Tidbits

Education Reform - WWII Occupied Japan

During World War II, many Japanese students were enlisted to actively help in the war effort, effectively turning schools into factories. Bombings destroyed many schools. After the war, this left a lot for the occupation forces to help rebuild. The occupation team addressed the educational system. The Japanese methods were nearly opposite to that of the United States: control of schools was highly centralized, rote memorization of verbatim book knowledge without much interaction described the standard student-teacher relationship and the study texts were boring. The ratio of school years was made to resemble that of the United States' which was 6 years Elementary education : 4 years Secondary education : 4 years higher education. Over the period of occupation, these and many other trends were changed. A less centralized hierarchy of school administrators was introduced; totally unprecedented, parents were allowed to vote for school boards. A new textbook industry was created. However, after the occupation faded out, Japan's educational system reverted to many of its old ways.

http://www.japan-101.com/history/education_reform.htm

but from Wikipedia

HIROSHIMA

http://www.japan-101.com/history/hiroshima_city_japan_bomb_history.htm

but the website got the information from Wikipedia.

During World War II, Hiroshima was a city of considerable military importance. It contained the 2nd Army Headquarters, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan. The city was a communications center, a storage point, and an assembly area for troops. To quote a Japanese report, "Probably more than a thousand times since the beginning of the war did the Hiroshima citizens see off with cries of 'Banzai' the troops leaving from the harbor."

The center of the city contained a number of reinforced concrete buildings as well as lighter structures. Outside the center, the area was congested by a dense collection of small wooden workshops set among Japanese houses; a few larger industrial plants lay near the outskirts of the city. The houses were of wooden construction with tile roofs. Many of the industrial buildings also were of wood frame construction. The city as a whole was highly susceptible to fire damage.

Some of the reinforced concrete buildings were of a far stronger construction than is required by normal standards in America, because of the earthquake danger in Japan. This exceptionally strong construction undoubtedly accounted for the fact that the framework of some of the buildings which were fairly close to the center of damage in the city did not collapse. Another is that the blast was more downward than sideways; this has much to do with the "survival" of the Prefectural Promotional Hall (pictured), which was only a few meters from the aiming point. (The ruin was made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996 over the objections of the US and China.)

The population of Hiroshima had reached a peak of over 380,000 earlier in the war but prior to the atomic bombing the population had steadily decreased because of a systematic evacuation ordered by the Japanese government. At the time of the attack the population was approximately 255,000. This figure is based on the registered population, used by the Japanese in computing ration quantities, and the estimates of additional workers and troops who were brought into the city may not be highly accurate. Hiroshima thus had approximately the same number of people as the city of Providence, Rhode Island, or Dallas, Texas.