The competition, the human desire to win, is what is driving us, giving us the motives to work harder, study harder, play harder, and to willingly pay more to the Presidential candidate of his or her choice. The seemingly most obvious motivation of us, is somewhat regarded as a shame by "the Japan Teachers Union" or nikkyoso, a union which boast of around thirty thousands members. What it claims is the less competition, the happier the people is going to get.
Well, it maybe true for the teachers. Who would like to be judged by mere students how they perform in the standarized tests? But think again. What about the students? Will the students satisfied with un-motivated teachers, especially with the same unified textbooks? No competition and teaching the exact same topics and things to remember, using the writing of the exact same authors all over Japan, is not humane as they claim it is. Where is the human factor in the same textbooks and no evaluations?
While the students naturally want to select schools with motivated teachers, the union is strong and clever at their crisis. It went on with a nationwide campaign on not to open results that would reveal the names of the schools and those who are responsible for the test results. Therefore, only overall the average test results of the prefecture are published but not the scores of each school. Now, on what basis should the students choose which school would fit their needs?
There are stupid competitions, bad comptitions, and tragic competitions. The competitions would drive us to get up early to stand in line (no rain checks in Japan), to enslave employees while the millions will go to the executives, and to expand our territories with or without merits. But what drives us to create better products and to work harder than the colleagues, is the sense that our life will be better off for us all when we compete in a fair manner. The recognition comes with the competition, not by the strong union that keeps on the same slogan that deprived the public institutions of the quality services that the private sectors provide. The matter is the human spirits, which really what the education is about.
Well, it maybe true for the teachers. Who would like to be judged by mere students how they perform in the standarized tests? But think again. What about the students? Will the students satisfied with un-motivated teachers, especially with the same unified textbooks? No competition and teaching the exact same topics and things to remember, using the writing of the exact same authors all over Japan, is not humane as they claim it is. Where is the human factor in the same textbooks and no evaluations?
While the students naturally want to select schools with motivated teachers, the union is strong and clever at their crisis. It went on with a nationwide campaign on not to open results that would reveal the names of the schools and those who are responsible for the test results. Therefore, only overall the average test results of the prefecture are published but not the scores of each school. Now, on what basis should the students choose which school would fit their needs?
There are stupid competitions, bad comptitions, and tragic competitions. The competitions would drive us to get up early to stand in line (no rain checks in Japan), to enslave employees while the millions will go to the executives, and to expand our territories with or without merits. But what drives us to create better products and to work harder than the colleagues, is the sense that our life will be better off for us all when we compete in a fair manner. The recognition comes with the competition, not by the strong union that keeps on the same slogan that deprived the public institutions of the quality services that the private sectors provide. The matter is the human spirits, which really what the education is about.