I am not the absolute expert on this so anybody can fill in or correct me, but I will tell you what I know. Peter should be of some help too if you dig into his archives on his j-list mailing list thingy which deals japanese culture and I think those are really helpful in learning about Japan.
Schools are split into junior high and senior high, I think 3 years each. So for here we go up to 8th grade in elementary school before going into high school. For Japan (and for most education systems in Asia), I think you pretty much go up to around 6th grade for elementary school, then 3 yrs of jr high, then 3 yrs of sr high. Usually jr highs and sr high schools are separate institutions.
The term you wrote “Form 1-A, Form 2-A” I think you are referring to the HK or british schooling system, and I doubt japanese go that far into Form-4. In japan you just pretty much refer to yourself by your year and the alphabet class (eg I am year 1, class A). About the alphabets, yes it’s just subdivided classes; you don’t expect to fill the entire year into one dinky classroom, do you? Works the same way here too…at least the school that I went to in Toronto which was a private school, and the year was split up into 6 clubs/groups each having their own homeroom or HR etc anyhow you get the idea; works the same way in Japan. How students are allocated to each class is up to the school’s discretion, it can be random, but some schools do favor placing the better students together for obvious reaosons (to raise these peoples’ ranking and to minimize distraction from pepole who don’t do as well so these good students can get into better and more famous universities when they graduate).
For the typical Japanese academic school year, yes you can pretty much refer to season of sakura. It starts off in around early april and ends in mid to late march when it’s time for hanami, with a short vacation in between. Summer vacations aren’t as long as ours…well college at least; it’s only 2 months (which is the same for elementary and high schools) unlike a full blown 3-to-4-month summer vacation we have here in college, and yes you will be issued a pile of hwk to do over the summer. Note that the universties follow the same schedule too; my Japanese friend who is a CG artist just graduated a month ago.
About understanding western culture, that varies a lot. Young people might understand april fool’s day, but I think the braveheart thingy will freak people out unless you do so for a cosplay event. Obviously, young people tend to understand foreign culture than the previous, more conservative generations. Peter should be able to fill you in more on this.
[This message has been edited by Lamuness (edited 04-22-2002).]
[This message has been edited by Lamuness (edited 04-22-2002).]
