In my first newsletter, I introduced myself. Today I want to open the classroom door and show you what it is really like to be a teacher in Japan.

Japan is often admired for its polite students, clean classrooms and school lunches. Much of that is true. But behind the scenes, Japanese teachers live with traditions that may surprise you — some of them beautiful, some of them exhausting.

Here is the inside story, from someone who has been both a teacher and an engineer for Japanese schools.

1. Teachers who wait for a change of heart

In many countries, if a student steals something or hits a classmate at school, the police may be called right away.

In Japan, for a long time, the school usually tried to handle it inside the school. Unless a student did the same thing again and again, teachers talked with the student, talked with the family, and waited for the student to change. Many Japanese teachers see this as part of their job: not only teaching subjects, but raising the whole person.

I saw this myself. At one school where I taught, a student broke several school windows. The school asked the family to pay for the new glass — and that was the end of it. Nobody called the police. The teachers talked with the student and waited for a change of heart.

This tradition has a warm side. Many students were given a second chance instead of a police record.

But it also has a dark side. Some serious cases, especially bullying, were kept inside the school when they should not have been. In February 2023, Japan's Ministry of Education told schools that bullying which counts as a crime — such as theft — must be reported to the police right away. The old way of "keeping it in the family" is slowly changing.

2. Fewer fights, more empty desks

Japanese schools today have far fewer students who cause trouble in class than in the past. Broken windows like the ones I saw, and fights in the hallways, are much rarer now.

Instead, a different problem is growing: futoko, or students who stop coming to school.

In the 2024 school year, 353,970 elementary and junior high school students in Japan were counted as long-term absent. That number has risen for 12 years in a row.

Some of this is good news: families and schools now accept that a child can rest instead of being forced to come. But it also means that many children are learning alone at home, and teachers are searching for new ways to reach them.

3. Paper, clubs and "Zangyo"

Japanese teachers are famous for working long hours. There is even a word you may know: zangyo (overtime).

In a national survey in 2022, 36.6% of junior high school teachers worked more than 80 hours of overtime a month — the line that Japan uses as a warning sign for death from overwork.

Two things eat most of that time.

Paper. Many schools still run on paper: printed notices for parents, stamped forms, and records copied by hand from one sheet to another. I have written about the "Grades(1).xlsx" problem before — but in many schools, it is not even Excel yet. It is paper.

Bukatsu (club activities). In Japanese junior and senior high schools, most students join a sports or culture club after school. The club practices every day and often on weekends. And who coaches them? The teachers.

Here is the strange part. Officially, bukatsu is not compulsory — not for students, and not for teachers. But Japanese society strongly believes that clubs build character, and parents expect them. So teachers coach on evenings and weekends for a very small allowance. In practice, it is close to volunteer work.

Japanese public school teachers also do not receive normal overtime pay. Instead, they get a fixed extra payment on top of their salary. It was 4% of their salary for decades, and it is now being raised step by step to 10% by 2031.

4. Why nobody says "no": peer pressure

If clubs are not compulsory, why don't teachers simply say no?

The answer is a very Japanese one: douchou atsuryoku, or peer pressure to do what everyone else does. If every teacher in the staff room coaches a club and fills in the same paper forms, the one who refuses feels like they are letting the team down.

Nobody orders you. Everyone just does it. And so it continues.

5. A shrinking line of new teachers

Long hours, weekend clubs and difficult parents — Japan even has a word borrowed from English for very demanding parents: "monster parents" — have made teaching a hard job to recommend.

The result is a teacher shortage. In the most recent national hiring results, the competition rate for elementary school teaching jobs fell to 2.0 applicants per position, the lowest on record. Many young people now choose companies that offer better pay and fewer hours, and some people who pass the teacher exam still decide to work somewhere else.

6. The good news: school is getting cheaper for families

It is not all hard news. Japan has made big changes to help families.

• High school tuition: Since April 2026, the government supports private high school tuition up to ¥457,200 a year with no income limit. Public high school tuition is already covered. This means most families no longer pay tuition until the end of high school, although other school fees remain.
• School lunch: Since April 2026, school lunch at public elementary schools is free in principle.
• Medical costs: Many cities and towns now cover children's medical costs, often until age 18. This depends on where you live, but in many places a child can see a doctor almost for free.

For families, this is a real change. For teachers, it means fewer students who have to give up school because of money.

7. Young teachers vs. the old system

Here is the part that gives me hope.

Many young Japanese teachers are trying to change their schools from the inside: moving forms online, using shared spreadsheets instead of paper, cutting meetings, and asking whether every club really needs to practice every weekend.

But the system does not always move with them. In my view, the education administration, starting with the Ministry of Education, is going in a different direction. From April 2026, a new position called "shumu kyoyu" (a lead teacher who coordinates work between teachers and school leaders) was created. The government says this role will help schools run better. But I worry that adding more ranks between teachers will strengthen the old, seniority-based way of working — exactly what young teachers are trying to move away from.

What I hope you take from this

Japanese teachers are not superheroes. They are people who care deeply about their students — sometimes so deeply that they forget to care for themselves.

In this newsletter, I will share both sides: the teaching methods that I believe the world can learn from, and the practical tools that can give teachers their evenings back.

And not everything will be about tech. I will also write about the Japanese way of teaching that needs no computer at all: how to explain difficult ideas so that every student can follow, and how Japanese teachers earn the respect of their students as educators.

What about your country? Do teachers in your schools coach clubs, do paperwork by hand, or handle problems inside the school? I would love to hear how it works where you teach. Just reply to this email.