Students’s Table

I don't think this is an important question that needs to be asked, but it's bugging me a bit so I thought "Eh why not just ask here?"

I read on some school life mangas that whenever they change their seats, they bring along the chair and table instead of just their bag and stationary. Does every school do this or not? What was the reason (if there's any)? It just seems a bit hard to do every single time, moving tables and chairs from one spot to another even if they were made from lightweight materials.

That's an easy question, and could even be important!

Unlike some schools in some other countries, in Japan, you usually take all your classes in your homeroom classroom. So, you can keep a lot of your belongings inside your desk, and it's more practical to move your whole desk around rather than to take everything out and carry them to your new desk.

Moreover, in Japan, students are accustomed to carrying your own desk, because it's completely the norm for students to clean their own classroom. At the end of a day, students would carry his/her own desk to the rear of the classroom so that the students in charge of cleaning for that week can sweep the floor easily. By the way, students also take turns cleaning their floor's toilet.

It's just how things are here in Japan. Each person does their job to help the whole, and the whole can be pretty important.

And it tells you how tight a high school homeroom class can get, but it also tells you how hard it can be if it so happens you don't like the other student(s) in your homeroom.

It also tells you that people in Japan grow up learning that you are to be responsible to clean up after what you've done. People in Japan are accustomed to carrying their lunch trash all the way home, and if you join a meeting or get-together at a town hall, locals naturally put their own chair and desks away.

I've learned in the recent decades that the sense of group and the sense of cleaning up can be greatly different depending on the country or perhaps the region. I went to schools both in the U.S. and Japan and didn't even notice this difference for a long time, since it was so normal when you're living in the respective atmospheres.

Sometimes these differences lead to misunderstanding. For example, people living in certain countries may think that foreign visitors and temporary residents are weird or even misbehaving, just because they're not doing things that are so normal to long-term residents. But by understanding these differences, you can calm down and just tell the other party what to do so that they could learn or discuss.

On a related note, college is completely different. You hardly stay in your homeroom and you don't have the duty to mop the floors. These kind of senior high schools are increasing as well, offering an option to students who prefer that kind of atmosphere.