TEACHERS IN JAPAN
teacher in an anime series 
Teachers are generally well paid, supported and respected. They go through extensive training and have to pass a very competitive test that only a small percentage pass to become teachers. The learning process continues when they become teachers with classes in the summer and after school.
Teachers and school administrators are held in very high esteem in Japan. In a study of 82 professions, school principals finished 9th, teachers 18th and college professors were 3rd, ahead of physicians at 7th. Teachers also make more money than equivalent positions in the private sector and the civil service.
Teachers are arguably treated with more respect than their American counterparts. The are addressed with the honorific sensei, a term also used when addressing a doctor or member of Parliament. Teachers are held in such high regard that they are often contacted before parents by the police if a student is in trouble with the law.
There are around 900,000 teachers in Japan. A 2006 survey by the education ministry found that public school teachers work an average of 11 hours a day and received ¥410,000 a month in pay.
A study of American and Japanese cooking teachers found that American teachers were more likely up spice up their classes with jokes, personal stories and gossip with the lesson itself bieng somewhat disorganized while Japanese teachers were more organized and likely to stick to the tasks and matter at hand with few or no personal stories or jokes.
Links in this Website: EDUCATION SYSTEM IN JAPAN Factsanddetails.com/Japan ; SCHOOLS IN JAPAN Factsanddetails.com/Japan ; TEACHERS IN JAPAN Factsanddetails.com/Japan ; SCHOOL LIFE IN JAPAN Factsanddetails.com/Japan ; BULLYING AND SCHOOL PROBLEMS IN JAPAN Factsanddetails.com/Japan ; UNIVERSITIES IN JAPAN Factsanddetails.com/Japan ; JAPANESE CHILDREN Factsanddetails.com/Japan ; JAPANESE TEENAGERS AND YOUNG ADULTS Factsanddetails.com/Japan
Good Websites and Sources on Education: Education in Japan education-in-japan.info ; Education in Japan, a First Hand Look with Photos amphi.com/~psteffen/fmf ;
MEXT, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology mext.go.jp/english ; Statistical Handbook of Japan Education Chapter stat.go.jp/english/data/handbook ; 2010 Edition stat.go.jp/english/data/nenkan ; News stat.go.jp ; International Study on Working Conditions of School Personnel pdf file nfer.ac.uk/nfer/publications
Education System Good Photos at Japan-Photo Archive japan-photo.de ; Education Japan.org educationjapan.org/jguide/education_system ; Education System in Japan , Case Study Findings www2.ed.gov/pubs/JapanCaseStudy ; Japan’s Modern Education System mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho ; List of Schools and Universities Broken Down by Prefecture okumedia.cc.osaka-kyoiku.ac.jp Education Topics Moral Education in Japan hi-ho.ne.jp/taku77 ;Wikipedia article on Secondary Education in Japan Wikipedia ; Education Cost boingboing.net ; English Language Education in Japan doshisha.ac.jp/~kkitao/online ; Wikipedia article on Juku Cram Schools Wikipedia ; Exam Hell? uniorb.com ; Exam Hell, Now Not So Hot japantimes.co.jp
Skilled Teachers in Japan
A survey of teaching styles used by eighth grade teachers found that Japanese teachers employed 83 percent concepts and 17 percent drills, compared 77 percent concepts, 13 percent drills by teachers in Germany and 22 percent concepts, 78 percent drills by teachers in the United States.
Japanese teachers are credited with inspiring curiosity in students and putting in long hours. According to high-profile survey of science lesson quality, Japanese teachers produced 30 percent high-quality lessons, 57 percent medium quality ones and 12 low quality ones, while American teachers produced 13 percent medium quality lessons, 87 percent low quality ones and no high quality ones. After watching a video tape of a Japanese math teacher in action, one high-level American educator told Newsweek, "I was almost moved to tears" by "one of the most elegantly taught lessons I've ever seen."
In a study of mathematics teaching in Japan and Taiwan, James Stingler and Harold Stevenson reported: “Asian class lessons are so well crafted [because] there is a very systematic effort to pass on the accumulated wisdom of teaching practice to each new generation of teachers and to keep perfecting the practice by providing teachers the opportunities to continually learn from each other.”
Teachers are provided with equitable salaries and given incentives for working in hard-to-staff locations. In some cases prospective teachers must pass piano, singing and swimming tests.
Teacher’s Criticism of Students
Recalling her school years Sawa Kurotani, a Japan-born professor of anthropology at Redlands University, wrote in the Daily Yomiuri, “When I look back, I am struck by how overwhelmingly negative most of the feedback was—not just in terms of athletic, but also in academic, artistic and social realms—that I receive in my childhood and teenage years in Japan. From kindergarten to high school, all I remember is criticisms on everything I didn’t do: ‘Miss Kurotani, you are terrible at writing kanji.’ (Forget the fact I could read all of them). ‘You didn’t paint within the lines.’ (It looks fine to me). ‘Why can’t you work with other kids in the group?’ (But I already finished my part.).”
“I do not believe that I happened to be an unusually poor student or that these experiences are unique to me. Rather, I realize now that the Japanese educational institution is centered on finding and correcting shortcomings of students. Implicit in this notion is that there is a right answer to a correct way to do things, and any diversion from it must be corrected.”
See Learning Kanji Under Schools
Busy Japanese Teachers
Teachers in Japan are very busy preparing lessons, grading tests and overseeing extracurricular activities. One survey found that Japanese teachers have a larger and more varied amount of assigned work in addition to their regular classes than teachers in other countries.
In the survey 65 percent of Japanese teachers said were “supervising club activities,” 67 percent said they were involved in “food education” and 73 percent said they engaged “in supervising activities of the student council and its committees.” By contrast teachers in Finland spend much time “communicating with parents” and “giving supplementary lessons after” school and French teacher have little assigned work outside their regular classes.
In some prefectures teacher have to spend the better part of their summer vacations attending classes and seminars to improve their general knowledge and professional skills. More pressure has been put on teachers to take these classes since the school week was reduced from six days to five days.
New education legislation passed in June 2007 requires teacher to get their license renewed every 10 years, presumably from written test, and 30 hours of job training. Ths system goes into effect in 2009. Teachers licenses use to be valid for life.
In many school systems, teachers make a personal visit to the home of each students for an informal chat and getting-to-each-other session with parents.
Teachers Spend Thousands of Hours Doing Activities Unrelated to Jobs
In October 2011, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported: “More than 850 teachers have misused thousands of work hours in Hokkaido and Okinawa Prefecture by engaging in activities unrelated to their jobs, the Board of Audit has found. According to sources, the Board of Audit conducted spot checks of the working conditions of teachers in Hokkaido and Ishikawa, Tottori and Okinawa prefectures. It found that 855 teachers at 191 public primary and middle schools in Hokkaido and Okinawa Prefecture misused a total of 4,575 working hours in recent years. [Source: Yomiuri Shimbun, October 21, 2011]
The Board of Audit intends to ask in its audit report, due to be released in November, that the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry order such teachers to return part of their salaries to the state. The board's checks followed the revelation that members of the Hokkaido Teachers' Union engaged in union activities during their work hours in relation to a case involving violations of the Political Funds Control Law by the union. No major problems were seen in Ishikawa and Tottori prefectures, the sources said. [Ibid]
“The board inspected working conditions for public primary and middle school teachers at 209 schools in Hokkaido and 68 schools in the three prefectures. It checked entries in the teachers' attendance records and interviewed teachers, according to the sources. In Hokkaido, inappropriate work behavior was found at 172 schools. Of this figure, for four years since the 2006 academic year, a total of 442 teachers at 52 schools did not work during working hours even though they were required to be at schools during long-term holiday periods such as summer vacation. Their total misuse of working hours came to 2,045 hours. [Ibid]
More than half the schools checked used unmanned security systems, and in some cases teachers turned off the security systems after working hours started or turned them on before working hours ended, the sources said.This led to times when no one was at school facilities during working hours. A total of 81 teachers at 47 schools did not attend training programs during summer vacation or other periods, although they told school principals they would attend. Time misused in this way totaled 1,006 hours. In one case, the reported training venue was a library, but the facility was closed on that day. [Ibid]
“At 19 schools in Okinawa Prefecture, teachers took extended breaks in working hours during schools' summer vacations, or attended meetings of educational research organizations not related to their work without using their paid holidays for the purpose. There were 208 teachers involved in these cases, who misused 1,183 hours. [Ibid]
Teacher Tests in Japan
The exams that teachers have to take to become teachers are very difficult. Only a small percentage of those who take the test pass it. In Akita Prefecture the pass-to-fail ratio is 27.7 to 1. In Oita Prefecture it is 11 to 1. The national fail to pass ration s 4.6 to 1.
A new law that went into effect in 2009 requires teachers to renew their license every ten years and take a training session and pass a test after they finish. In 2009, 12,000 teachers took some training courses and 248 failed the test.
Teacher Tests and Corruption in Japan
The exam system is vulnerable to corruption. In 2008, there was scandal in the Oita school system in which relatives of prospective teachers and principals paid bribes to members of the board of education to “bump up” test scores so the job seekers could get jobs in the system.
In one case the No. 2 board member gave orders to an official in charge of hiring teacher to “upgrade” the scores on the tests of 15 applicants so their scores would be high enough to get hired for the 2007-2008 school year. Teachers whose exam results were doctored were fired.
In a case that went to court, Tesuro Yano, a former compulsory education division official at the education board, and his wife Kaoru, a former vice principal, a gave ¥1 million in gift certificates to Katsuyoshi, Eto, a current compulsory education official, to manipulate the exam of Yano’s 23-year-old daughter so she could pass it and get a job in the 2007-2008 school year. The Yanos also offered gift certificates worth ¥1 million to Masoto Ninomiya, the No. 2 person on the education board. Eto also received a bribe—¥3 million in cash and ¥1 million in gift certificates—from Ikumo Asari, a school principal, to allow his 26-year-old son and 23-year-old daughter to pass the primary school teacher’s exam. Eto is believed to have manipulated the scores himself.
An investigation found that 139 teachers in Oita Prefecture that were promoted to principal or vice principal in April 2008 were given unfair increases on their promotional test scores. In October 2008, Asari, the former school principal, was found guilty of giving bribes to education board officials to secure teaching jobs for her son and daughter and was given a suspended sentence. In December 2009, two former primary school teachers were fond guilty of giving bribes—$5,000 worth of gift vouchers—to senior officials—including Eto. They were given suspended prison sentences.
Such corruption and bribery schemes are believed to be widespread. A case similar to the one Oita occurred in Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1990. Nationwide a surprisingly high number of children of teachers pass the teacher’s exam.
Education Graduate Schools in Japan
Setting up graduate programs in education was the universities’ answer to a growing dissatisfaction with the primary and secondary school system. “We are faced with a number of gripping issues in schools like bullying, truancy, and falling grades,” Tetsuya Kajisa, the president of Hyogo University of Teacher Education near Osaka, told the New York Times. “As society and community change, issues facing schools have become more complicated and the solutions require higher expertise.”[Source: Miki Tanikawa, New York Times, September 26, 2010]
Miki Tanikawa wrote in the New York Times, “In 2008, with the blessing and the accreditation of the Ministry of Education, 19 universities launched professionally oriented graduate programs in teacher education, seeking approximately 700 students in total. Seven more schools introduced similar programs a year later. During the first year, 8 of the 19 original institutions fell short of the target enrollment — some by far: two schools managed to recruit only half of the target numbers of students. A ministry assessment completed shortly afterward said the schools lacked proper marketing methods and had failed to clearly state the practical benefits of receiving graduate diplomas.” [Ibid]
“Mr. Kajisa, who also heads an association for professional schools for teacher education, said the system for teachers needed to be revised so that people with graduate degrees would get recognition through promotions or through some sort of licensing system that required taking graduate courses to upgrade a license, as is the case in the United States.” “There have to be initiatives taken at the national level” to create benefits to those with graduate certificates, he said, “because these schools were envisioned by the national government.” [Ibid]
“Currently, local school districts have different policies regarding promotions and benefits for teachers with graduate degrees. Some schools are taking their own measures to increase enrollment. “We have gone around visiting undergraduate departments giving explanatory sessions and did what we could to let people know about our programs,” said Hirokazu Hirose, a professor in the graduate program at Joetsu University of Education in Niigata Prefecture. [Ibid]
Training and Classes at Education Graduate Schools
Miki Tanikawa wrote in the New York Times, “The graduate school has also been placing an emphasis on practical training, for example, sending students to teach at local primary and secondary schools. Students teach lessons at local schools, videotape the classes and then bring the tapes back for evaluation with other students. “Then we feed the solutions back to the classes,” Mr. Hirose said. “Essentially, what we do is identify issues, find the solutions and resolve issues in the classroom.” [Source: Miki Tanikawa, New York Times, September 26, 2010]
“Following the efforts by Mr. Hirose and 20 of his colleagues, the number of students enrolled grew from 32 in 2008 to 51 in 2009 at his graduate program. In 2010, the school enrolled 60 students. A number of graduate students interviewed, many of whom have had years of teaching experience before coming to the graduate programs, generally held positive views about the in-class training.” “It allowed me to structure and organize my knowledge and experiences,” said Kazuhiko Nishimura, 49, a graduate student at Hyogo University of Teacher Education and a high school social studies teacher in the southern Yamaguchi Prefecture, currently on leave. [Ibid]
Mr. Nishimura said he liked his graduate school’s integrated approach to practice and theory, something he said was often missing among front-line teachers. “You need to understand the latest studies and theories in order to understand and overcome latest problems,” he said.
Mr. Nishimura, who has another six months to complete his master’s degree, is due to carry out 150 hours of work at a high school in his native Yamaguchi starting this autumn, including management training with the principal and teaching classes. [Ibid]
Takanori Matsuoka, 39, a student at Joetsu and an elementary school teacher on leave, said that the mix of practice and theory worked well. “I have had few opportunities to think theoretically about issues before,” he said. “What was significant was that I got to learn about something I had direct experiences in at school from a fresh theoretical perspective.” Students said they thought more teachers would be interested in enrolling if they had been given the opportunity to know more about what these professional schools actually did. [Ibid]
But some say that egalitarian thinking, typical of Japan’s group-oriented society, might stand in the way. If there was one main reason keeping teachers from attending, “it would be that teachers in Japanese schools have this notion that they tackle problems by working together, not by creating a super elite that transcends everybody,” Mr. Matsuoka said.
Problems Faced by Teachers in Japan
Parents protesting a school play of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs A February 2003 survey by a Japanese teacher association found that 80 percent of the 1,100 elementary, middle school and high school teachers asked said they felt stress and anxiety related to their work. Many complained that new rules that require them to prepare detailed curriculum and lesson plans gave them too much of extra work. Another survey found that on average teachers do 80 hours of overtime work a month.
Stress come from out-of -control students, inability to use strict, disciplining measures, complaints from parents, demands by the education ministry, time spent at endless meetings and training sessions, inability to change, and problems at home with aging parents or problem teenagers. Often times teachers who are in their 50s are suffering the worst.
Teachers have also been the victims of violence. In 1998, a female teacher was stabbed by a male student with a butterfly knife tt a middle school in in Kuroiso in Tochigi Prefecture. The student had been reprimanded for tardiness.
Each year about 500 to 600 teachers out of about 900,000 are deemed incompetent by the Education Ministry on the basis of failing to communicate with students of lacking knowledge in their subject. Of the 506 labeled inept in 2006, a total of 103 resigned “voluntarily,” two were transferred to clerical position. Only six were discharged outright. In fiscal year 2002-2003, 289 teachers were found to be incompetent and three were fired.
Burnt Out and Depressed Teachers in Japan
More and more teachers are suffering from teacher burnout. One teacher told the Yomiuri Shimbun, "My class is pure chaos and this has made me neurotic. A state of total disorder reign in my class and I am exhausted, both mentally and physically." Some have become seriously depressed and have suffered dramatic weight loss and have difficulty getting out of bed.
Teachers who are already busy preparing lessons, grading tests and overseeing extracurricular activities have fond that demands made by the Japanese bureaucracy put them over the edge. Some teacher suffer from depression or stress-related illnesses.
The number of teachers that took sick leave because of depression and other mental disorders rose in 2009 for the 17th straight year to 5,458 cases. Of these 39 percent were in their 50s, 35 percent were in their 40s, 19 percent in were their 30s and 7 percent were in their 20s. Out of the total, 44 percent were in elementary school, 30 percent were in middle schools and 16 percent in high school.
The number of primary, middle school and high school teachers who took time off because of depression or some other mental health reasons reached a record 4,675 in the 2006 academic year, up from 4,178 in 2005, which itself was a 17 percent increase from the previous year and triple the number ten years earlier. The rise is attribute to increased work load and pressure from colleagues, students and parents.
In the 2007 school year nearly 5,000 schoolteachers took leave of absence because of depression and other mental disorders. More than 60 percent of the teachers who took sick leave in 2006 did so for metal health reasons. Administrators also feel a lot of stress. One principal killed himself because he felt responsible for the death of a 14-year-old boy who was killed when a soccer goal was blown on top of him by a gust of wind.
One survey found that half the teachers that have checked into a hospital had problems related to trouble with parents. One teacher lost his appetite and went into a deep depression after parents repeatedly called him—almost everyday for several weeks—complaining that he made a scratch on the their child’s educational material. Another became depressed when parents called her late at night at home to complain about a student that had hit the parent’s son. Another became depressed after the hiding of the indoor shoes of one her students as a prank became a major issue at a PTA meeting.
Teachers and Monster Parents in Japan
Snow White protest Teachers are increasingly being stressed and pushed to the limit by pushy, demanding “monster” parents. Parents have asked that their children be excused from classroom cleaning duties; complained that their children suffered mentally by being giving questions below their grade-level; complained the school had failed to protected their child from some minor injury at school; and complained the school had not given their child proper guidance after the child caused a bicycle accident. Some parents go over the heads of the teachers and principals, e-mailing complaints to local boards of education of even the national Education Ministry. One education board member said he fielded once listened to a complaint that lasted six hours.
In one extreme case, at a girl’s primary school in suburban Tokyo, all 25 of players in a production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves were Snow White because no parent wanted their child to be dwarf or a wicked witch and they harangued and hectored teachers to side in their favor.
Monster parents are a break from old-style parents who observed respectful silence and deference when it came to teachers. In the past parents apologized for any misdeed performed by their child. The media has demonized the new monster parents, with frequent reports about their extreme behavior and even a television drama about them
There are stories of parents demanding that scores of sporting events be changed, ordering their children to install listening devises in the classroom, and “teacher hunters” parent groups that act together to get a teacher they dislike fired. In some cases monster parents have entered a school and harassed and shouted in the face of a disliked teachers until they sign a resignation letter on the spot.
Yoshihiko Morotomi, author a book on monster parents , told The Times of London, “The monsters are created in family restaurants and coffee shops—places where the mothers meet each other to talk and relax. Simple chats spiral into ‘emergency meetings’...the conversation becomes more emotional and radical and suddenly what began as a simple complaint becomes a monsterised army of parents.”
A May 2006 suicide by a rookie teacher was blamed on her feelings of being overwhelmed by parental demands.
Teachers and Sex in Japan
Sex club version of the
school room sex fantasy Molestation and statutory rape of children by teachers is a serious problems in Japan. The number of teachers punished for sexual behavior with children rose 40 percent between 1999 to 2009, when 138 teachers were punished for inappropriate sexual conduct with children , including 100 who were dismissed.
In 1999, 116 teachers were disciplined for committing indecent acts on students. Of these 56 were fired and 13 were charged with crimes. In 2001, there were 122 such cases. Experts believe that vast majority of cases go unreported.In 2002, 98 teachers were fired for obscene acts. In 2003, 155 teachers were disciplined for “indecent acts.” in 2005, 124 teachers were disciplined for sexual offenses, including child prostitution and secretly taking images of women. In 1995, only 27 teachers were disciplined for such acts.
In 1999, a 37-old teacher in Kanagawa Prefecture was charged with committing an indecent act with a middle school girl after offering her money. The same teacher operated a prostitution club with services provided by middle school girls. Around the same time a 35-year-old English teacher was dismissed after allegedly video-taping female students through a skylight in a girl’s bathroom while they changed their clothes. A 49-year-old male teacher was jailed for touching the breasts and lower body of a mentally disabled girl while she took a shower.
In 1998, a 35-year-old high school teacher was accused of taking videos under girl's skirts by standing under a staircase. In January 1999, another school teacher was arrested after he donned a wig and skirt and videod naked girls at a hot spring resort with a hidden camera.
In June, 1995, the principal of a major college preparatory school was arrested for running a prostitution ring involving 280 girls between the ages of 14 and 17. A few months earlier a Tokyo teacher was arrested for running an introduction service using 321 high school students.
See Child Pornography.
More on Teachers and Sex in Japan
the Japanese schoolgirl thing In July 2001, a 34-year-old middle school Social Studies teacher picked up a 12-year-old girl, who he met through a telephone dating service, and handcuffed her and drove off with her in his car with the plan of having sex with her. While the car was traveling on an expressway she jumped out of the car and was hit by a truck.. She died after she bled to death on the side of the highway.
In January 2002, a Saitama teacher was arrested for paying a 13-year-old girl $380 for sex, a high-school teacher n Kagoshima prefecture was charged with “sexual conduct” with a 16-year-old student, and a Tokyo middle school teacher was sentenced to a year in prison for groping a high school girl on a bus.
In December 2003, a Board of Education senior official in Tokyo was caught trying to secretly video tape women changing in the dressing room at a hot spring resort In December 2006, a primary school teacher in Tokyo was reprimanded for running a website that showed photographs of six children that died traffic accidents and other children that been disfigured or seriously hurt in accidents. He was also charged with distributing child pornography In 2006 one teacher was charged with distributing child pornography and a principal in Saitama was arrested for groping a woman who was waiting for a taxi at a taxi stand at 1:00am. He was drunk at the time.
In October 2004, a 40-year-old junior high school teacher was sentenced to 18 months in prison for molesting two 13-year-old girls. Most of victims were students at his school. He molested them in his car or a karaoke where he would take the girls.
In September 2007, a vice principal was arrested from removing the underwear of passed-out, drunken woman at a bar and taking photographs of her body. Another vice principal, at an elementary school, was disciplined for repeatedly molesting schoolgirls. He used the pretext of taking their measurements” so he could touch their bodies. Another primary school vice principal paid a girl to have sex and took obscene photographs of a number of women he met on the street which were published in a magazine. Yet another vice principal was sentenced to three years in jail, suspended five years, for lewd acts. He met six teenage girls through a dating service and sold lewd photographs he took of them.
In November 2009, a 46-year-old middle school teacher was arrested in suspicion of putting a spy camera in a girls toilet in his school, Tokiwamatsu Middle School, in Chiba Prefecture.
In September 2009, a 43-year-old former teacher was given a ten-year prison sentence for sexually assaulting 20 female students at a primary school in Hiroshima Prefecture between 2001 and 2006.
Victims of Teacher Sex in Japan
Victims who attempt to come forward are often given a harder time than the perpetrators. The New York Times reported a story about a 16-year-old who was given genital herpes in 2001 by her teacher and told her parents about it. When they confronted the teacher, the teacher denied the claim and warned that of they reported him, the girl would be expelled from school. In spite of the threats the family reported the teacher to police. He was fired and given a one-year prison sentence. However, the girl became an object of taunting by students at her school and her parents sent her abroad to go to school.
In February 2002, a 51-year-old teacher was fired and given a two-year prison sentence for fondling a girl in a school office. After the teacher was arrested she ridiculed by other students and chided by her best friend for ruining the life of the teacher. The victim told Mainichi Shimbun, “When I was the supermarket, I was surrounded by some senior students I had never spoken to before. They shouted, ‘That’s the sexually harassed!’ and laughed at me.”
In October 2004, a 40-year-old junior high school teacher was sentenced to 18 months in prison for molesting two 13-year-old girls. Most of victims were students at his school. He molested them in his car or a karaoke where he would take the girls.
See Rape, Women
Sex Abuse by Teachers Plagues Shizuoka Prefecture
In October 2011, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported: “Alleged sexual transgressions by teachers in Shizuoka Prefecture have become so common that the area's leading educational administrator recently declared himself helpless to stop them. There have been five disclosed cases of alleged sexual improprieties committed by school teachers in Shizuoka Prefecture, including a school principal, between August and Octover 201 alone. In those cases, the teachers were fired for sexual harassment or arrested for voyeurism. [Source: Smithsonian magazine, October 24, 2011]
“The latest came in October when a 47-year-old teacher at Shizuoka Prefectural High School of Science and Technology was arrested on suspicion of indecent assault on a female student. In September a high school teacher who had been through a training session on sex abuse was arrested on suspicion of using a camera to look up a woman's skirt. [Ibid]
“A 17-year-old male second-year student at Shizuoka Prefectural High School of Science and Technology said: "Many female students have begun to distrust their male teachers because of these incidents. When our school held a meeting to explain the situation to all students, a girl began weeping, and I couldn't face the scene. [Ibid]
Image Sources: 1) 3) 4) xorsyst blog 2) Guven Peter Witteveen 5) Joan Sinclair's book Pink Boxes 6) Goods from Japan
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Daily Yomiuri, Times of London, Japan National Tourist Organization (JNTO), National Geographic, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.
© 2009 Jeffrey Hays
Last updated July 2012