Sports Day and My Five Cents Worth

So its that time of the year again, time for the schools sports day! My Junior High will be having their sports day with my primary school here in Odochi as there are only a grand total of 120 kids between the two schools. They have been preparing for this endlessly for over a month now and i swear to u the kids must be sick of it. hehe. Nah seriously, all this preparation really takes the fun out it so much that by the day of the event, the kids honestly dont care who wins and who loses. And that is such a shame to see. The other day i asked a kid if they were looking forward to it and they asked the teacher why they really had to go to it.... hehe.

I dont know why, but i was way more excited last year about it than this year coz i know what to expect. Dont get me wrong, it is worth going to check out, but only if u havent been involved in the organisation of the day ie. parents. Some of the events here are fun to do, but have no real purpose. Do you really want kids to be good at throwing a hoola-hoop over some kids head or pulling some kid around on a tyre? Its really just about getting the kids to run in a straight line to the next event and how to clap properly and continuously overuse the word GANBARE!!!!

I saw something on the news awhile ago saying that the level of the kids at school in sport is slowly declining. Kids are becoming really shit at PE!! How the hell can that happen? PE is without a doubt the best subject to do at school. Now, I know that not all kids are good at sports but come on. But think about it, how much time do kids in japan have to run around? Yes, they do have club activities after school, but after that they go home, do their homework, PLAY VIDEO GAMES, eat dinner, WATCH TV/PLAY VIDEO GAMES and then go to sleep. This is just a generalisation but i assume thats what most kids do in japan (if its like OZ).

Their weekend consists of going to school for over half a day on Saturday and then they have the rest of the weekend to do whatever they want. But by this stage, theyre too tired to do anything so they do fuck all (which is really the only thing there is to do in the inaka).

They had a whole day rehearsal of their sports day last Tuesday (a day of my life i will never get back) and watching the kids i was surpised by what i saw. Now, i know theyre just kids but come on, FUCKING RUN!! they had co-ed races and a lot of the boys got their arses kicked by the girls in the running races. call me sexist but, that aint right! it could be lack of motivation by the whole long gruelling process of preparing for the day or they are just honestly...well.... shit.

Whatever it is, something needs to done and fast. I know Japan is addressing this problem but how they go about it, i dont know.