Report #7: The Grade Skipping System

Today, we had a discussion about the introduction of the grade skipping system. There are 4 panel members; an elementary school student, a teacher, a Chinese man, Lee who experienced the grade skipping system, and the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. The moderator gave a suggestion about the introduction of the grade skipping system for elementary and junior high schools in Japan.

First, the teacher took up the lack of communication. She worried about it due to the difference of their age. In fact, Lee did not have a best friend in his class. Then, one idea came up. That is giving students a test of communication skill like other subjects. But, Lee strongly disagreed with the idea because it made no sense. I really agree with Lee. I wonder how we can measure communication skills. I think it is cultivated through our daily lives.

When the discussion lost its heat, Jeff suggested an alternative idea that making a special class for talented students without shifting grade. Instead of introducing the grade skipping system, each of the schools will establish a special class for every grade. In the class, the students can study what they want to learn. I think this idea is better than the introduction of the system. However, I do not agree with it in several points. First, I wonder there are students who are talented enough to skip grade in the same grade. Next, there are too little teachers to teach them. Jeff said that the talented students do not always need learning from teachers, but they need their teacher in charge of the class. And also, it is difficult from an economic viewpoint.


I think there is much room for discussion.

Report #6: Daylight saving time

Last week, I had a discussion about introduction of daylight saving time in Japan. As you know, several other countries, such as the United States, Canada and Australia, have already introduced this system. These countries decided to introduce this daylight saving time due to several merits. First of all, we can get back home 1 hour earlier. This means we can go home before dark, and it leads less traffic accidents and more safety of children. Secondly, it has something good to do with saving energy. In this system, we get up 1 hour earlier with the sun. So, we have another hour of sunlight until setting the sun. Since the hours of sunshine are longer, we can save energy like electric lights and so on.
Although the system has several good merits, it has some demerits at the same time. On the negative side, we need to change all clocks for the system. It is sure that there will be something wrong then. In addition, I have heard that it costs 100.000.000.000 yen to introduce the system in Japan. Next, it will give some damage to our life. We have biological clocks, and it is connected with our life styles. Under this system, our body clocks might get wrong. Then, it does harm to our health, and some students complain of sleepiness in class. There are many problems to be solved before the introduction.

In this discussion, I would like to agree with one idea. That is we do not introduce the system but we move up only time by 1 hour during summer. I mean we change only starting time of everything. Now our first period in this university begins 8:40. We move the starting time up for 7:40. I think it is easy to adapt and to reset the body clocks with starting it on Sunday midnight.

Report #5:Medical Bill Free

Today’s topic was “Free Medical Bill for Citizens”. It was difficult to find a consensus in today’s discussion. I was struggling with the topic. First of all, panel members said agree or disagree with the idea. The discussion was conducted, but before deciding whether we introduce the free medical bill or not, the topic was replaced by the next topic of its financial recourses. Then, I thought that we have lost the way to a consensus. As Jeff said, we should pay attention to what the topic is, and we need to get back on the topic before losing the way. So, I would like to write about my opinion about medical bill.
Now in Japan, if you have your insurance card, you can get medical care at the cost of several percent of the total expense. For example, people from students of elementary schools to age of 69 can get medical care at 30 percent of the whole expense. In addition, senior citizens over 70 years old and infants before entering elementary school need to pay 20 percent of the medical cost. I think this is not so high expenses compared with other countries. In addition, there are several subsidies for the poor who can not pay medical expenses. So, I do not agree with making medical bill for free.