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From theWashington Post, Tuesday, October 2, 2001, p. A22. See
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55926-2001Oct1.html
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For Japanese Students, Less May Be More
Educators Seek to Promote Creativity, Reduce Truancy by Cutting Curriculum
By Kathryn Tolbert [Washington Post Foreign Service]
AKITA, Japan -- To improve education by teaching less is a difficult
idea for any parent to accept. But Japan is in the midst of just such
an about-face.
While Japanese students are still near the top of international math
and science rankings, surveys also show that they dislike those
subjects more intensely with every grade, they have little joy of
learning and they lack the ability to do research and express an
opinion.
Educators have concluded that part of the remedy is to reduce the
amount students are taught. In a policy that has confounded and
worried many parents, primary and junior high school curricula are
being cut by 30 percent starting next spring, Saturday classes will
end and a vaguely defined "general studies" class is being added to
encourage creativity and independent thinking.
Parents' fears have been fed by rumors that the value of pi would now
be taught as "around 3" instead of 3.14. A weekly magazine ran the
headline, "In 10 Years the Japanese Will All Be Idiots!" The
catchphrase for the new policy is "Education with Leeway," which goes
firmly against the grain here.
Education Ministry officials are going around the country trying to
explain the new curriculum to parent-teacher organizations, while
many teachers are taking extra training to come up with ideas for
general studies and schools are running test classes under the new
directives. The new curriculum will be adopted in high schools in
2003.
"To target the curriculum to lowest-level students is rare in world
history," said one critic, Masayuki Yamauchi, a professor at the
University of Tokyo.
But educators and officials say the counterintuitive cutting of hours
devoted to Japanese, math, science and social studies is necessary to
change Japan's basic approach to education.
"Japanese education has meant sitting in a classroom, facing the
blackboard and learning from a textbook," said Satoshi Ashidate,
director of the office of curriculum planning in the Education
Ministry. "In a sense it is very passive -- sitting and waiting to be
taught. This was effective in bringing up scores for tests and to
achieve a high international ranking. But we have to change that."
The education system has been widely admired for giving a uniform,
high-quality education to all Japanese. Everyone was taught the same
material at the same pace, which was good for the broad middle range
of students but left some bored and others lost. The truancy rate has
been rising rapidly, with the number of junior high students missing
more than 30 days of school in 1999 more than 12 times that of 1970.
Under the new policy, schools are to acknowledge that students have
different levels of ability and should be taught accordingly. Science
high schools will be introduced next year; other schools will start
to divide classes according to ability.
"In Japan we worry so much about equality, regardless of what the
person wants," said Toshiso Miyatani of Mihara, Hiroshima prefecture,
who flew to Akita in northern Japan for a national PTA symposium on
the new curriculum.
"Until now we've been cutting off those who excel and those who lag
behind," said Ashidate. "We're trying to pay attention to both groups
and deal with stress from this system. This is a big change."
Jin Akiyama, a professor of mathematics at Tokai University in Tokyo,
held the attention of the 1,200 parents at the symposium as he ran
through the high scores Japanese students have achieved
internationally in math and science.
"Is this not good enough?" he said. "You can say no, we've got to be
at the very top, or you can say we're doing pretty well. But I think
there is something else we need to worry about, something that is
related to the issue of academic skills. And that is whether the
children like . . . the particular subject or whether what they've
been taught will be useful in the future. In this case, there is a
lot to worry about."
But while parents applaud the idea of making students eager to learn
and teaching them to think, cutting content to foster creativity is
more difficult to accept.
"The school sent a paper home saying first-graders will no longer be
taught to tell time," said Yumi Yomura, whose daughter's primary
school in Tokyo is incorporating the new curriculum. She was
surprised and dismayed, but said that as long as she knows what's
being cut, she can fill in the gaps at home.
Other parents, she said, don't mind the reduced curriculum because it
gives their children more time to do their "cram-school" homework.
Entrance exams for universities, as well as for private junior and
senior high schools, will not limit their questions to the reduced
curriculum. So when Saturday classes end, many students will simply
go to cram school that day.
For every grade and subject, the ministry has listed topics to be
cut, condensed or moved to later grades. For example, second-graders
will not be taught greater than and less than signs in math;
fourth-graders will not be taught the relationship between weather
and time and the activities of animals; fifth-graders will not learn
how to calculate the areas of some geometric shapes or study the
surface of the moon; sixth-graders will not get an explanation of the
metric system; and in junior high English classes, only 900 words
will be taught instead of 1,000.
The value of pi, according to the ministry guideline, remains at
3.14, although fifth-graders may, to gain time to think, use 3 in
calculations.
Hiroshi Sakai, a science teacher at Yokote Primary School in Yokote,
Akita prefecture, is concerned because to accommodate reduced hours,
students will be forced to make choices. "We teach fifth- and
sixth-graders about procreation of both human beings and minnows," he
said. "From next year they have to choose one or the other. From the
perspective of biology, I don't know whether such a choice is
teaching them about life, because they follow different procreation
processes. The ministry thinks if you choose either you can learn
about the continuity of life, but I don't think so."
Everyone agrees that the changes will be difficult to implement, and
that the burden falls on the teachers.
"We are expected to look at students more individually," said Hiroshi
Endo, a seventh-grade social studies teacher in Tokyo who recently
attended a training seminar. "And that's a lot more time-consuming."
Endo said he is trying to adjust his teaching style, to lecture less
and have the students speak up more and do more research. The student
reaction, he said, was fifty-fifty. "Those who didn't find anything
interesting are now more enthusiastic. But those who were doing
slightly better are worried about whether they're acquiring
knowledge."
The reduced requirements are aimed at giving slower learners a sense
of accomplishment and are intended to be a minimum standard; teachers
are to encourage advanced students to exceed them. The time shaved
off the four basic courses will make room for the centerpiece of the
policy -- general studies, which has no textbook and no instructions.
Akiyama told the assembled parents in Akita that the new course aimed
to teach children how to study, how to do research and convey the
results, and to let them experience the fun of learning.
Students work individually or in small groups. Some schools running
test courses have devoted sections to social welfare, the environment
and the elderly. At Mariko Oikawa's daughter's school in Matsumoto,
Nagano prefecture, the renovation of a senior citizen center meant
that one of the school's classrooms was given over to a group of
elderly people. The students made them their general studies project
-- talking to them, writing to them, learning about their lives.
Parents feel that more than before, the quality of the teacher will
matter. Some will be able to adapt and draw students out, others
won't.
"How to deal with students not in a supervisory way but in a way to
support the children is a difficult skill to acquire," said Riko Ota,
a junior high social studies teacher in Tokyo. "We need to stand at
the same eye level as students, and teachers have a sense that they
are not so good at that."
Ashidate of the Education Ministry summed up the challenge: "For
schools to decide or ask what is needed on the basis of children had
not been done before in Japan."
-----------------------------
Special correspondent Akiko Yamamoto contributed to this report.
****************************************************
--
Jerry P. Becker
Curriculum & Instruction
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL 62901-4610
Phone: (618) 453-4241 [O]
(618) 457-8903 [H]
Fax: (618) 453-4244
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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