Post date: May 16, 2014 7:09:19 AM
I am researching about the “Returnees” for this cycle. And for this time, I researched about that how difficult is it like to live in Japanese school for the Japanese returnees after they came back to Japan. Then I found some issues that the returnees, particularly the “School-age” children which means they are the age of that they have to go to juniour high or high school, have.
One is that the timing of returning is very important. It is because if they came back to Japan when the schools are the season of preparing for entrance exam (Jyuken), they got disadvantages for it then. Also it is important because some Japanese school ask them to repeat the same year which they already finished in the school they were going in abroad. This happened even they can speak Japanese fluent and do not need catch up class, and it is because some Japanese schools could not accept the credits which were from other different schools, moreover if it was got in abroad. Also, the last point why the timing of returning is important is that it would be difficult to make friends for them if they came back to Japan and enter the school between the years or terms. This is most important point for the returnees, because if they could not make friends, they tend to be with other returnees who have similar experiences. And it causes to isolate the returnees from other Japanese student more and more. Second issue is about Japanese language skills. Of course they can speak Japanese because they were born in Japan and spent some times in Japan, also of course their parents, families, are totally Japanese. So they did not lose completely the environment of Japanese culture or language. Third issue is that about they, school-age returnees themselves, and their families have “the overseas cultural-knowledge handicap”. This means that they have less information about the schools or the cram schools in Japan. It is difficult to get these informations from Japan as abroad for them. Then, last issue for returnees is that about the rigid thought of school offices and teachers.
For the Japanese returnees, there are some special treatments. For example, one is that they can take the special entrance exam which focus on English score or can take with English. This sometimes causes the envious feeling by other students who take regular Japanese exam.
Returnees sometimes have to face getting bullying. The bullying can be divided in two types of causes. Well-English of the returnees cause both envious feeling such as being cool and also getting the bullying. Also I found that some returnees speak “fake English” to avoid getting bullying.
In the class, I talk with Akito. He is a returnee. Then I could get some real idea from him. He taught me that the cause of getting bullying is not only because of well-English, it is because just returnees are minority and very rare person in the class. Also, I wonder that should the entrance exam really be specialized for returnees a bit. But he said that the returnees cannot do well with Japanese exam, even they have well knowledge because they cannot answer them with proper Japanese words. Also the contents of the study maybe different between Japanese education and the education they got in abroad. And most important point that he gave me was the feeling of themselves which they got from others I think. He said the idea of “returnee is cool! very envious!” is annoying. He thinks that they can say like that because they do not know the disadvantages of being returnees. For last, he taught me that there are some other special treatments for the returnees such as “Returnees’ classes”, not only special entrance exam. Also he taught me that when he was preparing for the entrance exam to the university, there were only three schools which are public in Tokyo that have special entrance exam for the returnees.
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