MORIOKA — Shigenobu Ito, 21, did not go to elementary school or junior high school. He did not go for all nine years.

On Oct. 17, he went to an event in Morioka with his mother, Nobuko Ito, 52. The event was for a new book about his family.

At the event, Shigenobu said, “It meant a lot that my mother and father accepted my decision not to go to school and continued to support me.”

The book is “Shiawasena Futoko” (Happy school refusal). Art Shuppan put out the book. Nobuko wrote it. She lives in Shizukuishi, Iwate Prefecture.

In the book, Nobuko tells how she and her husband helped their four children. The children did not go to school for more than 15 years in all. This is called school refusal.

Shigenobu stopped going to kindergarten two weeks after he started. He was shy. He did not feel good there. When he went, his face became pale. He got fevers. He thought elementary school would be the same. So he did not go to elementary school or junior high school.

But he liked reading books from the local library. When he was old enough for fourth grade, he joined a local baseball team for children. He met children his age.

He began playing online games in his junior high school years. Through the games, he talked with peers about future jobs and schools. These talks made him think it was time to do something. He began to think about high school entrance exams.

After he entered high school, he did not miss one day of high school or vocational school. He said he could keep going because “it was my own decision to go.”

This spring, he started work at a design company in Tokyo.

Shigenobu said he thanks his parents. They told other people in a proud way that their child was not going to school. They also said he chose not to go.

In a fiscal 2024 survey, the education ministry said about 354,000 elementary and junior high school students in Japan were not going to school.

Nobuko said, “Many people are hurting because of school refusal, but it is still hard to talk about it in front of people. That makes many people feel alone.” She said that she hopes to help people by sharing her family’s story.

(Japanese original by Hideyuki Yamada, Morioka Bureau)

Vocabulary

elementary school: school for small children

junior high school: school after elementary school

event: a planned meeting or activity

mean a lot: feel very important

school refusal: when a child does not go to school

kindergarten: school for very young children

pale: with little or no color

local library: a place near you where you can borrow books

online games: games you play on the internet

peers: people the same age or in the same group

high school entrance exams: tests to get into high school

vocational school: a school for job skills

survey: questions to get information