[Ted]

Schooling is a topic of common discussion among parents. There are a number of issues that seem to call for community -parent-public actions. It is true that elementary classes in Japan seem to provide children with range of opportunities to develop their academic and social skills. It is at this stage they form their character and values. Their time has also to be shared with extre curricular activities and not in small part animation-computer related games and story sharing among friends. If you strictly want your children to master the standard texts and more, you would have reasons to worry for the content of the teaching materials seem basic and sometimes too elementary. Now...if you can spare time and help your child do some extra learning, reading from other texts and materials...you have helped a lot and your child would have little to miss even by global standard. If you cannot, you cannot tell by the grades in school for grading seem to have no way of ranking the performance of individual students. This problem seems to remain the same in high schools (both private and public) besides the big $$$$ you have to pay. It seems those kids who get extra help and encouragement to study would be ok and can join good colleges and always it is important to be involved in your child's education both in terms of time and funding.