Media reports of the increasing number of violent incidents in the nation's public elementary and junior and senior high schools have made "classroom collapse" part of the everyday language. The reports nearly always refer to these incidents as examples of a breakdown in school discipline, but "discipline" is a word that has many applications. The inability and apparent absence of any desire to control their emotional outbursts by more and more Japanese youngsters does indeed reflect a lack of self-discipline. So, however, does the fact revealed by the Education Ministry late last year that a record 76 schoolteachers were reprimanded for acts of sexual indecency with minors during the 1998 school year.
Reports of the ministry's latest annual survey of public schools on the issue of disciplinary action against teachers offered no details on the sex of the educators involved in the assaults. However, men still greatly outnumber women in the Japanese education profession and it appears that only men had to be so chastised. At a time when the resignation of Mr. "Knock" Yokoyama as governor of Osaka following sexual harassment charges put the issue at the forefront of public consciousness, it is doubly disturbing to learn of the increase in this egregious abuse of authority by people responsible for the guidance of the nation's children.
The number of offending teachers increased by nine from the previous record of 67 in the 1996 school year, and by 11 from 1997. The total includes teachers at elementary, junior high and senior high schools. The limited breakdown provided only partly helps in analyzing the situation. The largest number of reprimanded teachers, 34, sexually molested students at their own schools, another 20 committed offenses with students of other schools and the remaining five did so with former students who had graduated from their schools. Japan has long had a reputation for tolerance of men's sexual misbehavior, but it never consciously included molestation of minors.