Jan and the Speech Contest

Meet Jan

¹ Sorry, she didn’t want to take a picture!

¹.

She's one of several 外国人 students (non-citizen residents) enrolled at Ichikashi. Ichikashi has a very limited number of seats available for students who wish to enroll as 外国人, usually around five every year, as they require special language consideration both in their enrollment testing as well as "linguistic academic support" (which includes a supplemental Japanese language course).

This is interesting because usually, at least when it comes to English (and other foreign languages in general), these students are often quite high-functioning, probably because many of them come from countries where English is a semi-normal facet of every day life. It's easy to forget in my limited exposure with them in OCI/Composition class that life outside of 英語の練習室 is quite different.

Over the past two weeks we've had the privilege of working one-on-one with Jan to help her prepare for the Kashiwa Speech Contest in October. Ken and I had done some pre-planning with Jan before summer break began so that by the end of summer we could have the makings of a workable draft, thinking that we'd run into the normal hem-and-hawing of speech-writing. Before we left in July she decided she wanted to write about how hard school in Japan, academically, was as a foreigner.

Cool, right?

However, last week when Jan sheepishly slid the door to the Foreign Language Office open, I knew something was up. Maybe she hadn't worked on anything at all over the last two months. Or, even worse, maybe she had gotten cold feet and wanted to pull out of the contest.

In actuality, she had a small notebook stained in pen with ideas scribbled across whole pages. Really, what she had come to say was that she had changed her mind: she didn't want to talk about how hard coming to Japan for school was anymore. Rather, she wanted to talk about how hard it was for her mom.

Even better.

I asked her if I could share what we have written. This is what we’ve come up with so far:

My mom is very important to me because, first of all, she was the one who gave birth to me. She changed my diapers when I was a toddler and made sure that I was healthy and active. She would take care of me when I was sick and made sure that I had everything I needed. When I was little, she would read books to me every night and made me feel loved with lots of hugs and kisses. She would always cheer me up and comfort me when I was scared, teaching me to do my best and not give up when things are scary or get hard.

If it were not for her, I wouldn’t be here. I’m really grateful that I have a mother like her. She really means a lot to me.

But this is why she is my biggest inspiration:

You see, when she was in Manila, my mom got pregnant with me at a very young age. Because of that, she had a very big decision to make: she could take a year off of high school and put me up for adoption or put aside her friends, high school parties, and dreams of becoming a cabin attendant, making lots of money and traveling all around the world, to raise me as her daughter. For her, though it meant things would be difficult, it was not a hard decision.

She decided to quit high school and get a job so she could raise me. When she was 8-months pregnant, she got a job at 7-11, but the pay was very low. She realized that even with this job, she would not be able to afford a great future for me. So when I turned 3-years-old, she packed up and left her family and friends and moved to Japan to find a better job.

Moving to Japan was very hard for her. She didn’t even speak the language, and so things like kanji were very difficult for her. She will readily admit that it was tough, but she always said it was worth it because it was to offer me a better future. She always made her decisions based on what was best for me, not what was the easiest.

My mom always does her best for me and it makes me feel so special. It inspires me to work hard in school so that one day I might be able to fulfill her dream of becoming a cabin attendant.

However, like for my mother, sometimes it is very hard for me to understand Japanese. All of the kanji in school is very hard, but most especially the sciences. It is very discouraging to score so low because of the language barrier. Even if I understand the idea in the textbook, I find it hard to pass tests and assignments because the kanji is so complicated.

Last semester was particularly difficult. Even though I studied every day, practicing and memorizing kanji, I was unable to pass my biology test. It is very disappointing to spend so much time studying and still not pass the exam. Sometimes I want to quit because failing feels inevitable. But just when I feel like giving up, my mom tells me, “kahit anong mangyari wag kang susuko, kasi alam ko naman na kaya mo eh”: “do not give up. I know you can do it.”

Even though the kanji used in science is challenging, I will not give up studying. I know I can do it because my mother has shown me that it can be done. She gives me the confidence to work through adversity and study hard. Like her, I want to do what’s best, not just what is easiest.

But it isn’t always easy to choose to do the best. My mom and I argue sometimes about me hanging out with my friends instead of studying. She is always worried about me, telling me to be careful. It used to make me mad, her constant questioning, but now I realize that she wants me to be safe, that she wants to make sure that I don’t make the same decisions, the same mistakes, that she did. She always tells me that I can do better, and that I should make the most of my opportunity.

She has given me so much already, and for that I am very grateful. By this I know that she loves me, so I want to make her proud by fulfilling her dreams, not just of being a cabin attendant, but by making the most of the bright future she has given up so much for me to have.

The speech-writing portion of prep is always hard. But the actual speaking-training is always the most cruel. Yet I do not doubt her resolve.

“Are you getting tired,” I asked, my own tongue feeling thick with cotton, my eyes strained with furrowed brows. “Are you sure you don’t want a break?”

We had been working on rounding out vowel sounds and enunciating hard consonant clusters for the better part of an hour. I was worried we were getting close to “the end” working on words like “inevitable” and “particularly.”

“We can take a break,” I added. “You’ve been doing a good job so far.”

“No, I don’t need a break,” she said. “Let’s keep working. I mean, I don’t want to do just a good job. I want to win.”

Umi no Hi

The spring events calendar is relatively light compared to those of the fall and winter.  Sure there's the Freshmen Welcome procedures and orientation.  But when stacked up against the school excursion to Okinawa in November, the trip to Yokohama in May is just mere "practice."

The crux of our spring program, though, is the host segment of both of our exchange programs.  By the end of July we have hosted two separate groups from Torrance for a total of five days in an attempt to simulate and summarize a day in the life of a normal Japanese high school student.

          
For me, the best part of these trips isn't so much the rare opportunity to riff in English to nearly unanimous groans

¹ As opposed to confused silence.

¹, but to, again, be reminded of those amazing, subtle differences of culture that I have grown more or less accustomed to.

I mean it's hard not to be consistently wowed by the quality of our Brass Band club and it's massive wall of trophies and the accordant dedication to practice and perfection literally unavoidable as the persistent clacking of metronomes and the haunting whine of woodwinds echo through the halls, their tick and twitter a constant reminder of my own lazy mediocrity. And, of course there are the unique cultural experiences of Tea Ceremony, Ikebana and Shodo. Even still, what seems to surprise the students most are the sports clubs.

I suppose club is the right word for it.  In Japan, when you commit to a sport, you're committing to the club team, whose only, unconditional requirement is your daily commitment.  There is no such thing as a multi-sport athlete because, within the system, it is impossible for a student to be committed to more than one club at a time.

To their credit it should be mentioned that no student is ever turned away from a club due to lack of ability or performance

² Neither physical nor academic.

² and very few players, if any, are ever cut.  Notwithstanding, as each school carries only one team, and while some teams can carry upwards of 30 or 40 kids, only the best players have the honor of being "jerseyed," or selected to be eligible for the game roster, to play in the actual games.

Regardless of a student's status, clubs meet virtually every day, some multiple times a day, throughout the entire year, as freshman until the day they must retire midway through the summer of their senior year.  There are no "seasons" when it comes to sports, and likewise there is no break from practice. Even still, invariably, the athletic calendar centers its axis around the prefectural tournament. For the bigger sports like baseball and basketball, the schedule finds its heart in the heat of the summer "大会" ("taikai").

Sure there may be a spring invitational tournament or a conscripted scrimmage between two schools, but inter-high school athletics come down to these athletic "tests": the Prefectural Tournament (県大会) and then the National Tournament (全国大会).

Two weeks ago, Ichikashi's boy's basketball team took first place in the Chiba Prefectural Tournament earning them a spot in the national tournament.

Around then, Taiga, a boy in Ken's composition class, ran a 14:20.44 5k

³ A number that would put him at the top of the charts in California.

³, qualifying him for the national meet.

And then last week saw the first pitches of the Chiba regional qualification for Summer Koshien, arguably Japan's biggest sporting event.

Way back in the early 2000s, when my only previous, direct exposure to Japan was limited through Harmony Gold VHS adaptations of classic Japanese animes and documentaries on PBS about national treasures (both historical and living), Discover Films: POV released a short doc on the all-Japan national inter-high school championship tournament, the Summer Koshien.

          
First played in 1915

⁴ And even then it was the penultimate sporting event in Japan.

⁴, the Zenkoku Koto Gakko Yakyu Senshuken Taikai (全国高等学校野球選手権大会), pits the best high school baseball teams from every prefecture in Japan (one team from every prefecture: two from Tokyo and Hokkaido) in a single-elimination tournament for the title of "Champion."  It remains the single largest scale amateur sporting event in Japan and stands as an enduring symbol of democratic meritocracy

⁵ The tournament is aired on national public television with no commercials or commercial sponsors; even the use of the stadium is donated.

⁵ as virtually every single one of Japan's 5000 high schools is eligible.  Of course, all they have to do is have a baseball team and then have that team win their 県大会...

Undoubtedly, sometimes what gets lost in the fervor of the literal aspect of sport and its purported inherent, absolute cultural value is the fact that the game is still played by children whose identities and relationships are deeply tied to whatever 部活動 they find themselves in their freshman year. It's easy to forget that high school is a transitionary period from childhood into adulthood, and the summer retirement of the 三年生 is the first and most heavy-handed of the many milestones that mark this passage.

Koshien and 全国選手権 are mere dreams for just about all of our sports teams.  Not only is the success of the club pegged to your team's ability to survive deep into a single elimination tournament, but for just about all of the jerseyed athletes (a preponderance of whom are 三年生) these tournaments are their last event before they are forced to "retire" from the club to make way for their juniors. For every single one of our students, winning that proverbial "next game" is as much about getting to play one more game with their friends as it is winning the title of "National Champion."

               
"This weekend is our last tennis tournament," one girl wrote in her journal way back in May.  "I want to win because I love playing tennis."

Girl's tennis turned over their annual calendar more than a month ago and was among the earliest of all the sports to retire out their seniors.  But I remember recently catching her gazing longingly out of the window of 練習室3, a room that happens to have a beautiful view of the courts on the south side of the campus, her eyes ladened with tears.

"I miss tennis," she said.  "But I miss tennis club most of all."

Chiba no Hi

It's been maybe 9 months since I moved to Kashiwa and, for various reasons such as rain, laziness and not being physically fit enough, I still hadn't taken the time to bike all the way around 手賀沼 (the marsh down the street from my apartment).


Last weekend I saddled up to the challenge and managed the 20km circuit, going so far as to getting slightly lost in the spirit of adventure and turned the trip into one closer to 40. Shrines built on spry hill tops, baseball fields butting up against gentle streams, and fresh eggs sold in vending machines, it was all worth it.

           
It was nice to finally get that far out of town on my own, to see what the other side of 取手 looks like and get a better sense of what life on the outskirts of a city like Tokyo is like by just making the conscious effort to get out and look. Then again, there is still so much to be seen just across the river from my apartment.

A few weeks ago, one of our students mentioned playing in a dodgeball tournament at a gym close to ふるさと公園, where we had our English Freshman Welcome. Neither Ken nor I knew what he was talking about. 柏市中央体育館 (Kashiwa Central Municipal Gym), replete with basketball/volleyball courts, a small gym for ping pong, a children's gymnastics room, a kendojo, a judojo, a kyoudojo (traditional Japanese archery range house), and a sumo stable! A SUMO stable. For children!

Every Saturday and Sunday morning they have children's sumo training. It's the bee's knees! Kids. And. Amazing.

It's quite the scene. The gymnasium complex, not just the sumo-くんs. And it's really close. Quite convenient. Maybe I will inquire within about their classes. Probably not sumo. Maybe judo.

---

Just like most martial arts, judo has come to develop an intricate colored-belt hierarchy (段, dan), starting at white and ending in various "degrees" of black"

¹ 十段, to be exact.

¹. Each belt color indicates a certain level of advancement and achievement, beginning with "initiate" and "novice" and ending, eventually, with "master." This color ranking system was introduced to help inspire progress and make matching skill levels for sparring much simpler.

In more traditional judo schools, when you step out onto the mat for training, regardless of your ranking, you can only wear one of two colors: white or black.

The message is clear: you're either a master (有段者, yuudansha) or you are not (無段者, mudansha, literally "ignorant person," or "having no rank").

Technically modeled after the public school system itself, judo schools were traditionally divided into two groups: underclassmen (mudansha), who are ranked in descending "級" (kyuu) grades of 9-1, and upperclassmen (yuudansha), who are ranked in ascending "段" (dan) degrees of 1-10.

This white/black dichotomy is so strong that many 柔道場 in Japan

² Especially at Kodokan, 講道館, the birthplace of judo, and Ichikashi included.

² only use white belts and black belts. It's also interesting to note that the judo instructor at our school is only a 3rd degree black belt (三段) and the Ichikashi student who won 全大会 last year (that's "nationals" for the two of you remaining Gleeks) was only 初代 or 二段.

There is often a misunderstanding of what is implied by possession of a black belt

³ So much so that there's even a short entry on it in Wikipedia's Common Misconceptions catalog.

³. Often, what we assume of "mastery," in western terms, is the romantic image of the 100 year-old man living in the 1,000 year-old cabin 10,000 miles away from the nearest town who has dedicated his life to the study of his art, forgoing all other earthly wants and desires and only trains travelers committed enough to conquer the 100,000 stair climb to his mountainside dojo/sanctuary. This kind of master "exists," but is awarded as the "master" title of "教授," or Kyoju, and is often earned at around 五- or 六- 段.

Of course, even with the lowest level of black comes the expectation of leadership over their mudansha counterparts (this is usually signified with a title like 師範, "shihan"). But the biggest distinction with the black belt is that it signifies a "mastery" over the 67 投げ技 (throwing) techniques, the 29 固技 (grappling) techniques and the 8 forms of 柔道の形, not mastery over classmates or the craft. The acquisition of the belt signifies a shift away from childish rote memorization towards more mature techniques.

The only things the white belts are expected to do

⁴ And are allowed to do.

⁴ is observe and repeat.

This master/student dichotomy is so pervasive throughout all of the arts in Japan that it even shows up in 書道 (Shodo, Japanese Calligraphy). Students are graded and ranked according to their ability to replicate stroke weight, balance and design, and assessed on the correctness of submitted patterns as reviewed by a master.

In Shodo once a student reaches shodan (first master-level) it is expected that the student now solely uses more strict 楷書 (kaisho, regular) scripts rather than the beginner's models. By san-dan, they are allowed to begin using 隸書 (reisho, clerical) and 篆書 (tensho, seal) styles. By san-dan, they can also begin using more free-form styles in their writing.

According to many practitioners, one is not "supposed" to teach another person calligraphy until they have reached a minimal rank of 初段 (the equivalent of a first-degree black belt), and even then, only to elementary school aged peoples. Adults require a minimum of 三段.

The final stages of ranking

⁵ Above 5 or so.

⁵ require actual in-person examinations.

Just as an aside, with a passive interest in shodo, myself, I found this outstanding website (Beyond Calligraphy) that helps break down stroke order and design balance based on the character's specific etymology. Most notably are the sections on the development of the shapes of basic hiragana.

Anyway, back to that shodo-ranking chart, I was surprised to realize that these rankings are the same rankings that the 英検 (Eiken) English Language Proficiency exam uses.

The table is divided into a top-half and a bottom-half: the top being the masters [those who have acheived a 段 (dan) ranking] and the bottom being 級 (kyuu) (those who have not). Kyuu's begin at Grade 10 (十級) and level their way up to Grade 1 (一級)

⁶ With the Eiken, every level requires a half-step, meaning that between going from Grade 2 to Grade 1 you must additionally pass the 準一級 (Pre-Grade 1 level test).

⁶ before entering pre-master level (準初段), working their way up to 六段 (or 八段 in some cases).

I haven't yet met anyone who's passed 準一級, let alone 一級. The highest level I've seen are a couple of our students occasionally try their hand at 二級. But since most universities don't look for much more than 二級, there is little incentive to try. Especially since the last time the students can take the Eiken to qualify to test for university entrance is three months into their senior year, there isn't a whole lot of opportunity to prep a student to take the test unless they've been practicing over the break by themselves.

And all of this without ever being close to "pre-mastering" (準初段, jun-shodan) the basics of English.

Which is fine because if I think back to my high school years, of what subject, exactly, would I have been qualified to be called a "master" of of even the most basic of skills? P2P music and LAN-parties, maybe. Maybe even canasta.

My Imaginary Animal (SJ: 6/29)

三年生 - A(2)

Do you know who this is? This is a boy. His name is Akichan. I named him Akichan.  He is very big; maybe his height is 100m. So he walks slowly but he can make big jumps and fly to the sky. He likes to play the guitar. So he has good music sense.

He only has a few friends. Why doesn’t he have more than a few friends? His face looks scary. 

His favorite food is potatoes, chicken, beef, pork, chocolate and cake. He has many favorite foods. He usually drinks a beer. He likes to drink. He is 125 years old but he looks very young.

He has a girlfriend. His girlfriend’s name is Akiko. They are very lovely. He does twitter. His account is @xxxxxx but he can’t understand any language. So he can’t use twitter.

My Best Friend (SJ: 6/18)

三年生 - Elective:

My friend's name is Shin.
He is kind but he is always fooling around with women.
He likes parsley.
We are classmates.
He is good at singing songs because he likes music.
He joined brass band.
He is the bass trombone player.
Shin wets his bed every night.
He does not like eggplants because they are bitter.
He has a big voice but he has a narrow mind.

If I Could Have a Super Power (SJ: 6/13)

三年生 - A(2):

If I could have a super power I would want the power to transform.
If I had that super power, then I would change into a man so I can play baseball.
We would go to Koshien.
Then we would win.

Kokumin no Kyujitsu

First and foremost, I want to congratulate my beasties on all of the hard work they have done to get to this point of graduation and, for those of you with post-high-school-graduate plans of either immediate employment, military service or continuing education, the best of luck and an extra dose of がんばって.


But, with high schools across America coming to a close, the internet has gone agog with articles regarding colleges and continuing education.

An interesting article came across my desk a few days ago from the Daily Yomiuri, which noted, briefly, that the Ministry of Education is looking to advance a two-year graduation option for high schoolers who meet a minimum academic benchmark.

The idea is that early graduation makes it possible for students who qualify for university (especially those applying for international education facing a seven-month gap between the end of high school in February and the opening of universities in the fall) to forgo their last year [either partially, after the spring (first) trimester, or entirely] of high school in order to pursue a tertiary degree and still receive an equivalent high school diploma. The change in the law would allow students to take advantage of an early-graduation policy that has been in place since 1997.

Currently, students who take advantage of such early admissions are considered to have "dropped out" of high school.

As it stands, 三年生 are forced into club "retirement" at the end of their first semester and then given the entire final (winter) trimester off to prepare for college entrance exams

¹ Entrance exams that are notoriously scheduled only twice a year and often in opposition of competing schools, forcing students to "choose" which schools they want to test for between similarly tiered universities.

¹.

In this recent article, Kouichi Nakai argues that the current system, while rooted in the post-war, reconstruction spirit, has outlived its purpose and no longer serves the betterment of the people and society, rather serves the ambiguous interests of "tradition." The system, rather than promoting education, is based on a failing relationship between higher education and Japanese Big Business.

Post war, he posits, saw Japan's second wave of westernization. Thanks in no small part to its forced inclusion into the global economic community, the country enjoyed a "rapid, dramatic [GDP] recovery" at an annual rate of 10% or more for nearly 20 years, clawing its way to the second highest GDP, behind only the USA by the early 80s. As it was economically, Japan was forced to "catch up" with Western educational policies, deciding to anchor its education on literacy and mathematics, using efficient, rote-based/input-output models of education.

As the forward-looking benefits of education in a post-war economy began to take hold, Kouichi notes that this saw a dramatic increase in rates of education throughout Japan: upwards of 98% of all students elected to attend high school, while 50% went on to pursue tertiary education, a number that would rise to 80% if it included technical and trade schools.

Especially as relationships between many of the top schools and sponsoring corporations began to tighten

² Here's a prescient 2009 article about the failure of this nudge-nudge relationship.

², companies began promising Salaryman positions to a certain percentage of graduates from partner institutions. Get into the right school and a job would literally be waiting for you when you graduate. "Stability" in the form of Salaryman jobs became the "white picket fence" in post-war Japan and education was the cobbled road.

The college entrance exam then became the first stepping stone.

Actually, college entrance exams became the only stone. There would be no application process. Just a truncated series of Uniform (national standardized)

³ In 1990, the Ministry of Education began proctoring a national standardized test in an attempt to help private universities move away from college-specific entrance testing requirements. The thinking was that by deemphasizing college-specific tests, schools would better be able to seek alternative forms of admission, thereby opening admissions to students returning from lengthy stays overseas, to students in areas that do not have easy access to the university's proctored exams, and to students who have been out of high school for more than two years.

³ and university-specific entrance exams.

Logically, since high school in Japan is non-compulsory and selective to begin with, this affected student enrollment, as students pursued enrollment to high schools often based on historical matriculation rates. The educational climate no longer judged a school on the quality of its instruction in the basics of math, science and letters, or its ability to produce thoughtful, mature leaders, but how well the school prepares students to pass (or circumvent) the university entrance examinations. Kouichi argues, this shift transformed high schools into little more than entrance-exam prep schools.

In the early years of this program, the public schools with the best reputation for acceptance into the top universities saw fierce competition, skewing attendance and the distribution of test scores (and, implicitly, wealth). This led to an attempt in the 60s and 70s of local boards of education to democratize access by smoothing out high school acceptance rates (which are, not ironically, based on high school entrance examinations) among the most competitive public high schools with quotas and regional restrictions, which in turn, sent many of the more affluent families scuttling towards private schools

⁴ Not unlike the current state of East Coast public education today.

⁴. This doesn't even raise the issue of "feeder" high schools that guarantee admission to partner universities.

Throughout the 80s, it was determined--at the administrative level--that the "current system" was failing to produce educated individuals. "The phrase '7, 5, 3' emerged to describe the ratios of students who actually understood their classes," Kouichi notes: "70% of elementary school students, 50% of middle schoolers, and 30% of high schoolers."

These shortcomings have become all the more apparent. It's a striking example of how the needs of a third-party institution that controls a vast majority of the potential job market greatly influences unaffiliated institutions. But it also speaks to how damming up a stream can wash away an institution's philosophical underpinning Takehiko Kariya argues, in the age of advanced globalization

⁵ TL;DR? Think "NBA Eligibility: One-and-Done."

⁵.

Takehiko goes on to conclude that Japanese universities have allowed outside interests to dictate educational policy decisions, which, in turn have washed away any semblance of an effective vision, threatening to condemn the concept of a four-year liberal-arts-based Japanese education to little more than a joke, internationally. What matters to Japanese universities is how accepted students parlay their university contacts into job offers, often times cajoling faculty into passing students through classes based solely on their prospective job offers.

I've always been a fan of the theory of a liberal arts education, as a subscriber to the renaissance-humanist notion that a university should be about forming human beings, preparing them for life after academia, and not just mere technicians, number crunchers, or reporters. Acknowledging that liberal arts education isn't for everyone, I've also been an ardent supporter of technical and trade schools as valid alternatives (one of the few areas that the Japanese education system is vastly superior).

As someone who would like to think that my diploma signifies a level of competency and achievement of academic rigor, it's certainly disappointing to see institutions of higher learning make decisions that water down the value of something I worked so hard to obtain. And yet

⁶ Apart from the important issues of equity and accessibility.

⁶, the issue of the "value of a degree" is ultimately a matter cynicism.

However, it's hard not to be greatly bothered when the system is built in such a way that it lets your students down.


His name invokes the image of a roaring river: strong and powerful, yet fluid and smooth. As the captain of the basketball team his senior year, those remain apt. His name meant "quick water" and he was just as quick in the class as he was on the court, always reading, always trying, always pushing forward, always among the first of his class.

But the title that he most closely associates with himself, now, is that of "浪人." Ronin: a class of masterless samurai, shamed either by the death or demotion of his feudal lord. The mark of a samurai who was unable to protect his master or his honor and now wanders Japan in inherited shame.

Literally meaning "wave man," the term came into usage during the Nara and Heian periods when it was applied to a feudal vassal who abandoned his master, invoking the image of one who has become socially adrift. It has come to be applied to both salarymen who have become separated from their corporations and high school graduates who have not been granted university enrollment.

For my student, and the thousands of students like him

⁷ The National Center for University Entrance Examinations notes that in 2011, 110,211 ronin students took the Uniform test again.

⁷, the body of his high school efforts were wiped away, casually brushed aside and accounted for as nothing.

Rather than being accounted for as a person with potential skills to be tapped and developed, his worthiness was reduced to his ability to regurgitate information in a two hour block. For someone who had spent three years helping to build a community at Ichikashi, who helped lead the high school basketball team deep into the National Tournament, I remember feeling angry that the system had all but washed its hands of the kid. The system had nothing more to offer him until he passes the exam. Until he passes the entrance exam, he is condemned to 予備校-purgatory. At least until his will gives out.

Then again, it's never as dramatic as it seems. After all, this non-meritorious, exam-based system, he theoretically stands on equal footing with students taking the test for the first time this year. He'll just be put out a year. Of course, assuming that he can afford to put everything off for a year.