While often praised by foreigners for its emphasis on the basics, Japanese education tends to stress test taking and mechanical learning over creativity and self-expression. Those things that do not show up in the test scores -- personality, ability, courage or humanity -- are completely ignored, says Toshiki Kaifu, chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Partys education committee. Frustration against this kind of thing leads kids to drop out and run wild. Last year Japan experienced 2,125 incidents of school violence, including 929 assaults on teachers. Amid the outcry, many conservative leaders are seeking a return to the prewar emphasis on moral education. Last year Mitsuo Setoyama, who was then education minister, raised eyebrows when he argued that liberal reforms introduced by the American occupation authorities after World War II had weakened the Japanese morality of respect for parents.
But that may have more to do with Japanese life-styles. In Japan, says educator Yoko Muro, its never a question of whether you enjoy your job and your life, but only how much you can endure. With economic growth has come centralization; fully 76 percent of Japans 119 million citizens live in cities where community and the extended family have been abandoned in favor of isolated, two-generation households. Urban Japanese have long endured lengthy commutes (travels to and from work) and crowded living conditions, but as the old group and family values weaken, the discomfort is beginning to tell. In the past decade, the Japanese divorce rate, while still well below that of the United States, has increased by more than 50 percent, and suicides have increased by nearly one-quarter.
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