An education in violence
(From The Japan Times Dec. 13 issue)

増加する校内暴力

Violent behavior in Japanese schools increased to an all-time high in 2008, according to a recent report from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Students and teachers, along with school facilities and unknown people, experienced 60,000 violent incidents involving elementary, junior and high school students. That averages to some 160 serious acts of violence nationwide every single day. The problem worsened considerably from 2007, up 13 percent, with one in four attacks serious enough to require medical treatment.

Among victims, other students received the brunt of these incidents, but student acts of violence against teachers topped 8,000 for the year. Perhaps self-defense training will become part of teacher education in the future. Most startling, the largest increase in violence took place at junior high schools. Elementary school student violence also increased, with high school students remaining at about the same level. Clearly, younger and younger students are resorting to violence to express their feelings as they try to work out issues they face.

The MEXT report suggests that many young people are unable to control their emotions or communicate well. That analysis is certainly true, but the root causes of these problems run much deeper. From a certain point of view, these youths can be said to be communicating. The violence communicates their anger, frustration and lack of sympathy for the suffering of others. If the education system has any hope of imparting lessons about how to live life rather than just how to pass exams, the surrounding issues must be addressed directly and systematically.

As all parents and everyone who survived youth well know, the teenage years can be extremely difficult. Young people are besieged by yearnings for social acceptance, confusion over emerging sexuality, and anxiety over new school and life tasks. Those pressures will not disappear, so educators need to help students find ways to confront those challenges and successfully resolve them.

The former Japanese promise that if one works hard, one will get into a good school, then a good job and a good life has crumbled. Students at all levels sense this, even if they are not entirely sure of the details. It is one of the saddest ironies of our times that the proliferation of cell phones has not improved the ability to communicate and the massive resource of the Internet has not offered much help in figuring out how to solve problems. Instead, schools must expand the range of what they teach students outside of traditional paper-based skills.

It is no coincidence that violence has spiked with the economic downturn. More parents have to work, more homes are broken through divorce and household budgets are tight. Students may be young, but they are not naive. They are fully aware that parents have less time, money and energy to spend on them. Rather than sheltering and insulating them, though, or distracting them with more schoolwork, Japanese education should help students comprehend these new social realities and find ways to talk about what they know about the world as a step toward what they need to know.

Despite the shocking increase in violence, some hope was contained in the report. Schools have been successful in reducing bullying. The number of bullying cases reported was down by 30 percent from 2006. This two-year turnaround resulted from the hard work of teachers, administrators, police and parents, as well as from students themselves. If the serious youth problem of bullying can be curtailed, school violence can be as well. One day, hopefully, violence, like bullying, will start to be seen as dasai (uncool).

The entire country, though, will need to reconsider what education is in this day and age. In every generation, the educational system has to scramble to catch up with the changes students have undergone in the middle of new social, technological and economic forces. However, the immediate task for this generation is to ensure that violence does not become a habit for life.

Students need better outlets for releasing tensions, and in ways that are meaningful for them not simply imposed from above. Schools need to provide clear guidance and well-defined boundaries, but this clarity must be balanced by reasonable flexibility and student autonomy, too. When that happens, students can learn that violence is the worst choice of all and always a failure, for all involved.

文科省調査で、2008年度の児童生徒の暴力行為が約6万件と過去最多を更新した。前年比13 % 増、4件に1件は被害者が治療を要した。

生徒間での暴力が多いが、「対教師」も8000件を超えた。暴力件数が最も増えたのは中学校、次いで小学校だ。問題に直面した際に、暴力で感情表現する生徒の若年化が進んでいる。

文科省調査は、生徒が感情を抑えられず、意思伝達能力が不足していることを示唆しているが、その原因は根深い。見方を変えれば、彼らは怒りや不満、思いやりの欠如を伝達していると言える。学校が受験だけでなく、よりよい生き方を教えようとするなら、それを取り巻く問題にも正面から、組織的に取り組む必要がある。

思春期は、社会からの認知を求め、性に戸惑い、学校や人生での課題に不安を抱くときだ。教育者は生徒がそれらの問題に挑み、解決することができるよう助けなければならない。

受験で頑張れば一流校、一流企業、安定した生活が約束される時代が終わったことを生徒は感じている。携帯電話やインターネットの普及は意思疎通や問題解決の能力を向上させていない。

不況に伴い暴力が増えたのは偶然ではない。子供と過ごす時間やお金、活力の余裕が保護者にないことを生徒は知っている。学校は、社会状況に対する生徒の理解を助け、知っていることを話し合い知るべきことへといざなうべきだ。

いつの時代も、社会的、技術的、経済的な流れに沿って変わる生徒に対応できる教育制度が必要だが、今は暴力の日常化を防ぐことが急務だ。

お仕着せの方法ではなく、生徒が納得いく方法で不安を発散できる場が必要だ。学校が明確な指導をしつつも、柔軟に生徒の自主性を尊重できれば、生徒は暴力がすべての人にとって最悪の選択で失敗に終わることを知るだろう。