This probably serves the same purpose as businessmen taking "smiling classes." From what I've heard, the Japanese are trying to fight a long-standing tradition of not-smiling ("control of emotions," etc) by having people be taught how to smile, and how to smile in a way that will appeal to people outside of Japan. The concept of this is that they'll be able to connect with foreign businessmen easier, and not seem so stand-offish. If I had to make a guess of why this was being done to railway workers, then I would assume it was something similar.

There are different ways to motivate children. There are ways to hold children accountable and to get them engaged in the material so they bring their own interest into their education.

One of the things our educational system does is to make it separate from "the real world." Engaging students and motivating them can simply be relating it to their lives in the past, present, and future. Too often teachers are forced to "teach to the test" because they have standards they must meet, AYP's they must pass, etc; and so the educational system becomes just a haze of testing that relates to nothing but itself. One good way to get kids interested is find that means that will connect them.

For the most part, I haven't met any educator who wants to take parents completely out of the picture. Sometimes they can be a hindrance--and when you're trying to change your educational strategies from the traditional it's often the parents who are the most active against it; however, I also think you can't believe that all parents will be able to enthrall themselves into their kids' education. It's not possible. Not everyone comes from a family where free time is available to help their kids along; and not every family has a parental-child relationship that it will matter if the parent is saying "do your homework."

It seems that "mom and dad"--if there is a mom and dad both in the picture--gets scapegoated a lot when we need to look at the means we're teaching. No, I don't think teachers are to blame (I know myself and my peers are working our butts off to work with students and the current educational situation we're in) but I do think teachers are part of a solution.