School Comparisons

   I know I shouldn't do it because nobody wins, but I still do it anyway.

   I compare the junior high school I work at now with the one I worked at for the last three years.

   This school has come to feel like home, so it's not like I look down on it or think badly of it; it's just different. Jarringly different sometimes. For example, the other day, I was checking mini-speeches written by the second-year students about their dreams. It was strange in a lot of ways; the girls wanted to be doctors, nurses, and pastry chefs -- normal stuff. The boys had different aspirations, though. They wanted to be mailmen, delivery men, mechanics, farmers, maintenance men, office workers, and government employees. Sure, a few of them wanted to be astronauts or chefs, but the vast majority of them wanted to be... well, practical workers with a steady salary.

   Things were completely different at my old junior high; the girls were aspiring to be doctors, lawyers, singers, actresses, musicians, and the like; the boys wanted to be singers, guitarists, sports players, hairstylists, doctors, and so on.

   So why the difference? Is it just a coincidence or what?

   It bothered me a bit; Fujimi is obviously in the sticks and the people who live here are less "cultured" and more toward the lower than middle class on the economic spectrum. Azuma was quite different; while there were a few people whose parents were farmers, most of them had parents that did "high-class" white-collar jobs. Lots of doctors and lawyers among the parents there; plenty of high school teachers and a few university teachers. A smattering of junior high teachers. A lot of housewives.

   Here? Lots of farmers and mechanics; the mothers all tend to work, too, rather than staying home and tending to the house and family. It's more like America in that respect, I guess.

   There's not really anything wrong with it, but it kind of made me sad to see the kids have "practical" dreams like that -- they're only in eighth grade, after all.