A Comparison of American and Japanese Senior High Schools: Homerooms, Homeroom Teachers, and the Sense of a “Home Base” for Students

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  • A Comparison of American and Japanese Senior High Schools:

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The purpose of this article is to compare and contrast the role of the homeroom in American and Japanese senior high schools. It is based primarily on my many years of teaching in the senior high schools of both nations. It is my contention that the differences between the two are so significant and so striking that they dwarf whatever similarities that do exist. The primary difference is that in Japan, homeroom is taken almost literally as a “home base” or even a kind of “home away from home” in a way that is simply not the case for most American students. In American high schools, the role of a “home base” is filled by the presence of student lockers and the area immediately adjacent to these lockers. Otherwise, the main role of homeroom is mostly to have a convenient and acceptable place to check student attendance and for students to listen to announcements over the school’s intercommunications system. It is thus primarily an administrative convenience rather than a major educational or social institution. This very limited role contrasts sharply with Japanese homerooms. In Japan, the homeroom (or homuruumu in Japanese) is a gathering place of great importance. Whereas American students may spend only about thirty to forty minutes per day actually inside their homerooms, Japanese students spend virtually their entire school day inside theirs. But the great imbalance of time spent is just one of many key differences. In American high schools the one major factor that determines the actual composition of a given homeroom is often simply a student’s last name and its place in the English alphabet. By contrast, Japanese homerooms are often determined by other far more significant factors and characteristics. These may include a common course of study, participation in after-school clubs (especially sports), and the relative academic level of a certain group of students. This sense of students identifying themselves primarily with their homerooms and homeroom teachers is emphasized and encouraged on a regular basis by school authorities. For example, during school cultural festivals and sports festivals, students are usually grouped according to their homerooms and a sense of pride and loyalty to the homeroom is actively promoted and encouraged. By contrast, similar student gatherings in the USA are meant to enforce a general sense of pride and loyalty to the school itself or toward the student body in general with little if any emphasis placed upon a strong sense of loyalty or commitment to a student’s particular homeroom. Finally, the vastly different role of homeroom teachers in both nations is discussed. Whereas the role of homeroom teachers in the USA is rather limited in scope and responsibility, homeroom teachers in Japan have a great deal of authority and responsibility mostly unheard of in American secondary schools. A few examples of such differences will be discussed.

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