Violent behavior in Japanese schools increased to an all-time high in 2008, according to a recent report from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Students, teachers and other people were victims of 60,000 violent incidents involving primary, middle and high school students.
That averages to some 160 serious acts of violence nationwide every single day. The problem worsened considerably from 2007, up 13 percent, with one in four attacks serious enough to require medical treatment.
Other students were the victims in the majority of these incidents, but student acts of violence against teachers topped 8,000 in 2008. Perhaps self-defense training will become part of teacher education in the future. Most startling, the largest increase in violence took place at middle schools. Primary school student violence also increased, with high school students remaining at about the same level. Clearly, younger and younger students are resorting to violence to express their feelings as they try to work out the issues they face.