Editor’s note:The View from the Classroom is a regular column published by Sam Porter, an American who is spending his senior year at a Japanese high school. All of Mr Porter’s columns can be seen at the View From the Classroom category list.

Hello TPR listeners, I’m proud to bring you the next installment in my series of ongoing articles on high school in Japan. In this piece I will be discussing my first impressions and the overall atmosphere of a Japanese high school. The name of the school I’m attending and all names of teachers and school faculty have been changed for this column.

“Okaa-san, do I really first travel by bike, then by train, and then by bus to get to school? Does it really take 90 minutes?” I asked my host mother in disappointment before I left for school at 7:00 AM on the first day of school.

I was learning my first lesson about life for many of Japan’s high school students. Going to school is never easy. My oldest host brother Shoujiro had to travel from our town in Osaka prefecture all the way to downtown Kyoto by train, and then switch trains yet again to finally arrive at his school. My other host siblings, Yuta, and Himiko, both traveled my long route to school each day too.

In Japan all pre-college students take entrance exams while entering elementary school, middle school, high school, and college. Depending on how well students do in their exams, they are eligible for certain schools. Students do not usually end up in their own town. Frequently they are placed in schools accessible only by long train rides, bus rides, bike rides, or a combination of any three of these modes of transportation. It was my luck to need all three modes!

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Hello TPR listeners, my name is Sam Porter and I will be writing a new monthly column on this site about my experience as a senior exchange student at a Japanese high school between August of 2007 and June of 2008. This column will provide an insider’s view of what Japanese high school feels like from a student’s perspective as well as present issues related to the Japanese education system. For this first installment I thought it would be good to explain who I am and why I’m going to be doing a year of school abroad in Japan.

I grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts (in the USA). Brookline is a small town adjacent to the city of Boston. Much like neighboring Boston, Brookline is an intensely international and political town. Walking through Coolidge Corner or Brookline Village, the two main centers of town, one often hears numerous languages being spoken or encounters some political protest or social demonstration taking place. My first and most influential exposure to Japanese culture occurred during my elementary school years.

I attended the Lawrence School, which hosted Japanese students whose parents were doing graduate studies at local universities. Lawrence’s student body of around 400 students is an amazing 1/3 Japanese. My earliest memories of going to school have always involved Japanese students, the Japanese language, but most of all, Japanese culture. I remember playing soccer in gym class and at recess with my friends Kansuke and Takahiro. Throughout my time at Lawrence I wanted to learn Japanese so that I could understand their culture and their country.

Each year Lawrence celebrated numerous Japanese festivals, and invited traditional Japanese performance groups such as story tellers and taiko drummers to perform at our school. Unfortunately, no Japanese language classes were ever offered. Twice a year the very popular Japanese crafts and food fairs occurred. For these events, all of the mothers of the Japanese students came out in force to transform the school auditorium into a traditional mock open air Japanese market. As an elementary school student, this was an amazing experience.

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