<p>From the NYT magazine (Sunday, March 20, 2005);</p>
<p>Making the Grade by Kumiko Makihara</p>
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<p>The applicant in question was a five-year-old seeking admission into a private primary school. The applicant was a legacy, but this was not considered a hook. >>Seikei is known for denying entrance to many children of graduates in the name of fairness.>></p>
<p>The process involved preparing for a written exam (apparently a joint parent-child essay); building up a resume (craft-making, sports) preparing for an interview (of the parents) clothing tips (also for the parents). And more. It’s a hoot.</p>
<p>I<code>m a japanese myself, and not ALL people are like this. However, it is becoming more and more common.
Taking entrance exams is not only common for primary school, many children take them for entrance into elementary school. Most children(I would say more than 60%) take it for entrance into junior high, and every student must take it for entarnce into high school. It</code> s crazy!!!
Think about the shock if you were rejected to a primary school at the age of 5!!!</p>
<p>Japan has a higher aggregate suicide rate than the United States, but that consists of a higher suicide rate among old people (that is, the age cohorts born before World War II). The astonishing fact about youth suicide is that the youth suicide rate is MUCH higher in the United States than in Japan, and the trend lines are worse here than there: the United States youth suicide rate has TRIPLED in the postwar decades, while the youth suicide rate in Japan has declined during the same period. </p>
<p>The way to check the latest figures is to look up the international mortality statistics of the World Health Organization, which report these figures for member countries according to a standardized definition of suicide and a standardized set of age brackets. (I just did a Web search, but only found documents giving national aggregate rates, not documents giving age distributions of suicide rates. Years ago I looked this up in the bound volumes of WHO reports at my state university’s medical school library.) </p>
<p>Few people know, by the way, that Hungary has long been near the top of the world rankings in suicide rates (at all ages, but especially for youth suicide). One friend of mine who has lived in central Europe says the weather is often cloudy there, and many theorists on suicide think that cloudy weather and high latitude (both of which Hungary and Japan appear to have more of than the United States) influence the development of mood disorders. The Nordic countries, never mentioned in casual conversation about suicide as high-suicide countries, have higher suicide rates than the United States, especially for females.</p>
<p>They certainly can. It’s called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Not everyone gets it, but those who do get very depressed (which can lead to suicide) when they are not exposed to enough sunlight for long periods of time, such as in far northern cities in the winter. I know people in Minnesota who get treated for the disorder by exposure to biright lights to simulate sun exposure.</p>
<p>Google on Seasonal Affective Disorder if you want to know more.</p>
<p>The irony of the 5 year old admission issue in Japan is that (from what I have seen) until age 5 the kids (boys in particular) seem to be allowed to run wild and are only “gently coddled” as a primary parenting technique. The parents are waiting for the school teachers to whip them into shape…I can’t imagine, therefore, what the “prep” for the 5 year old admissions is doing to the fundamental approach to parenting young children in Japan…</p>