Record number of 59,618 violent acts detected at schools

Tuesday 01st December, 05:43 AM JST

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gogogo at 11:54 AM JST - 1st December

Detected? Do they have a violent acts detector machine :)
ratpack at 12:00 PM JST - 1st December

Got to love the way the police call the teaches in lieu of the parents in japan when and if the student get caught doing something outside of the school. Why do parents turn a blind eye and hope that the education system will sort their kids out and teach them manners as well as right from wrong? My kids certainly know it when they have done something wrong and i dont turn a blind eye and hope the teachers will sort them out. It begins at home and the blame is on my shoulders if they stray. Also how about parents prepare their kids for life and help them grow a backbone to stand on their own two feet. If they are so worried about bullying throw them into a karate class from a young age. It builds character and teaches them how to look after themselves if the school bully does decide to come looking for trouble.
tokyokawasaki at 12:01 PM JST - 1st December

The reasons for the crime/violence increase, is in my opinion due to: Lack of education regarding manners, especially the mutual benefits of showing respect for other peoples views, property & space. I wish a class within the curriculum was devoted to social and moral values (without the interference of religion)...

This would benefit schools in every country would it not?

I agree the parents are usually the cause of problematic children, but teaching manner and social values has to start somewhere, so why not the kids of today? Hopefully the manners they learn would filter down through their offspring and hopefully we would see more resolve and peace amongst our fellow residents/classmates in the years ahead.

Most bullying and mindless violence is because the bully has lost or never been taught the mutual benefits of showing respect for another persons views, property & space. It is very hard not to accept karma as being a welcome natural behavioural trait...
kokorocloud at 01:10 PM JST - 1st December

It always starts with the parents. Doesn't matter your background or nationality, if your parents did not raise you to be respectful, then you won't be. If there was no discipline in the home, then having it happen at school will do no good (especially since there doesn't appear to be any form of discipline here anyway-- not that it does much good in my own country, where you can get disciplined like crazy but again, if the parents don't care, the kids certainly won't learn anything from it).
kyotovalentine at 02:06 PM JST - 1st December

I don't care if anyone agrees or not but I think kids these days are totally desensitized by all the violent media they see and we are losing our humanity. When I was a child a short generation ago we could not and did not sit around playing games that allowed us to simulate the violent murder of others. and Japanese movies? don't get me started on the sickness of their horror films, this sort of thing just slowly seeps into the national conscious and ruins it, I know there is a lot more violence in school than when I went to Japanese H.S. 28 yrs ago.It's sad.
thedeath at 02:19 PM JST - 1st December

a bit difference view from kyotovalentine,

i has been watching so call sick japanese cartoon since i can remember a thing. every weekend seeing cartoon character's head exploded off, red blood all over the screen, the killer sit there and laugh. it was so cool. reading many more comic books with the same type of violence and killing.

but i has never chop anyone head off for real, because i has been taught to know what is fantasy, what is reality.

to me parent is the key. teachers in school are next. if parent and teachers can not take control of the kids, then pointless to blame anyone.
mikekchar at 05:01 PM JST - 1st December

When I went to school I would have been personally involved in upwards of 300 violent acts a year. There were very few days during junior high school that I wasn't in a fight. Either I was being bullied or I was protecting someone else from being bullied. I could take care of myself too, never losing a fight. But unless you seriously injure someone (or kill them), bullies will always come back. Of course neither teachers nor parents knew anything about this.

I teach in Japan now, in a very low level school. The atmosphere here is much different than what I was used to in Canada. I have no trouble believing that violent incidents are waaay below that in the west. Part of the reason for this is the teacher's direct involvement in the student's life.

In my school teachers have taken the the instruction to not physically abuse students very seriously. And at the same time they have taken the instruction to report physical incidents and bullying very seriously. In my school, at least, this appears to have had 2 effects. The first is that some of the most troubled kids are more out of control. Before they would be intimidated by physical violence from the teachers (not saying it's good, just pointing out an observation). The second is that physical incidents are being reported much more. Some teachers even seem to have realized that they can get the "bad" students suspended by goading them into violence.

Based on this, I expect the statistics to keep rising. While I don't agree with the tactics of the "good old days", I personally believe that the change in student behavior has more to do with the change in the way teachers are treating them. There have always been bad parents. There has always been violence in human culture. Todays culture has the advantage that quite a lot of the violence is fiction.

If we want to improve this situation, I think it's actually a job for teachers. But as a teacher I have to admit that I don't know what to do.
stirfry at 05:53 PM JST - 1st December

probably left a zero off at the end
DickMorris at 07:31 PM JST - 1st December

This is a disgrace!! Japan grow up, do you hear me?

The solution is to bring back respect for elders, especially teachers. Bring back corporal punishment for the bullies, give them some of their own medicine.

Traditional values are being lost worldwide, especially in loose living, decadent Japan. Tough punishments for kids and their patents for not bring up their kids with correct values, you will soon see a better schooland society environment.
waltery at 09:20 PM JST - 1st December

To much red meat in the diet I think.
maxpower at 10:09 PM JST - 1st December

Time to arm teachers with stun guns, mace and private security guards!

Oh wait... 1/3 of these violent acts are Vandalism?????

Totally agree though, the rise in violent crime is definitely related to the increase of Gaijin in the country...
Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land at 10:17 PM JST - 1st December

I wish a class within the curriculum was devoted to social and moral values

There is a morals class, at least in the elementary schools. The problem is that it's the parents who should be teaching morals, not the schools.
whatsgoinon at 11:31 PM JST - 1st December

The rise in violence is a world wide problem. In the west, there actually are armed security guards/police offices in many of the high schools and sometimes even metal detectors due to problems with guns and knives. I used to think that I would want my kids to go move back to my home country by high school, but then I went home and found out that the high school in my community, which is growing but not a city, now has police officers there to make sure there are no knives or guns.

There is and always has been great problems with bullying as well, and there are also racial tensions in city schools and in recent years in the US, shooting sprees causing mass murders.

Teachers are completely disrespected there, too and have less and less power. Parents in the west, too, are less than perfect, often making it hard for teachers to do their job. And Respect???? That went out of fashion years ago.

Violence may be increasing here, as it is everywhere, but it is nowhere near as bad as other countries overall. That doesn't mean that it isn't a big problem. Solutions definitely need to be found.
kyoken at 06:36 PM JST - 2nd December
**> The ministry attributed the increase in violence to a decline in common manners and lack of communication skills [...]

The MOE, or "Ministry of Training" as I call it, should take a closer look in the mirror to see that the school system needs urgent reform to create self thinking individuals for the post-industrial nation Japan has become.

Currently the Japanese school system is still producing perfect industry workers, and so are the lessons one learns in school:
- Lesson1: act unisonous with the group
- Lesson2: it is crime to be different
- Lesson3: strict obedience
One offical put it blundly as he was asked why the so "efficient" Japanese school system needs 塾 (cramming schools). His reply was that "cramming schools are needed to learn all the facts". Pressed further on what the people then learn in the school, he added that "Japanese schools teach scolars to be Japanese".

Hence, by 18 the average Japanese scholar has become the perfect sheep ready to be utilized and further molded in the industry or government.
kyoken at 06:37 PM JST - 2nd December

... hence no wonder people who are "different" revert to violence.