Japanese teaching English from a text book written in Japanese in an English speaking country. Employing a native speaker to teach conversational English part time seems like some sort of weak excuse.
And those events that supposedly promote cultural exchange with local schools. The children introduce some aspect of their culture to each other once a year and wave good by for another year. Has real friendship been made here? They are relying completely on non-verbal language for any thing that goes beyond "Hello. How are you?"
Most children attending overseas Japanese schools return home each day and end up playing with the same Japanese faces. Parents aren't much better. With the PTA as the epicentre, overseas Japanese create their own closed off communities. This is also the case for teachers. Usually, people who sojourn overseas hire locals and discuss business matters with locals on a daily basis. However, teachers at overseas Japanese schools have only to deal with their Japanese pupil and their Japanese parents.
Overseas Japanese schools were established to alleviate the 'damage' that an overseas sojourn has on a child. They create a Japanese environment and watch the children thrive in the greenhouse of the Japanese education system. Thinking along these lines can only make the overseas sojourn a disadvantage to a child returning to Japan. An overseas experience can never be regarded as an advantage when all that parents and teachers are concerned about is finding ways to not make an overseas sojourn a disadvantage. In order to make the overseas experience a plus for Japanese children is to take them out of the 'protective' greenhouse and make them learn the host country language and culture through actual interaction with locals.
One would think that this is common sense but either because of the intention of parents or because it felt 'natural' to send their children to an overseas Japanese school, children who attend such schools are a lost cause. When they return to Japan they will be labeled as a returnee student. People will assume that they can speak English and drill them on facts about the host country as though they were professional diplomats. Of course, the people who do the drilling are obnoxious but just as irritating is the fact that the students don't know the answers to the questions.
The one thing that was surprising about most of the students who attended overseas Japanese schools, considering the aforementioned, was the deep affinity they appeared to have for their host country. Those who sojourned in Latin America believed they returned to Japan with a Latino personality. People who lived in South East Asia became resentful towards the denigration of other Asian countries by the Japanese. There were sojourners of Africa who had intense recollections and those who lived in the Middle and Near East were pretty colourful too. Mind you, these are the opinions of those people themselves. On the contrary, I have heard that many of the Japanese overseas kept to themselves, looked down on the locals and longed for the day they could return to Japan. They could be the same people.
If this is the case, how did those returnees develop such strong feelings? It would seem that their experiences back in Japan changed their views. As said previously, on returning to Japan, overseas Japanese children are unconditionally labeled as returnee students. Returnees who sojourned in South East Asia are often made fun of by their peers who attended a local school in a developed, western country. Suddenly, those 'unfashionable' returnees felt defensive about their host country but also realise that they need to know more about it. In fact, many returnees begin to study in earnest about their host country after they return to Japan.
This attitude is due to a returnee subconsciously not wanting to go on denying the many years spent overseas but a type of self-defense mechanism should have got a lot to do with it. Denying a part of one's past can only lead to psychological hardships and it is not healthy to lie in some sort of cross-cultural limbo. If a returnee asked himself what all those years overseas meant to him, he'll need to seek out the person he was when he was overseas. It's at this point instinct. That is, they end up returning to their host countries one day. This should also be a part of revaluation process of their overseas sojourn.
There are a number of phenomenons occurring among returnees who attended overseas Japanese schools. One is their power of self-expression which is said to be the normal characteristic gained by returnees who attended western style schools. They often become very active in the school council and other extra curricular activities. According to another story, among the majority of students who stay at school long after classes are over for extra-curricular activities, those who seem to stay the longest as if they seem not to want to go home are those returnees who had attended overseas Japanese schools.
The reason for this is because the overseas Japanese school becomes a closed off society for that student and it became his or her whole life. The overseas Japanese school is seen as a place that represents all that Japanese society is. With various annual events and mothers becoming deeply involved in the PTA. For children, the overseas Japanese school is where they can play with their peers and become closer to things that are Japanese. Once home from school, they are confronted with television programs and newspaper articles that they can't understand and there is no way of knowing what is popular back in Japan. Outside the school, there is no one to play with who are not Japanese. If the overseas Japanese school was to disappear, some 90% of a child's world would be taken away.
In this sense, a child would do well academically in this environment and the attachment to the overseas Japanese school also becomes stronger. Naturally, the school becomes important to the child. There is a great difference between the level of commitment shown by overseas Japanese children to their school and that of students living in Japan.
That is why on returning to Japan a returnee displays the same level of commitment to the school and makes the school the centre of his life. Instead of returning to Japan, they return to the school. That is why some returnees have high expectation of the school, the teachers and the classmates. In many cases, the problems associated with the non-adaptation of returnee students to schools back in Japan, particularly those who attended an overseas Japanese school, are due to the school and teachers and students' inability to meet the returnees' expectations.
This is just one hypothesis but it has made me keenly aware of a child's inner power to nurture themselves. There is a saying that children can thrive even without parents, and perhaps in this case even without schools. However, it may not be incorrect to suggest that children thrive if parents and schools didn't get so involved. On the other hand, even though a 'good education' is provided with the best of intentions, children can reverse the effects of a 'good education'.
In conclusion, overseas Japanese schools should reinforce the greenhouse so that they can create more non-returnee returnee students. And children should also realise that they themselves are the key to growing up and learning.
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