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Illustration by manga artist shows why elementary kids should be allowed to leave books at school

Dale Roll Jun 27, 2018
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Even grade school kids have a lot to carry to every day.

Japanese schools are pretty strict. Even elementary school children are held to high standards; they have to serve lunch to their peers, clean the school, and follow strict behavioral guidelines and campus rules. One of those rules, for many elementary schools across the country, is that students are not allowed to leave their school supplies at school.

It seems like the intent is to encourage kids to take home their textbooks and study, but the problem, according to manga artist and Twitter user Motoshi Kohara, is that children use a lot of supplies every day, and carrying everything back and forth to school on a daily basis is a bit much, especially for small children. Kohara illustrated the burden children bear when they have to take their textbooks home with a drawing he shared on Twitter.

▼ “It’s been a hot topic that elementary schools are banning kids from leaving their supplies at school. Elementary school students aren’t just bringing home textbooks! They carry these kinds of things too!”

「置き勉」の禁止が話題になっているけど…

小学生って、持ち帰るのは教科書だけじゃないから！
時に、こんな事もあるから！ pic.twitter.com/FLlj8pNXK3

— コハラモトシ (@kohara_motoshi) June 22, 2018

The illustration shows an overburdened child breathing heavily as he is trudging to or from school with luggage in both arms and a heavy-looking backpack. “Is this learning?” he puffs out.

Kohara labeled some of the things he is carrying, going clockwise from the top right:

A packed-to-the-max backpack
A recorder
A lunch bag
P.E. clothes
A water bottle
A school bag (presumably filled with notebooks and textbooks)
A paint set, sewing kit, or maybe a melodica
An umbrella

That’s at least eight things being carried by one student, who is 11 years old or younger. The bottom caption says, “Lots and lots of things pile up, and they become hellishly fully-equipped!”

But Kohara soon learned that that’s not all that most children have to carry home. After posting the first illustration, Kohara was inundated with replies from people remembering that they had to carry many other things too, especially at the end of the semester, so the manga artist decided to create a new, updated illustration to include those things.

みなさま…
たくさんのご意見やお話をありがとうございます！
それらを参考にカスタマイズしてみました…！ pic.twitter.com/TtHlxkGA7F

— コハラモトシ (@kohara_motoshi) June 24, 2018

In this new leveled up version, the poor kid, who is now gasping, sniffling, and crying, looks like a pack mule carrying not only a backpack but also several bags on his arms, all the while holding a huge flowerpot.

From the top right, this time he has:

A packed-to-the-max backpack (containing a dictionary)
A recorder
A drawing board
A lunch bag
P.E. clothes
A water bottle
A pencil box
A school bag (presumably filled with notebooks and textbooks)
A paint set, sewing kit, or maybe a melodica
An umbrella
A flowerpot for morning glories (growing morning glories is a common school project for elementary school students in Japan)
Indoor shoes

That’s a lot for one child to carry. We have to bear in mind that these are Japanese schoolkids; they’re not being picked up in cars or sent home in yellow school buses. They’re usually walking ten or twenty minutes home or taking public transportation by themselves. Imagine having to carry all that as a small child for almost half an hour!

There are several other reasons why kids shouldn’t have to carry so much. For one, undoubtedly they’ll become a nuisance on public transportation with all their baggage, plus they could drop something along the way and not notice. And what if they forget to bring something important back? Kids are notorious for forgetting things.

Perhaps if schools allow the children to leave some things at school to lessen the burden, it would be easier and safer for children to commute home with their textbooks. Ideally, schools would just let kids be kids instead of making them study obsessively in order to get good grades on their exams, but no matter how much we dream, we can’t have it all.

Source: Twitter/@kohara_motoshi via Togetch
Featured image: Twitter/@kohara_motoshi