Nearly one in three elementary schools suffer from "classroom collapse," in which disruptions occur because students refuse to follow teachers' orders, according to a recent survey by the National Institute for Educational Policy Research.
In the survey -- the first large-scale study of its kind on classroom collapse -- 32 percent of elementary school teachers across Japan said they experienced disorderly classrooms in the last school year and 26 percent of principals admitted facing the same lack of discipline.
Classroom chaos was most prevalent among fifth-grade classes, at 33 percent, followed by sixth-grade classes, at 22 percent, and second-grade classes, at 21 percent. The lowest seen was among first-grade classes, at 9 percent, according to the principals' responses.