Tokyo Toyama Public High School (5)

Aragaki: I've got no use for tests, even though we really do need them.

Ishii: I don't think about it.

Yoshioka: Kids who come here are the ones who scored 100's in junior high. When they get here, they figure they can handle it. In junior high, I got the lessons just by reading the textbooks, but here I suddenly got hit with 30's.

Aragaki: I don't need any preliminary study or review.

Suemune: As long as I listen in class, I'm OK.

Yoshioka: I feel like I sleep through class. I don't really have to pay attention, except before a test.

Aragaki: I can take or leave study. I don't care, as long as I get the grades in the subjects I'm good at. I do what I like.

Anno: When I was in high school, I didn't do any studying either. These days, I regret not having studied English. But once I got to high school, I didn't study at all. I figured it wouldn't do me any good once I got out into the real world. So I only studied the subjects I liked. I overwhelmingly avoided studying the subjects I hated. Up through junior high, I did well enough to get into a feeder high school. As I mentioned earlier, up through junior high I really only had to listen, sort of, in class to get 100's on my tests. When I got to high school, it was, that won't work here, so that's enough study for me.

Ishii: We only listen to what we like to hear. "Even Seniors Have Breathing Space"

Miyazaki: Private schools split off into science and literature in junior year, which means you've only got one year to think about your future. At Toyama, you've got two years in which to find out about yourself, and even in your senior year, when you make up your mind, you've still breathing space to think. I'm glad I went to Toyama, because I figure if I went to a private school, I wouldn't be able to find what works best for me.

Ishii: It happens that you get an expanded range of choices.

Aragaki: I'm set on physical science, but here I can try different things, see whether I can really do them, and maybe discover something about myself.

Suemune: I didn't think I was very good with world history, but I surprised myself with how interesting I've found it to be.

Aragaki: I really don't like to speak in terms of being carried away by studying.

Others: Hmmm... (deep in thought)

Aragaki: That sort of thing makes me overly conscious of words like science, literature, or entrance exams.

Suemune: As for me, I could just as easily fail my exams.

Aragaki: In high school, do what you like, and let the exams slide.

Ishii: A year's study might not be so bad. "Race Down the Road"

Suemune: Once you're on that road, all you can do is keep racing down it. I'd like to skip a year or so and try some different things. But everyone around me is keeping up the pressure, saying things like "Don't fail your exams" or "Get in there with a bullet."

Yoshioka: I hate the very words "exam study", because it isn't the kind of study that lives within you, but a kind that you have to use for that particular year of study.

Ishii: It's long, no doubt about it.

Yoshioka: I simply don't want to do it.

Aragaki: I want to do as I please in high school, so I don't consider missing a year between high school and college to be relevant. Better to go to work doing something I want to do than going to some college just because I somehow managed to get accepted.

Yoshioka: It really doesn't lend itself to compromise. The thing to do is go whichever way you'll be satisfied with at a given time and place, and above that, do what you like in college.

Ishii: There's no point in graduating from college if you didn't go there with a goal in mind in the first place.
(End of Toyama High School Section)

(From the June 4, 1998 edition of Mainichi Intermediate School News)