Busted

Busted
There is an emergency meeting of all first-grade teachers right now. Because I don't speak Japanese (well, ok, and I'm not really a first grade teacher) I was a little (totally) confused about the commotion until I found out what happened. Apparently, three boys brought cigarettes to school today and one was caught smoking in the boy’s room. I know who they are and I actually like these kids, but they are part of a stereotype: they are smart but maybe use their brains more to get themselves out of trouble rather than on their homework.
Anyways, everyone is bustling around and just ran out to an emergency staff meeting about how they should handle the issue. I can't believe the boys actually smoked at school. I am curious to see what the verdict is...
The Sentence (2 Days later...)
The boy who actually smoked got suspended. Interestingly enough, the punishment is not as harsh as I would have expected. Students can be kicked off of a sports team (or club) for drinking/smoking, so I would say the punishment was actually comparable to what I would have expected to find in America (at least my high school). The one difference is that there is a school rule that students cannot be left alone at home in Japan. If the suspended individual's parents will not be home, for example, the student has to come to school so they are supervised (but they cannot interact with the other students).
Afterthought
I just find this topic interesting because I feel like you always hear that Japanese students are either extremely disciplined or that they are not disciplined at all. Yes, there may not be detention in the schools here, for example, but from my experience thus far, there is an equivalent. Students that are late have to fill out a form where they apologize and sign, their parents sign, their homeroom teacher signs, they give a breakdown of what they were doing the night before, AND they have to come to school early for three days and show the form to a teacher each day. That almost sounds worse than the American method. In short, I would say the standard strategy may be different, but I really don't think our discipline in THAT different.
If there are differences at all, however, I would argue that they lie in the fact that teachers, not parents, are considered more responsible for a child's discipline. If a teacher catches a student smoking or even working (which is against school rules) during the weekend, it is their responsibility to punish the student, not the parents. Parents will in fact call the school to get advice on how to reprimand poor behavior or to receive general support (putting the responsibility into the hands of the teachers). Big cultural difference; it might be best classified as a family structure/responsiblity difference.
As for the kid who smoked at school, I still can't say much. They have cigarette vending machines ALL OVER the place in Japan (easy access), but Japanese youth are expected to respect the legal age for smoking. I just hope the boy that got caught learned his lesson, and it doesn't happen again :-P