Moral Classes

Jen always says, “Japan is giving me morals.” I have to agree with her, people are so upright here; it puts America to shame, I am sorry to say. My conclusion is all those moral classes the kids have to take that seem ridiculous, must actually work. I had the chance to observe a moral class one day, when my school hosted an annual all county “teachers come and observe our school” type day. One girl stood up and wrote an essay about how she grew up, how this made her the tough girl that she is, and how she felt about her class where she had no friends. She talked about how people bullied her and how upset it made her for people to call her names. Afterwards the class was dead silent, for about 10-15 minutes while the kids stared at their desks and all of the 30 or so observant teachers watched them and waited. Finally, the class leader stood up and said, I don’t feel that way towards you, and neither does anyone else I think. Finally, 10 long minutes of waiting, 2 more kids stand up, and finally I felt the kids all staring at one particular girl. As a Westerner, I felt like the silence was deafening and would have done almost anything to just end the long minutes of silence, like make them write or ask questions or something, ANYTHING. Standing for 30 minutes of silence would test ANYONE’S patience. But everyone was silent and waiting patiently sent the kids a message that we were just going to wait until they were ready. Many girls were crying. It took the ENTIRE 50 minute class to resolve an issue, but the teachers were patient enough to just sit there and wait for the kids to speak. I was shocked when the bully girl finally stood up and talked. The two girls became best friends after that. I was glad that I got to observe the powerful way that Japanese style moral classes can work.