Photo/Illutration The Twitter account for the education ministry’s “#kyoshi no baton” project (Captured from the internet)

The English idiom “pass the baton” means to bestow one’s responsibility or job upon someone else.

In Japan, “heiwa no baton” (baton of peace) is used in reference to relaying wartime experiences to people born after World War II and “inochi no baton” (baton of life) denotes the continuity of life from mother to child.

In both cases, baton implies something positive and future oriented.

In that sense, the education ministry chose an appropriate name when it created a social media platform to invite schoolteachers to post upbeat messages about their profession.

The ministry expected that the “#kyoshi no baton” (baton of teachers) hashtag would bring together encouraging posts for students considering pursuing teaching as a career.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

In message after message, teachers complained about the horrors of the pressures they work under.

A teacher wrote: “I am retiring tomorrow. In my younger years, I worked literally from morning to night. Now that I think about the past, there were too many things that I lost.”

Another said, “I was able to take only two days off a year” after becoming an adviser to an extracurricular club. A third lamented the lack of time for interactions with students because of miscellaneous work.

And here’s another: “(While our workload has kept growing) only two duties were eliminated over 20 years--measuring students’ seated height and conducting pinworm exams.”

It would not be exaggerating to say that the platform has come to look like a magnet for trolls.

The Japanese expression “scrap and build” means terminating a certain task to start a new one and improving overall operational efficiency.

But this concept is nonexistent in schools, according to Ryusuke Ezawa, an elementary and junior high school teacher, who authored “Sensei mo Taihen nandesu” (Teachers have a rough time, too).

The education ministry issues endless “build” orders, such as starting English and programming education in elementary schools and upgrading ethics to a formal subject.

But “scrap” orders are few and far between, so the situation is only “build and build,” according to Ezawa.

He went on to note that teachers tend to instinctively respond when they are told that they are supposed to work for the good of children.

“In a sense, they are compelled to work.”

Is our society guilty of condoning the exploitation of teachers by taking it for granted that they always find self-fulfillment in their work?

It is the education ministry, rather than teachers, to whom a heavy baton--reform of teachers’ workstyle--has been passed.

--The Asahi Shimbun, April 9

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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