Education in Japan

The # 1 concern for anyone in Japan is education. Most mothers don't work outside the home, especially when their children are small. Their major profession is mothering, and the Japanese mothers are said to be an agent of the educational system, which would not work without her. These women have a curriculum for their kids, and they are very inventive about it, with games and songs, exercise and dancing. Fathers are not much in­volved, and they are usually with the kids only on Sunday. So their nickname for father is the Sunday friend.

When you walk into a Japanese elementary school classroom you discover that it is very, very noisy. Kids are jumping all around and calling out answers to questions. Japanese teachers are re­laxed, not trying to control the classroom. The kids are so involved that the teacher often says that the noise level is the measure of her ability to motivate them.

Another important principle of Japanese education is that all kids are innately equal and therefore they are all treated the same. The Japanese are sure that what matters is effort. Children are taught to think of themselves as members of a group. The school is a society with its own ways of doing things. And the most important goal for teachers is to give children the confidence of membership. Children learn about social relationships. In the first grade, before doing anything academic, the teacher spends the first part of the year getting the children socialized to the ways of the school and the habits of working together in groups.

In grade school, it is common to divide the group into smaller groups of five or six kids each. Tasks are assigned to these groups rather than to individuals. The small group leader is like a kid teacher who helps bring up the slow students. The system works because it takes the pressure off the individual. She/he stands or falls with the group. It's just like the work teams that are established in the workplace. These teams support individuals and allow people to be creative within the group.

All junior high school kids learn to play two musical in­struments. The Japanese believe that creativity comes after mastery, and mastery is what the schools can offer.