School in Japan is much more sophisticated compared to Canada. They have more policies, responsibilities in place along with different learning structure in high school. Instead of having electives, you take higher level of certain subjects for certain career paths. For example, you’d take a higher level of Science to focus on the medical field. As well, Japan assigns responsibilities to students such as cleaning duty or journal entries for what the class did. I believe that we could implement this at Centennial as it would build on student’s good habits and make them accountable. There is usually a mess in classrooms and having cleaning duty mandatory assigned to a different student each day would ensure the next group of students have a clean learning environment. I believe that a uniform policy that Japan uses is beneficial as it may prevent issues such as students bullying other students for what they wear. If this were implemented at Centennial it’d likely cause a lot of negative feedback but in the long run there would be a lot of benefits; such as building on students responsibility, wearing appropriate attire, and make all students equal in some way. Japan ensures students join a club/team which Centennial should also enforce as it may help students build communication skills and be more social. This is beneficial for post-secondary and in the work place. Overall, Japan is much more old-school compared to Canada, but it has more policies and responsibilities that are beneficial for students!

Mascot Information

Name: Domo-kun

Prefecture: Tokyo Prefecture

Reason For Popularity: The popularity of Domo-kun likely comes from it’s common appearances at retail outlets, video games, and stop-motion animation. It was a fun yet simple mascot which is why it was a great mascot for all ages. As a matter of fact, it was so popular that even in North America it was well-known and was even apart of my childhood which is why I chose it!

Image of Domo-kun (Sourced from Supplyepic.com)

Japanese mascots are meaningful to citizens and hold values to them! This separates them from mascots we often see in Canada; with most of them being animals that are commonly chosen for their contributions in generating money. These type of mascots simply hold zero value for most Canadian citizens. Now, in Japan all their official mascots hold a lot of meaning whether it’s their culture, tourism, or representation of the prefecture.

Mascots are likely popular in Japan for several reasons. They are, in most cases, fun, playful, and joyful mascots that can be considered “role models” for a lot of children. They influence a lot of different things in prefectures such as the economy! Mascots were inspirational figures for a lot of the youth in Japan which is likely why they are held to such a high standard. Although this is true for Japan, it is significantly different for Canada. Our mascots simply hold no meaning to a majority of the population and as stated before, are commonly just animals that had a small degree of importance in Canadian history. As for my own opinion, I believe that Canada should somewhat follow in Japan’s footsteps and have personalized mascots for each province. This could help in a multitude of ways such as boosting tourism rates, the economy, and having a figure that can be looked up to by the youth.

Below is a mascot that I believe would fit Coquitlam or the surrounding cities! Agriculture is booming towards the East which is why this little guy would fit the image. Having something that relates to the community and has a fun and welcoming character is beneficial in order to have mascots like Japan.