Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.giapponese
Titolo: Japanese Children...

 July 1, 2001
JAPANESE CHILDREN GET SCARY LESSONS IN FIGHTING VIOLENCE
By Calvin Sims
TOKYO, June 30 - Ever since a knife-wielding man killed eight children at an
elementary school near Osaka on June 8, schools across Japan have wasted
little time adopting security measures that until the stabbing would have
been unthinkable in a country of little violence.
School officials have locked gates, posted guards, organized parent patrols,
installed cameras and enrolled teachers in self-defense courses.
Some schools are even arming teachers with weapons like ear-splitting noise
alarms, long Y-shaped poles (often used by the police to subdue suspects)
and canisters of tear gas.
Hideki Matsuzaki, the mayor of Urayasu, a town east of Tokyo, said, "It
might look dangerous for schools to have such devices, but what should not
have happened did actually happen in Ikeda, and the city government should
consider concrete measures to keep children safe." Urayasu plans to
distribute tear-gas canisters to 42 schools.
There is concern that some Japanese schools - with little or no experience
in crime prevention - may have gone too far, especially in their efforts to
teach students how to protect themselves in the event of violence.
Two weeks ago, shortly after fifth graders sat down for class at the Kuni
Municipal Elementary School, near Kyoto, a male teacher wearing a mask and
wielding an iron rod burst into the classroom and started screaming at the
children in a threatening manner.
As the horrified children scurried around the room in a panic, the woman
teaching the class ordered her pupils to gather behind her for protection.
Once the students complied, the teachers explained that the incident was a
safety drill and then held a discussion, school officials said.
Instead of making the children feel more secure, however, the exercise
terrified many of them. One girl was so frightened that she could not stop
vomiting and had to be hospitalized. Two other students were too scared to
be left home alone and had trouble sleeping. Their parents complained to the
school board, which apologized.
"It went too far," said Shiro Kajita, the school superintendent. "To have
such terror was extremely inappropriate."
At a morning assembly several days before the drill at Kuni Elementary, the
school's principal, Tokiyo Shimada, called eight students to the stage at a
morning assembly and pretended to stab them with a knife. Witnesses said Mr.
Shimada made stabbing noises and ordered the students to fall down as if
they had been injured.
"I was trying to make students understand the seriousness of the Ikeda
stabbing incident, but I acted inappropriately," Mr. Shimada said. "I am
sorry."
While school shootings have become a part of life in the United States, no
random tragedy on the scale of the Ikeda rampage had ever struck a Japanese
school.
The police said Mamoru Takuma, a 37-year-old drifter with a history of
mental illness, entered Ikeda Elementary School, near Osaka, through an open
gate.
In addition to killing the 8 students, he stabbed 15 other people, including
2 teachers, before being subdued by school officials.
The massacre shattered the myth of crime-free Japan and caused demands for
increased security at schools. Asked if some schools might be overreacting
to the Ikeda stabbing, Kenji Ino, an Education Ministry official, said,
"They are necessarily overreacting."
Mr. Ino said that while he advises schools not to undertake measures that
would deliberately frighten children, he believes they should consider all
options. The official said the Education Ministry was studying security
measures with the assistance of the police and planned to announce safety
standards for all schools.
Safety experts have warned that some safety measures being adopted by
schools are themselves fraught with hazards.
For example, tear-gas canisters are particularly dangerous if not used
properly, especially in a crowded school or classroom around young children.
The stick-shaped canisters being distributed in Urayasu, which can spray
tear gas 21 feet, are the same as those used by many police officers.
Although violent crime has been increasing in Japan, such incidents remain
extremely rare. Many schoolchildren as young as 7 or 8 years old walk to
school and take the subway by themselves. School gates are traditionally
left open as a sign of the school system's openness to the community.
But the Japanese have become especially sensitive to school crimes in recent
years, after a man entered a schoolyard in Kyoto 18 months ago and stabbed a
7-year-old boy to death.
Some sociologists have suggested that the rigidity of Japan's education
system, in which students are under strong competitive pressure, explains
why some violent incidents have occurred at schools.
The police have said the suspect in the Kyoto stabbing, for instance, had a
grudge against the school system where he had been a poor student.
Underscoring the fear that the Ikeda stabbing has generated in Japan, the
Tokyo police began a manhunt last week after a 23-year-old teacher said she
was slashed by a middle- aged woman who tricked her into opening the back
door at a kindergarten. The teacher had cuts on her arms and legs and
doctors said she would need at least two weeks to recover.
More than 200 schools in the district were put on alert, and parents
organized street patrols.
But a day later the teacher confessed that she had made up the story to
cover up problems with her work.
She said she cut herself with a knife from the kindergarten kitchen.
"I did it to hide my mistake because I could not complete my child- caring
records, which were due to be submitted," the Kyodo news service quoted the
woman as telling the police. "I feel really sorry now."
__________________________________
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--
         Hiraga Gennai
 
ume...@lycos.ne.jp
\------------------------/

> JAPANESE CHILDREN GET SCARY LESSONS IN FIGHTING VIOLENCE
Ecco perché criticavo le reazioni esagerate di Rob(2)...
Massimiliano Crippa
http://www.nipponico.net


http://www.nipponico.net
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 giapponesi che esagerano.... quello che sostenevo  :-))))
Hanno avuto la stessa reazione che hai avuto tu quando hai letto la notizia
della strage...
Massimiliano Crippa
http://www.nipponico.net


http://www.nipponico.net
--------------------------------
Inviato via 
http://usenet.iol.it
 

 la testa, figuriamoci metterle in atto.....  :-)))))
C'č poco da scherzare. Bisognerebbe trovarsi nella stessa situazione per
poter dire certe cose...
Massimiliano Crippa
http://www.nipponico.net


http://www.nipponico.net
--------------------------------
Inviato via 
http://usenet.iol.it
 

 da un giapponese. Anche le piu` stupide!
Diciamo che devi SEMPRE dire una cazzata al giorno!
Io non ho giustificato proprio niente...
Massimiliano Crippa
http://www.nipponico.net