So Smart They Seem Slightly Unhinged: Paradise at Japan’s Super-Elite Schools

I saw a video on social media showing daily life at an elite boys’ school.

It was probably one of the prestigious combined junior and senior high schools known in Japan as the “Big Three.”

It was quite entertaining, although, being a YouTube video, I assume some parts were exaggerated.

First of all, there are no uniforms. There are almost no school rules. Students are basically left to govern school life themselves.

One rule introduced in the video was, “Do not order Uber Eats during class.”

Surely there are other things worth prohibiting.

Apparently, one student once ran naked through the school. He was finally stopped when he tried to leave the school grounds.

His excuse when he was reprimanded was extraordinary.

“I have to do it while I’m still in high school. Once I’m an adult, it would be a crime.”

It is still a problem when you are in high school.

I could no longer tell whether he was intelligent or stupid.

The place was less a school than a zoo.

The animals in it, however, had some of the finest minds in the country.

Are School Rules Unnecessary When Students Are Too Smart?

The students in the video were remarkably free.

They wore whatever clothes and hairstyles they liked. Even during class, the atmosphere was very different from that of an ordinary school.

And yet their academic ability ranked among the best in the country.

Some students had even won medals in the Mathematical Olympiad.

If teachers at an ordinary school saw scenes like these, they would probably be at a loss.

At this school, however, they were apparently part of everyday life.

These students had, after all, passed an extremely competitive entrance examination.

No one needs to push them to study. They immerse themselves in whatever interests them without being told.

They are also astonishingly indifferent to anything that does not interest them.

Are they brilliant, or merely selfish?

Probably both.

A Six-Year School That Is Effectively Seven Years

Something else that made me laugh was the claim that the school is “effectively a seven-year program.”

Because it combines junior and senior high school, students are supposed to graduate after six years.

However, many reportedly spend an additional year preparing for university entrance exams after graduation before entering the University of Tokyo.

An ordinary college-preparatory school would be desperate to increase the percentage of students admitted to university directly from high school.

These students, however, do not seem particularly concerned.

Rather than spend all of high school preparing for entrance exams, they prefer to pursue what they enjoy and deal with university admissions later.

That seems to be the prevailing attitude.

In a sense, it is the ultimate form of confidence.

For an ordinary applicant, spending an extra year preparing to retake the entrance exams is a major life event. For these students, it may be nothing more than one additional year.

Of course, the assumption that they can take an extra year and then get into the University of Tokyo is already far from ordinary.

A World Where the Serious Model Student Does Not Fit In

The video also showed a stereotypically serious, hard-studying student struggling to adjust to this excessively free environment.

That was interesting too.

At an ordinary school, a student who listens to the teachers, pays close attention in class, and earns high scores is considered an exemplary student.

At this school, however, that alone is not enough to stand out.

Some students appear not to study at all yet earn absurdly high grades.

Others are so absorbed in mathematics that they have no interest in the school’s regular lessons.

A student who has always succeeded through diligent effort is suddenly thrown into a world where their assumptions no longer apply.

That is rather cruel.

Some people become exceptional through hard work. Others genuinely enjoy the hard work itself.

Put the first kind in the same classroom as the second, and the experience can be unbearable.

Is Being Allowed to Be Eccentric a Talent in Itself?

Stories like these remind me of the famously free cultures at Kyoto University and Tokyo University of the Arts.

Tokyo University of the Arts, in particular, is next to Ueno Zoo and is jokingly referred to as the “Ueno Zoo Annex.”

It is a rather insulting nickname, but somehow it makes perfect sense.

Of course, the animals gathered there possess extraordinary talent in fields such as painting and music.

I rather like worlds like this.

Everyone wearing the same uniform, having the same hairstyle, and listening to the teacher in the same way.

Compared with a school like that, one where eccentrics and oddballs are free to pursue whatever they want sounds far more interesting.

Still, one thing bothers me.

In the end, are they allowed this freedom only because they are overwhelmingly talented?

If students behaved the same way at an ordinary school, they would simply be treated as troublemakers.

If a Mathematical Olympiad medalist orders Uber Eats during class, people can laugh and say, “Geniuses are eccentric.”

If a student with poor grades does it, that student is summoned to the staff room.

Perhaps the difference between a genius and a troublemaker is simply an exam score.

Then again, no matter how many graduates a school sends to the University of Tokyo, running naked through the halls still makes someone nothing more than a pervert.

University entrance exams should include at least one question testing common sense.