youth in Japan

[Guest guest]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6535284

After listening to that story on the radio just now, I wondered how

many of the young people described might be some flavor of autistic.

The man interviewed (about the book he's written) said that many of

the young men who become hermits at home were teased in school about

being " different. "

Jane

[Guest guest]

It certainly sounds familiar doesn't it?

" Is this isolation, I wondered, simply these young adults' peculiar

form of rebellion against their prevailing culture? Or are they too

sensitive or inquisitive to accept such collective constraints, and

flee to their rooms both for protection and self-preservation? Or are

they--as Taka, one twenty-four-year-old, suggested--simply and

unsettlingly " different " from the society that surrounds them? " I was

raised to have a good career and be a good boy, " he told me. " My

problem is that I can't go to work like other people. I'm different. "

" In this society, anyone can become a hikikomori, " he told me,

describing how his in-laws had ostracized and bullied him to the point

where the couple divorced. " It's the nature of our social system that

is really the cause. It's a system operated by factions, and you have

to understand the very nature of the social system to understand this

problem. "

And...

" It isn't that these adults choose isolation out of indulgence, but

that they see no other course. They need some " free space " in which to

breathe, without the prying eyes of outsiders constantly judging them,

forcing them to join the herd. The only space they can control is their

own bedroom. "

Was autism even one of the attributes considered? Doesn't appear to

have been. I find that strange, but then the world does ignore us

" less-than-obvious " auties, doesn't it? It's being stuck between the

proverbial rock and a hard place.

Hmmmm....

" Its educational system, which emphasizes rote learning over critical

thinking, is being questioned as never before. "

Interesting in a funny kind of way....Isn't rote learning something

autistics are supposedly good at? Japan is so foreign to me, I can't

make a judgement, but it is very interesting to what I've learned just

from that one article.

a

> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6535284

>

> After listening to that story on the radio just now, I wondered how

> many of the young people described might be some flavor of autistic.

> The man interviewed (about the book he's written) said that many of

> the young men who become hermits at home were teased in school about

> being " different. "

>

> Jane

[Guest guest]

Are autistics good at rote learning? Depends on how much interested we are in

the subject matter, and on our general level of functioning.

Hmmmm....

" Its educational system, which emphasizes rote learning over critical

thinking, is being questioned as never before. "

Interesting in a funny kind of way....Isn't rote learning something

autistics are supposedly good at? Japan is so foreign to me, I can't

make a judgement, but it is very interesting to what I've learned just

from that one article

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