Sports

The Road Race

Throughout school years sports play a very important role. This has been very true during my time at my middle school. Many skills are required of all students. Two requirements that are not found in the U.S. for all students are music and physical education. By middle school in the US most students are only required to take math, English, science, and Social Studies. The rest of the classes are optional or only required for a semester. In middle schools in Japan, there are no optional classes. Also school events are not optional. All students are taught to sing in their music class and every year there is a large cultural festival where the students sing. Another all-school event that focuses on a “fun” skill (as thought of in the U.S.) is the Road Race in which all students must be involved and run. Side note: I’m not sure if the term “road race” is used in the United States or if it is Japanese English, but when one of my teachers told me we were doing a road race my first thought was how dangerous it would be to have our middle school students drag racing around the neighborhood. The picture above is of the students stretching before the road races. All students were divided by year and gender and the organization was impressive. We started off the afternoon event by going through the general warm-up and stretches. The students then got into their year/gender group. The students then had to run, I believe, three kilometers and return to the school. The teachers had one of those starting pistols to signal the start and they timed all of the students. A student who was not running at the time would hand out place numbers to the students as they cross the finish line and then their numbers would be compared to the finish times that the teachers were recording. Everything was well organized and everyone received their cold orange juice from myself and other students when they crossed the finish line. Students who aren’t running also call out to the runners to support them. The cheers don’t end until every single student has crossed the finish line. After the races were done speeches were given by the gym teachers and the principle on the day’s events. Then the top 10 places and times of each group was announced followed by the fastest girl and fastest boy of the day. Everyone was very supportive of each other and spirits were high, even for those students who did not finish with high times.



As mentioned above, high involvement is required of all students. This is also with club activities. All students are required to join a club. While some of the clubs are not sports, such as calligraphy, band, and English club, the majority of clubs seem to be sports. Such as basketball, soccer, handball, baseball, kendo, etc. Also students are required to go to gym about two times a week. It then is expected that for middle school students and high school students (were club activities are also usually required), sports plays a large role in their daily activities. With this understanding it can then be expected that sports will play a large role in a persons life past their schools years. When I have classes with my 2nd year students I begin the class by asking questions to the students. One easy question to ask for all students is which is their favorite sport. All of the students always have a favorite sport. This is also a frequent topic on other questions in English class. For example, the other week we studied frequency and we used sport activity per week. Here in Japan I am a mild tv watcher, but I can count on seeing Sawa, the women’s soccer captain, at least once a week on tv. Other than on the TV Sawa’s face can be found on posters and advertisements and it is difficult to not see someone walking around in a Samurai Blue jersey on a busy street. After the Japanese team won first at the Women’s World Cup, Japan has been buzzing with support and admiration. Although, I’m sure this would exist even without the win. My family and I often watch the men’s national team play against other teams in the Asia area as they prepare for the next World Cup. Above is a picture of my middle school’s students cheering on their peers who were competing at the all middle school sports day.