Dear minister of education Tatsuo Kawabata,

I have been working as an assistant language teacher (ALT) in your public school system for five months now. Although it might be considered a bit premature to pen a word to you after such a short time, I would like to draw your attention to some fairly standard behavior across the six schools I work at. I think it is also time to let you in on a little secret: Disciplining students is not a bad thing. It just depends on how it is done.

Ten or so years ago, the government passed some legislation that states that every child has a right to be in the classroom. Yes, a lovely ideological right. I get it — education is for all. The flaw, though, is that when a student is being a pain in the oshiri and disrupting the class for others, there is little, if anything, the teacher can do. The child cannot be a) scolded (teachers fear retribution from parents these days), b) made to write lines (a very productive form of punishment used in many Western school systems), c) sent to the back corner of the room or out into the corridor, or d) marched on down to the principal's office. Why? Because all of these forms of discipline would be against the blessed Constitution!