A School Week and a Year in the Students' Lives

A bell rings. Students scurry to line up in preparation for the whole school assembly. ¹ Teachers leave their desks, put on their playground shoes, and go outside to join their students. Each week, the school week in Japan begins and ends with a whole-school assembly. It lasts just about 10 minutes and seems to be taken for granted, yet it is important for cultivating identity as a whole-school group, for reinforcing the value of ceremonies and rituals, and for training proper, public forms of behavior.