Shizouka Prefectural
Hamamatsu Kita High School

On November 22, 2000 our FMF group visited Hamamatsu Kita High School. High school is not compulsory in Japan, so all students who attend high school pay tuition.



Students walk or ride their bike to school, the school does not provide buses and students do not drive. At the front of the school the students change out of their shoes into slippers. At the elementary and junior high school we visited all students wore the same slippers, but at the high school the students all wore different slippers.


Learning English as a foreign language is important. We were fortunate to participate in an English Class. The students spoke very good English and helped us to learn about their school. They shared that the first week of school that they go to camp and bond together as a group. The students in the picture above were the kind students who spoke English to me; they taught me a great deal about their school and their culture.



The students at this school have computers.



In this computer class they were learning to program in HTML to make web pages. The students were writing the HTML code.



High School students continue to practice their writing skills. Each child has his own ink well, brush, felt, weights, and ink for writing the kanji (Japanese characters).



The students all eat each lunch together in their homeroom classroom. The school did not have a cafeteria, so the students all bring a lunch from home. The students were not allowed to leave campus for lunch. I enjoyed lunch with the students in the picture above.



Each day the students have a period to clean the school.



They sweep the floors, dust, vacuum, clean the blackboards, and clean the bathrooms.

At the end of the school day the students participate in club activities. Below you will see examples from several clubs.