Todai President Worried About "Fragile Youth"

[Mulboyne]

[floatl][/floatl]Yomiuri: New Tokyo U. president wants to toughen up students
Junichi Hamada, who recently took office as president of Tokyo University...says today's young people seem more fragile than those of his generation. "I guess they lack the kind of social experience that can only be gained through studying overseas or volunteer activities, for example," he said. "They concentrate on their studies and seclude themselves from society." Hamada studied at the university amid a period of student activism. He said he used to spend all night holding discussions with friends, and sometimes even threw stones as part of demonstrations. "I took a risk and tested the strength of my own convictions," he said. "I'm not saying [young people] should throw stones like we did, but I want to see them act in a bolder fashion and toughen themselves up in the real world"...more...

[canman]

Of course they are weak and isolated. Does this guy have any idea what students have to do to try and enter Todai. The amount of useless information that they are forced to memorize, only to regurgitate it for the entrance exam is insane. Having just watched my daughter go through this hell, and she wasn't even trying to enter Todai, but Hitotsubashi, I cannot think of a better way to kill a students drive to learn, and just plain crush the spirit of others.
On a personal note, she was not able to enter Hitotsubashi, but luckily did enter Yokohama Kokuritsu.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Of course they are weak and isolated. Does this guy have any idea what students have to do to try and enter Todai. The amount of useless information that they are forced to memorize, only to regurgitate it for the entrance exam is insane.

Yeah, but that's always been true and with fewer young people it's actually getting easier to get into some schools so there must be some other factor.

[canman]

SJ I beg to differ, it is getting much harder to get into these schools, for a number of reasons. First, most of the national universities have decreased their enrollment so as to make it more competitive.They only want the best of the best, so by cutting the number of places they have they can pick only the top level students. Second, thanks to the long economic crisis this country has faced, many families can not afford to send their kids to private universities and their only choice is national or public schools. As well the students used to go to cram schools but they too have become too pricey, so the students must hole themselves up in their rooms and study night in and night out.
Again on a personal note, last year my daughter's home room teacher warned them that more that 5 hours sleep was too much, and the time would be better spent studying. He also warned them that if they watched the Kohaku song contest on New Year's Eve, they would never be able to pass the university entrance exams. One other thing the school my daughter attended was a prefectural high school, and they only would recommend students enter public schools, they wouldn't give students information about private schools. They felt it was their duty. WTF!

[Samurai_Jerk]

Btw, Mulb, where'd you get the vid clip from?

[Mulboyne]

Btw, Mulb, where'd you get the vid clip from?

Not very interesting, really. It was on one of those Japanese image hosting sites a few months ago. A couple of posters maintained it featured a Korean school. For all I know, it might be a scene from a TV drama.

[dimwit]

Fragile is becoming the euphemism of the day. My students seem to constantly using it. Time ago it used to mean suffering from subacute alcohol poisoning or to be mentally deranged but in the modern Japanese usage it seems to mean naive and easily dominated.