In Japanese schools and Canadian schools are very different because of a few things…

• Japanese schools are cleaned by the students. They clean their classrooms and hallways in their school. Canadian schools like centennial, are cleaned by janitors who are given the task to clean the school.
• Clubs are mostly ran by students. This creates opportunities such as: Leadership skills, communication and teamwork, independence, Sacrifice your free time, assign tasks to your peers, responsibility, Time management and problem solving. These characteristics can depend on what type of club you have signed up for. If its sports, you can develop PHYSICAL impacts. Like muscle building, reflex training and overall being fit. If its a manga club, you can adapt new knowledge on color variations, Shading and absolutely more that I am not aware of. Clubs have a positive impact on the students because they are able to develop and train new characteristics/abilities/work-habits. From what I have heard from peers, clubs in centennial offer: Student ran clubs, a variety of clubs expanding from robot building/construction to musical choir. These clubs have exactly the same to offer, providing new skills that could be put to good use in the near future.
• Do I think that students should have more responsibilities at school like cleaning duties? After careful consideration, In my humble opinion I think that providing students with responsibilities at a young age can build up USEFULL skills for when they live by themselves. Like keeping their homes tidy or washing the floors etc. I think that at a young age, students should be told how to clean properly and do it in a timely manor. For sports/clubs, these are more on the fun side. Sometimes to attend clubs, you must stay after school. Having mountains of homework and joining a club is not ideal however, having some sense of joy throughout the day is what keeps MY spirits up. This may not relate to you which is why I would like to make something clear. Having a hobby is fun right? well than I think that we can agree that joining a club that relates to your hobby could give you some motivation throughout the day. Motivating myself to make it through the day while giving my other classes my 100% effort makes me feel excited to attend the club of my choice. Fortunately, I have a decent amount of homework so I am unable to attend any clubs.
• じゃんけん Is a fun way to fight for leftovers. However, since じゃんけん is a luck/chance based game I am unable to win all the time. When I went to a Japanese school, I did not play じゃんけん for leftovers because I was not a fan of the meal and I felt good that I was able to finish what I was given. I would much rather a student win the leftovers that enjoys the meal, rather than me who did not enjoy it as much. In Japanese schools, wasting food is a no-go. So I ate my meals and only played じゃんけん for the milk.

Did you know? Japanese schools do not have recess! Well at centennial we do not either but on the other hand I am 99.9% positive that at your old school you had recess.

Are children able to run errands and become independent by the age of 2? In Japan kids are running errands, taking the train to school and doing chores around the house at the age of 2. Now you might be wondering why? Japanese families do this to train kids so they can become more reliable, making them independent/able to do things on their own. Japanese parents give their children a shot to run errands on a show called Hajimete no Otsukai on Netflix. We need our future adults to be independent. I started to do chores by the age of 7-10. The chores I did was not anything out of the ordinary. I folded my laundry, Washed the dishes and put it into the dishwasher, took the dishes out of the dishwasher, cleaned my room, put my folded laundry away, throw out the garbage, sometimes help make dinner/lunch/breakfast and feed a cat (Not anymore.).I think that all children should be able to get a shot to becoming independent. It is a great skill to learn and can be benefited on heavily. I started to use transit by myself when I was 12. I had to go to school by myself because my parents were working. I decided to catch the bus since it was free for 12 and under. It was a nice experience, going on a bus by myself. Now i am able to use the bus properly and get off at the stop I need. This generation is becoming more reliant on technology and parents. If parents and technology vanished from earth, many children and teenagers would struggle to provide for themselves. I am not necessarily saying that children need to become independent by the age of 2 nor Japanese parents are preparing for this (All technology and parents vanishing is highly unlikely, more so impossible.) but its a good example on where we are at. Recent studies has shown that the older generation (Baby boomers born in 1946-1964 and Gen X born in 1965-1980) is more independent and studious than our current generation right now (Generation alpha born from 2010 and going on.).Technology is shortening our attention span. When we are not interested in a video we just swipe away. Therefor We have no patience to watch through the whole video. Technology/ social media is over loading our brain with information so we start to forget important things and replacing it with useless information about a video you saw on Youtube Shorts on a Sunday afternoon. We tend to get lazy when we have our phones next to us. When you want to become independent we have to prioritize first. Kids in Japan need to stay focused to complete the jobs they were assigned. Like the grocery shopping task or taking the sky train home from school. Once these independent children get older they can provide for themselves and get a small picture on their future lifestyle and survive in the near future. A reason why some parents are afraid to let their children walk home is because of other people around them. We may be able to trust children but sometimes there are some dangerous people around your child. In your area it may be dangerous for your child to be walking to school. Like kidnappings. Japanese kids are able to walk to school and do grocery shopping is because of the people looking out for the kid. Japanese kids are able to ask somebody for guidance and will most likely get the directions they need. The Japanese citizens are looking out for the children by themselves. Japan has a very low crime rate. To sum up all the things being said, being independent means you need permission from parents, if it is safe to do so and if YOU want to be doing things on your own from now on.

My sources: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220218-are-younger-generations-truly-weaker-than-older-ones

Second source: https://www.nivati.com/blog/neuroscience-what-social-media-does-to-your-brain#:~:text=Research%20has%20found%20that%20social,feelings%20of%20overwhelm%20and%20stress.

Thank you for reading my paragraph on Independent children.