Can Japan's school's teach more by teaching Less??....
Tokyo Hopes New Teaching Method
For Children Will Boost Individuality
By YUMIKO ONO
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
TOKYO -- As Japan's public schools prepare to launch a controversial, slimmed-down curriculum, they must strive to answer a question: Can this country's famed education system really teach more by teaching less?
Starting in April, the beginning of Japan's school year, public elementary and junior high schools will no longer hold classes on Saturdays. They will cut the volume of knowledge taught in subjects like math and Japanese by 30% a year, in hopes that students can better understand what they learn.
And there will be some dumbing-down: For instance, fifth graders will be able to round off the value of pi, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Instead of using 3.14, in some instances they can simply use 3.
To Americans, it may be hard to understand why Japan is so eager to change its renowned system. Japan's education system long has been admired for helping the nation quickly develop as an economic power after World War II. Japanese students regularly outscore Americans in standardized tests. In a survey of 15-year-olds in 32 countries by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, released in December, Japan was one of the top performers in math and science literacy, far ahead of U.S. students.
But Japan's government says the current system focuses too much on drilling children with rote memorization, and too little on fostering the individuality needed in a high-tech, postindustrial society. So, while the new program cuts the hours of traditional subjects, it adds a new class called a "period for integral study." It calls on teachers to devise freely whatever projects they believe would nurture a "zest for living" among students and an "ability to learn and think for oneself."
Some business leaders are applauding. As Japan struggles to snap out of its decadelong economic malaise, it needs more independent-minded workers who can think up new growth industries on their own, says Kakutaro Kitashiro, president of International Business Machines Corp.'s Asia Pacific operations and an expert on Japanese education.
"What we need are the kind of people who can create new things, to rise to new challenges, and to think of how to produce results on their own," says Mr. Kitashiro. "We no longer need people who simply get good grades."
The new program has roiled educators and parents who say it's a badly thought-out plan that would only lower students' academic ability. Takehiko Kariya, a Tokyo University professor and author of the recent book, "The Illusion of Education Reform," says that over the past decade, schools have already gradually cut their curricula and turned away from rote memorization. But that hasn't made kids smarter. A recent study he led showed that students in elementary and junior high school scored lower than students in the same school 13 years ago, when tested on the same basic questions.
"Teachers shy away from being too rigorous, because they think rigor equals cramming," says Prof. Kariya. But as a result, he says, teachers are paying too little attention to making sure students fully understand what they learn.
Japan's Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, which is orchestrating the new program, insists the new standards won't yield dumber students. But amid an uproar from teachers and parents concerned about lower achievement, it recently stressed that teachers are free to teach more than the basic curriculum if students can handle it, and that schools are encouraged to give out homework and hold supplementary classes.
It's also not clear whether the "period of integral study" can really turn Japanese students into creative thinkers. Many teachers are scrambling for creative ideas themselves, since there is no textbook and the education ministry has given them little guidance.
In search of models, thousands of teachers have recently flocked to the Negishi Elementary School in northern Tokyo, which has been experimenting with the "integral study" program for the past three years.
Implementing the class took a lot of trial and error, admits Hiroshi Kojima, the school's principal. In the first year, teachers were so focused on letting children freely pursue their interests, that they neglected to give them enough direction. As a result, students' research projects varied tremendously in quality: One ambitious third-grader tried to single-handedly solve the global-warming issue, while another simply counted the number of trees around a local temple. Mr. Kojima says it took two more years for Negishi to develop its own guidelines to devise a program it's comfortable with.
"It's really hard," says Mr. Kojima, "when you're told you can do whatever you want."
Write to Yumiko Ono at Yumiko.Ono@wsj.com
Updated March 25, 2002 11:59 p.m. EST |
