What is the purpose of school?
The junior high school where I worked was chaotic, and proper classes could not be held. During class, students would chatter away, bring in game consoles to play, or put on makeup. Some would lie down on the lockers 30cm below the back blackboard to listen to the lesson, or lie on the floor in front of the teacher's desk to enjoy watching the teacher's reaction. Even in such an environment, some teachers would ignore the chaos in the classroom and calmly proceed with their lessons. For them, perhaps the primary purpose of school was to teach knowledge. In the 1990s, I also worked as a teacher. As a grade head, I would patrol the classrooms, drag out students whose behavior was beyond the pale, and expel those who could not follow school rules.
Now that I am 75, I reflect on whether there might have been other teaching methods instead of just expelling the troublemakers. I am no longer a teacher. I work as an ICT support staff member at elementary and junior high schools. The other day, I was asked to transcribe audio data from a research lesson recorded on a tablet.
I split the audio file into 10-minute segments, transcribed them using Gemini, and even had it create a list categorizing the remarks of the teacher and students. It even suggested items useful for lesson analysis, so I compiled them into Excel as they were and handed them to the requester. It seems the entire staff will analyze the lesson while looking at the 'remarks list.' It is a good era, but having experienced a chaotic junior high school, the question arose in me: 'What is the purpose of school?'
School is a place to acquire the knowledge, social skills, thinking ability, physical fitness, manners, moral sense, and academic background necessary for when one enters society. For that reason, school must be safe. There needs to be order to correct wrong behavior on the spot and allow for relearning. Only then does school become a useful place.
More than thirty years have passed since I was a teacher, but I feel that research on how to maintain order in schools has not progressed much. As far as I know, I rarely see initiatives that systematically study cases that occurred in chaotic schools. In my experience, the common response was to warn students who committed violence and contact their parents if injuries were involved. It was the same in the past. When a student was injured, the principal would try to hide it rather than make it public. I repeatedly proposed that we should publish the cases and verify them as a whole school to prevent the same things from happening again, but it was never accepted. I do not mean to say that violent incidents are occurring at the school where I currently work. As an ICT support staff member, such information does not reach me. It feels like guidance methods for problem behavior are neglected while there is still enthusiasm for lesson research, but there are few opportunities to discuss student guidance.
Bullying, lynching, and violent incidents are invisible to teachers. Even though school has value only when order is maintained, we have entered an era where AI can analyze every word spoken during class. If that is the case, shouldn't we also put more effort into research on finding signs of bullying and violence early and protecting school order? Before school is a place to teach knowledge, it must be a place where one can learn safely. Isn't research for that purpose just as important as lesson research?
I myself was also fully occupied with maintaining order in front of me at the time and had no leeway to think about better teaching methods. Even after retiring, I kept thinking, 'Was there no better way than expelling the troublemakers?' And in my own way, I have been sharing methods for maintaining order on my blog and YouTube.
My answer to the question 'What is the purpose of school?' is to create a place where children can learn with peace of mind. I hope that research for that purpose will also receive more attention. School is a place for children to learn with peace of mind and grow as human beings.