Ask John: Do Japanese Teachers Really Attend Private Student Trips?

Question:
In Lucky Star and Azumanga Daioh I noticed when the teenage cast goes on a non-scholastic trip, their homeroom teacher acts as a chaperone for the group. Does this normally happen in Japan, and do Japanese students have a close relationship with their homeroom teacher? Or is this a situation added to the story to provide funny student-teacher interactions?

Answer:
This is an interesting question, but initially I didn’t know the answer. I have some knowledge of Japanese culture, and some first-hand experience, but I’ll admit that my familiarity with Japanese society is very limited. I posed this question to a native Japanese resident to get an answer. While many events and circumstances in anime do reflect real day to day Japanese society, I’m told that teachers accompanying students on private, non-school organized trips or vacations is not a common occurrence. This situation seems to be one that’s far more common in anime than in real life.

On a similar note, I was also a bit surprised myself to learn that in real life Japanese students are rarely allowed access onto school rooftops. Countless anime – Manabi Straight, Risky Safety, Tenjho Tenge, Kamichu, Seto no Hanayome, Fuujin Monogatari, and Hitohira among them – depict students eating lunch or spending time on their school rooftop. But apparently this is also a stereotypical anime event that occurs much more frequently in fiction than in real life.