I've always been interested in how other
countries conduct their education system.
Most of us know that the American
education system... It's not great.
Okay, it's not- it's not good at all.
It has a lot of room for improvement.
When I came across an article that talks about
Japanese school rules that would never happen in America.
Apparently some of these are very weird and some of these
can also be very smart actually.
I feel like the Japanese know a lot better than us, how
to educate their young. For example, kids
in Japan have to be at school at 8:30 AM
sharp and they cannot be late more than
five times. Or they're punished with
cleaning responsibilities.
Can you imagine the outrage? If kids in America
were late more than five times, and they
have to clean. Just imagine the outrage. Just imagine the protest.
[chuckles] No, I'm just kidding!
Japanese education system is actually strict,
and sometimes it's good to be strict.
There are some more weird rules out there that the
Japanese education system has.
For example, in schools the students are
actually the janitors. That's right, the
students are the cleaning staff.
Japanese schools do not have janitors!
They clean the classrooms, bathrooms, and hallways!
As you can see this picture right now they are cleaning the floors.
I mean, that's- that's very cost-efficient
and it could actually teach them some
very useful life skills.
You know, school doesn't really teach you a lot of life skills.
Cleaning is a very important life
skill and maybe being efficient and
cleaning could actually help you out in life.
Maybe the American education system could teach me how to pay taxes.
How do I file my taxes? No, they only care
about teaching me calculus, 'cause yeah
I'm definitely going to use that in my life.
Who needs to know derivatives?
Does anyone need to know derivatives?
I don't even like saying derivatives. Derivatives!
In America, you would get in trouble for
eating in class. There is strictly no eating
in class except if the teacher is chill or
something. Well actually in Japan,
students eat in their classrooms. They
don't go to the cafeteria. They have their
own lunches in their classrooms with
their friends and the lunch is served by
the lunch ladies and they bring it into
the classrooms. That seems very efficient
to me. You don't need a separate place to
eat your lunch, but at the same time kids
won't really meet other kids outside
their classroom. They're only going to
kind of meet the same people in their
class. Also, wasting food is not allowed.
Not like America where we
have a phase, put a shit ton of food in our
plate and then don't finish it and throw it away.
They are required to eat everything on
their plates, so you only take the amount
that you think you'd actually eat. The
school system in Japan actually requires
kids to have swimming lessons. Majority of
the schools have their own swimming pool,
for the kids are required to learn how
to swim. And if you fail you have to take
swimming lessons in summer school. So you
can't fail. Don't be that one guy that
can't swim, like me... No, I can swim.
It just took me a while to learn. First I had to
do the dog paddle, and then... No, this
is the butterfly! This is the dog paddle,
this is a butterfly. Right? Like this? And
then you gotta do the stroke. Wow, I haven't
been in the pool in like forever. So
there are actually schools in Japan that
don't allow their students to wear color
contacts, makeup, hair dye, nail polish...
They just don't allow it. I don't know, I
feel like this kind of like breaks the
certain boundary of American values, but
at the same time I guess they want all
the kids to wear the same thing. It's
kind of like a private school here in
America. Private schools... You have a dress
code in a private school, so it's pretty
similar to that. Okay, now this is where it
starts to get really weird. The students
are prohibited from dating and having
relationships. That's so strict, what? You-
you tell me that Japan doesn't allow
students to date each other? It's forbidden in
all of junior high school, it says, and it's to
ensure that students do not have any
distractions from their education. That
is so strange. It's like, "You cannot date the
boy!" "Mom, why can't I date a boy I mean
he's so handsome?" "You cannot do it!" "Why can't I
though? Why- why can you just-" "Because then
you fail all your classes!" "Oh my god, mom!
I'm already failing my classes, mom.
There you go, that's an average
Japanese conversation with their parents-
I'm just kidding, that was totally racist, I'm not
making a Japanese accent work.
By the way, if you're Japanese and you're watching this,
please confirm if these are true. I don't
know if these are all true, but just let
me know down in the comments below. I
don't claim that these are a hundred
percent true, but it's just an article I
found and I thought it was very
interesting. That's all I wanted to read
out to you guys. Let's go onto the next weird rule.
In Japanese school... That rhymed!
That was good. The next rule, in a Japanese
school, hey, you're gonna fail all your classes!
Mom I'm already failing... Oh my god. So
summer vacation is actually only five
weeks, and it usually starts on July
twentieth. Guys, in America we have
like a 14... No, wait, not a 14, what am I saying? 10 week.
In America, we have a 10 week summer
break. I think it's like around 10 weeks.
It's absolutely crazy, it's so long, it's two and a
half months. Well in Japan, it's only
about a month and a half. It's only about
half the time that we get, and guess what
they do on summer break? It says that they
actually study! They study on summer
break. They have homework or they have school
clubs, so I don't think they actually get a
true break. They're always studying, they
either have homework assignments for the
summer... That's crazy! Not in America! We
need our two and a half month freedom
out of the year! So in Japan, it's custom
to actually bow down to an elder or
teacher. Well, we do have respect for our
teachers in America, We call them by
their last name and usually add a "Mr."
or "Mrs.", "Professor"... But we do not bow down.
Maybe we should start bowing down with the
Japanese in front of the teacher, and then
the teacher shows respect by bowing back.
I think this is pretty cool. It's a lot
of respect. I know there's a lot of
schools where the students don't
respect their teachers at all and
sometimes they even threatened hit the
teachers, curse at the teacher, but I feel like in
Japan that wouldn't fly by. If you do that
they're gonna have a ruler, and they'll spank you-
Alright, so here is actually a Japanese
school rule that kind of relates to
American schools. Cell phones are not
allowed to be used inside the school
So the high school I went to, in
the middle school, all of them. They did
not allow cell phones at all. If they see
your cell phone, they will give you two
hours of detention and it's not fun. It
says in Japan they're only allowed to
use their phones in the parking lot or
front entrance to the school, but the
second they go in, that's it! No more phones,
turn it off. I don't know I feel like
there is pros and cons to this. I mean, I
really hated it. I really wanted to use
my cell phone in class, especially if the class
was really boring, but at the same time
you don't learn anything if you're
always on your cell phone. I don't know! I
want to use my cell phone in class, but
then I won't learn anything. So. And the
last rule in Japan is- this is- this
actually does not relate to a school but
it says that students under 18 have a
curfew of 10 PM. Tokyo, for example,
enforces the 10PM rule. I think in America
it's 11PM if you're under 18. If you're a
minor you can't be out after 11PM. You
can still go to the movies though, and stuff like
that. You can go to any place that's a
private place, but you can't be in public.
But in Japan, if you're under 18 and it's
past 10PM you can't go into the movie
theaters or arcades, so there you have it.
You're going to have to wake up early
for school tomorrow 'cause it starts at 8:30AM! And
I think that's going to bring it up to
an end guys. If you guys want to see more
weird Japanese school rules make sure to
go to the original article. It's going to
be down below, and there you can find
some more Japanese school rules that I
didn't go over. But with that being said
guys make sure you go click on another
video, click that circle to subscribe, that's
going to bring it up to a wrap. I hope
you learned something new today. uh, it's
about Japan. Maybe there are some other
countries that have very strange school
rules that unlike American school rules.
So let me know if you guys want to see
more, comment down below. Just
comment down the country you guys want
to see, and yeah, see you guys next time
on another episode of Reaction Time. I
hope you guys enjoy this one and have a
good one guys! Peace out!