When Prime Minister Abe asked schools to shut amid COVID-19 fears, a lot of questions emerged. Among them, how could we continue kids' education with no regular schooling for at least 1 month?
On February 27, Shinzo Abe asked all schools in Japan to close until the end of the Spring Holidays in order to contain the current coronavirus outbreak. Despite an urgent and sudden request, most of the schools abided and closed doors on the day following the official announcement. As a result, kids in Japan were not schooled and had a lot of free time in their hands for more than a month.
New technologies, new habits
Ever since the coronavirus outbreak started to become a hot topic in Japan, the Government and other public institutions asked workers to shift to a remote scheduleas much as possible. A quick look in Tokyo public transportation will quickly reveal that most of its users are office workers. That simply means that a computer and the internet could be enough for them to fulfill their everyday duties while practicing social distancing.
Remote working (テレワーク, telework) was encouraged in Japan for quite some time by public advertisement and official demands related to the Olympics, for example. We’re still a long way from making the switch to a society where remote work and work-life balance is the norm. However, as the COVID-19 situation seemed to have quickstart the debate around this question—what about remote schooling?
What about the long-term?
It’s obvious that even if kids are keeping up with education and their curriculum, there are both advantages and drawbacks to this new distance learning life. One of our Horizon Japanstudents regrets the fact that she doesn’t feel like she can ask as many questions as she would in an actual classroom. She has come up with a huge list of questions she will ask teachers when going back to school—in particular for her math teacher. Still, the educative team keeps reassuring the students with off-hours counseling or more simply online meetings set-up to follow closely kids on their learning path.
Our sample teacher and students admit that the situation is not as convenient as a one to one meeting inside a class or the school. When asking them if they think this distance learning system will hold on a long-time basis, the answer is pretty straight-forward: it’s doable, but not the best. Is it perfect? Of course not, but it seems like the best option at the time and both students and staff at Horizon Japan are working to make this work.
The kids miss their teachers, the classrooms and their classmates! All of our interviewee students want to come back to school but they know they are doing the right thing at the moment. They are pretty confident distance learning is working though—but lacks a way to have fun, socialize, and exercise, if we have to summarize.
One difficult point here is that the situation is perpetually evolving, and Horizon is adjusting day by day for everyone—students, teachers, staff and family—to stay safe and keep up, one step at a time.
Thank you toHorizon Japan International Schoolfor letting us sat—online— and exchange with them and some students. A huge thank you to these dedicated students for being so open and honest!
