It's a cool, cool world

I don't know at what point of Japan's educational history, it was decided that it was OK to conduct classes without effective means of cooling.

Tokyo summers are brutal - they could kick the Devil out of Hell. I am not kidding. The powers-that-be must think that suffering through days of unbearable heat will "toughen-up" the students. In July, we broke out the fans to cool the classrooms, but the kids not sitting at the front of the class still visibly struggled through lessons. To their credit they never grumbled (to me anyway), but I don't know how they managed to learn anything. The teachers room is air-conditioned of course, but the rest of the school was not.

Granted, schools are on vacation all of August (save for a fair chunk of students who spend their holiday at "juku" (cram-school) camps), but that leaves at least 2 months of fire and brimstone. Particularly this year when Summer didn't kick in until the beginning of September.

...but over the Summer Break, my school installed... air-conditioning. In nearly every classroom. The Angels descended upon my inner-city school existence! Unfortunately these Angels missed Matt's schools (in the next ward from mine) and he still slogs it out in 32 degree heat with a couple of fans for comfort.

I don't know if air-conditioning is the school's or the Board of Education's decision, but someone up there decided being "tough" was not a pre-requisite for being a kid.