Peter Cave - Primary School in Japan - Self, Individuality and Learning in Elementary Education (Japan Anthropology Workshop Series) (2007)
Peter Cave - Primary School in Japan - Self, Individuality and Learning in Elementary Education (Japan Anthropology Workshop Series) (2007)
Peter Cave - Primary School in Japan - Self, Individuality and Learning in Elementary Education (Japan Anthropology Workshop Series) (2007)
Editorial Board:
Pamela Asquith, University of Alberta
Eyal Ben Ari, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hirochika Nakamaki, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka
Kirsten Refsing, University of Copenhagen
Wendy Smith, Monash University
Peter Cave
First published 2007
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.
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© 2007 Peter Cave
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Cave, Peter, 1965–
Primary school in Japan : self, individuality and learning in elementary
education / Peter Cave.
p. cm.—(Japan anthropology workshop series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Education, Elementary—Japan. 2. Japanese—Education
(Elementary) 3. Individuality in children—Japan. 4. Child development—
Japan. I. Title.
LA1314.C38 2007
372′.952—dc22
2007020622
Conclusion 213
Glossary 223
Bibliography 224
Index 239
List of figures
My first and greatest debt is to all those teachers, children, and parents of the
primary schools of ‘Sakura’ who allowed me to participate in their lives and
gave so generously of their time. I hope that I have done them justice, and
offer my heartfelt thanks for all that they shared with me during the memor-
able and enjoyable time of my fieldwork visits. Though anonymity veils his
identity, I must particularly thank the principal of ‘Nakamachi’, who so
enthusiastically persuaded me to do research in the school of which he was
so justly proud.
Many friends deserve my deepest thanks for all the practical help and
kindness that they gave me over the years that this research was conducted.
Particular thanks to the Ikoma family for their ever-generous hospitality,
and for being an endless fount of humour and fun (and great cooking).
Many thanks also to my old friend Mr Katayama Chijo, for making many
introductions in schools for me, and for sharing his wisdom, along with the
wonderful hospitality of his home and family. Warmth, practical help, and
insight were also given by Inoue Kayoko, the Matsui family, Nakano Hideharu
and Michiyo, the Nakata family, Nakatani Ayami and Tsukahara Togo,
Yamasaki Kotoko, and Yukawa Emiko and Sumiyuki, among others. Jeffrey
Johnson gave invaluable practical help during my 2004 research.
For giving of their valuable time to be interviewed, I am very grateful to
Nishizawa Kiyoshi, vice-president of the Japan Teachers’ Union (Nikkyōso),
Higashimori Hideo, vice-president of the All Japan Teachers and Staffs Union
(Zenkyō), and Takano Kunio, Research Institute of Democracy and Educa-
tion (Minshū Kyōiku Kenkyūjo).
This book developed from a doctoral thesis supervised by Roger Goodman
at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology (ISCA), Oxford Uni-
versity, and it is good to be able to thank Roger in print, not only for his
responsive supervision, but for his unfailing support and encouragement over
many years. I would also like to thank my other teachers at ISCA and, earlier,
at the Oriental and Nissan Institutes, for their rigour, stimulation, and inspir-
ation – especially John Davis, Paul Dresch, Phillip Harries, Wendy James,
and James McMullen. Indeed, writing a book about primary education made
me keenly aware (again) how much I owe to all my teachers, at primary,
Acknowledgements xi
secondary, and university levels. As the Japanese graduation song says, ‘How
far beyond treasure is the debt I owe to my teachers!’
Those who have helped me learn about Japanese education over the years
are too many to name, but I must express particular gratitude to all my
friends and colleagues from my time on the Japan Exchange and Teaching
(JET) Programme from 1987 to 1990, as well as to Robert Aspinall, Eyal
Ben-Ari, Ronald Dore, Fujita Hidenori, Rebecca Fukuzawa, Dawn Grimes-
MacLellan, Joy Hendry, Horio Teruhisa, Inagaki Tadahiko, Inagaki Kyoko,
Kariya Takehiko, Gerald LeTendre, Catherine Lewis, Okada Akito, Sato
Manabu, Len Schoppa, Tsuneyoshi Ryoko, Merry White, Yoko Yamamoto,
and Shoko Yoneyama.
I would like to thank Gordon Mathews and Lynne Nakano for their forth-
right yet constructive criticism of my original book proposal. Their sugges-
tions were pivotal in helping me to widen the scope of the book and make
it more accessible for readers. I also appreciated the helpful comments from
the Editorial Board of the Japan Anthropology Workshop series. I am very
grateful to Anne Watson for her encouragement and suggestions for improv-
ing Chapter 4, and to Lynne Nakano and Glenda Roberts for reading and
making very valuable comments for the improvement of Chapter 5. I would
also like to thank the anonymous Routledge reader for valuable comments on
the manuscript. Joy Hendry, the Senior Editor of the Japan Anthropology
Workshop series, was, as always, reassuringly helpful and efficient, and Peter
Sowden, Editor at Routledge, shepherded me through the editing and pro-
duction process with clarity and smoothness. Responsibility for the final
work rests, of course, with me.
The M.Phil. and D.Phil. research upon which much of this book is based
was financially supported by Postgraduate Training Awards from the Eco-
nomic and Social Research Council of Great Britain, and my fieldwork in
Japan from 1995 to 1997 was funded by a Research Scholarship from the
Ministry of Education, Japan. Completion of the doctoral thesis was much
assisted by the award of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Senior
Studentship for 1997–98 by Pembroke College, Oxford. Transcriptions of
some interviews and lesson recordings were funded by a grant from the Louis
Cha Fund, Faculty of Arts, University of Hong Kong. I am also grateful to
the Department of Japanese Studies and Faculty of Arts at the University of
Hong Kong for giving me four months’ sabbatical leave in 2003 and thus
freeing up time for me to make substantial progress on the book. As I am
about to leave the University of Hong Kong after nine years, it is a particu-
larly good moment to thank my colleagues in the Department of Japanese
Studies, present and past, for helping to create a supportive research
environment; and also to express my appreciation for the services of the
University’s splendid library. Special thanks to Mr C.K. Lee for his
invaluable technical help.
Chapter 1 draws on and expands material previously published in my
2001 article, ‘Educational Reform in Japan in the 1990s: “individuality” and
xii Acknowledgements
other uncertainties’ (Comparative Education 37: 2, pp. 173–191: http://www.
informaworld.com). I received stimulating feedback on an earlier version of
Chapter 5 at the First International Conference on Gender Equity Education
in the Asia-Pacific Region, 25–26 November 2004, organized by the Women’s
Research Program, Population and Gender Studies Center, National Taiwan
University, Taipei, whom I thank warmly for their invitation to present.
In Chapter 2, I am grateful to KYOGEI Music Publishers for permission
to use and translate the lyrics of Hiroi sekai e (© 1987 by KYOGEI Music
Publishers), and I am grateful to Ongaku no tomo sha for permission to use
and translate the lyrics of Michi o aruku no wa kimi (© 1988 by ONGAKU
NO TOMO SHA Corp., Tokyo, Japan). I am also very grateful to the Uni-
versity of California Press and to Mr Hiroaki Sato for permission to reproduce
his translation of Miyazawa Kenji’s November 3rd. For permission to quote
from and translate Ikiru, in Chapter 3, I am very grateful to Mr Tanikawa
Shuntarō. Every effort has been made to ascertain and contact copyright
holders of texts reproduced in the book; should any inadvertent omissions
have occurred, those concerned are requested to contact the publisher, in
order that such omissions can be rectified in future editions.
More than anyone, I must thank my family for all their love and encourage-
ment throughout my life. Words are quite inadequate to express even a frac-
tion of all they have given me. My parents have been my best and most
important teachers, and I dedicate this book to them.
Peter Cave
April 2007
Note on conventions
All Japanese terms are romanized in the modified Hepburn system used in
Kenkyūsha’s New Japanese–English Dictionary (4th Edition, 1974), with mac-
rons used to show long vowels. However, long vowels are not shown in the
case of familiar place names such as Tokyo, Kyoto, or Osaka. Japanese names
are usually given in the Japanese style, with the family name first and the
given name second. An exception is made in the case of Japanese authors of
works in English. In order to preserve anonymity, pseudonyms have been
used for places, institutions and people in the fieldwork site, and some details
that might inadvertently lead to identification have been changed.
Teachers are given the honorific suffix – sensei (meaning ‘teacher’ or ‘mas-
ter’) after their name, as in the original Japanese. Girls and boys at the primary
schools studied were referred to and addressed by teachers (and one another)
with the suffixes – san (for girls) and – kun (for boys) after their names, and
I have also used these suffixes.
Unless stated otherwise, all translations of Japanese texts are my own.
Preface
Joy Hendry
Oxford Brookes University
Series editor of the Japan Anthropology Workshop Series
Introduction
Self, society and education in
Japan
Modern societies have invested huge expectations and huge resources in for-
mal education. This is particularly true of wealthy industrialized societies,
where the proportion of children and young people in schooling has reached
levels unprecedented in human history. Not only are schools expected to
impart knowledge and skills; they are also given a large part of the task of
socialization – expected to shape children into adults with the character qual-
ities that society demands. Education is asked to make children more co-
operative, more creative, more sensitive, more independent, less aggressive,
and more disciplined – among other things. In short, education is seen as a
shaper of selves.
The expectations placed on schools are as high in Japan as in other rich,
modern countries, if not higher. Japanese schools have long been entrusted
with a major role in the production of ‘desirable human beings’ (kitai sareru
ningen), to quote a 1966 report from the government’s education advisory
council (Yokohama Kokuritsu Daigaku Gendai Kyōiku Kenkyūjo, 1973:
97–107). In the course of the twentieth century, schools have been expected
to produce patriotic children (in the 1930s), democratically-minded children
(since the late 1940s), and skilled, disciplined and cooperative children
(throughout the century). In recent years, however, the image of the desirable
human being has changed again, in response to the perceived demands of a
fast-changing future where Japan is a world leader in economic and other
fields. The image now includes new emphases on individuality, independence
and creativity, alongside more traditional concerns that children be socially
well-adjusted. Once again, Japan’s schools have been called on to shape these
desired selves.
These new developments, together with accompanying changes in Japanese
society, prompt a re-examination of understandings of self in Japan, and the
ways in which Japanese people learn them. How is the individual understood
in Japan, and how individual is it really possible for Japanese people to be?
Japan has often been seen as a group-oriented society, and ideas about
individuality and individualism have faced a mixed reception in modern
Japan. Yet at the end of the twentieth century, the development of creative
individuals and independent self-starters began to be seen as essential for
2 Introduction: self, society and education
Japan’s future progress – so much so that the creation of people with these
qualities even became the focus of a major educational reform programme
undertaken by the Japanese government. This book explores the nature of
this programme, and its consequences in Japanese school classrooms. It asks
what can be learned from Japan’s schools about Japanese understandings of
selfhood. It also considers the significance of Japan’s classroom practices for
pedagogical thought and practice more widely.
Questions about the nature and formation of the Japanese self have been
repeatedly debated during Japan’s modern history, both by the Japanese
themselves, and by overseas observers. Japan has been seen by some as a
group-oriented society where individualism is frowned upon, and by others as
a society of strong-minded individuals who endlessly challenge or subvert an
official ideology of collective harmony. While the view that the Japanese self
is interdependent and situationally oriented seems to hold majority approval
among scholars, a significant minority of voices point to other ways of being
in Japan – ways that evince independence, individuality, and autonomy.
Further debate centres on the question of how Japanese people come to be
the kind of selves they are – whether that be group-oriented, individualistic,
or something else. Answers to this question have often been sought by look-
ing at Japanese education. Some writers see the postwar school system as a
highly successful socializing machine. They argue that bonds of indulgence
and dependence develop between mothers and infants, after which preschools
and primary schools use group activities to teach children to fulfil expected
roles. This ability to fulfil one’s role then continues to be developed in a group
context at secondary school – though at this stage children are also increas-
ingly expected to act as disciplined individuals with a limited degree of auton-
omy. Other writers focus more on teaching and learning processes than
socialization, praising what they see as the development of independent, cre-
ative thinking in the Japanese primary school. Still others see the school
system as an oppressive monster, crushing the diverse needs of individuals in
order to churn out suitably programmed resource units for Japanese employ-
ers. Yet whether malign or benign, liberating or oppressing, there seems
agreement that education plays a significant role in making Japanese people
who they are.
Analysts must also decide whether to see Japanese schools mainly in terms
of their contribution to Japanese society, or whether to look at their learning
and socializing processes in the light of wider educational thought. Both
approaches have been taken – some writers concentrating on how Japan’s
educational system and practices can be understood within its social and
cultural context, while others focus on Japanese schooling in terms of com-
parative pedagogy. Several writers have combined these approaches, using
Japanese education as a window into culture, personhood, and society, but
also pointing to lessons that can be learned from Japan by educators abroad.
This book examines the questions of how selfhood is understood and
formed in Japan, and in particular, the role of the education system in that
Introduction: self, society and education 3
process. Focusing on upper primary education, it attempts to understand the
schooling process and the ongoing educational reform programme in terms
of debates about selfhood and education within Japanese society. It also tries
to show how what goes on in Japanese upper primary classrooms can be
illuminated by the insights of a sociocultural pedagogy, and how, in turn,
these Japanese educational practices may contribute to the further develop-
ment of such pedagogy. The study is pursued through an ethnographically
grounded exploration of discourses and practices that are historically par-
ticular yet enduringly significant, representing as they do continuing debates
about ways of being and doing in Japan.
took lessons in the remaining part of the old building, and some in temporary
prefab classrooms.
Research methods
My research on the Japanese government’s educational reform programme
mainly relied on the study of primary documents in Japanese from the Minis-
try of Education, government advisory councils, and teachers’ unions. These
were supplemented by interviews with officials from the Ministry of Educa-
tion and the two leading teachers’ unions (Nikkyōso and Zenkyō) in July
1998.
Ethnographic research for this book has taken place over a decade; pilot
research at Morikawa was conducted in autumn 1994, while my most recent
visit to Morikawa took place in June 2004. The longest period of research, in
primary school classrooms at Nakamachi and Morikawa, was carried out
between October 1995 and March 1996.
I decided to carry out research in Sakura for two major reasons. First, I
had many personal contacts among teachers in the area, which I believed –
rightly, as it turned out – would considerably ease my access to local schools.
Second, I believed that Sakura and its schools had no strikingly unusual
features, and were reasonably representative of many communities within
Japan. Since there are significant variations in social, economic, political and
cultural features across Japan, it is impossible to find either a locality or a
school that can be called representative of the entire country. It is clear that
Introduction: self, society and education 9
the educational situation in rich, urbanized, and hyper-competitive Tokyo is
very significantly different from that of rural areas in regions such as Tohoku
or Shikoku, for example. Nonetheless, I believed, as I still do, that a study in
Sakura would tell us much about Japan more generally. One important rea-
son for this is the postwar national standardization of education that has
resulted from the central control of Japan’s Ministry of Education, including
a national curriculum, centrally ratified textbooks, and relatively egalitarian
educational facilities and resource distribution (Cummings, 1980: 6–15).
Another is the nationwide reach of the media of pedagogical discourse, not-
ably the large number of action research journals written and read by
teachers (Sato and Asanuma, 2000: 116). Moreover, the broad commonalities
in outlook and practice reported from schools in different parts of Japan by
previous researchers support such a view.
I carried out pilot research in fourth, fifth and sixth year classrooms at
Morikawa for two months between October and December 2004, combin-
ing this with visits to classrooms at Tachibana junior high school. My ori-
ginal intention had been to return to Morikawa in October 2005; however,
in the interim the principal of Morikawa was transferred to the adjoining
school, Nakamachi, and he encouraged me to do fieldwork there, especially
since Nakamachi teachers were specifically doing action research on how
to teach in line with the government’s educational reform programme. This
seemed too good an opportunity to miss, not just because of the action
research being done by Nakamachi teachers, but because it allowed me to
see two different schools. In the end, therefore, I spent four months at
Nakamachi (from October 1995 to January 1996) and then six weeks at
Morikawa, until the end of the school year in March 1996. From April
1996 until March 1997 I continued research at the local junior high
school, Tachibana, some of the results of which have been published in Cave
(2004).
At Nakamachi, I began by observing each of the fifth year and sixth year
classes for an entire day. After this, I concentrated my observations on two of
the sixth year classes, both of which were taught by experienced and highly
skilled teachers in their mid-thirties. Most of my time was spent with class
6–3, taught by the head of the sixth year (gakunen shunin), Yoshioka-sensei.4
As a result of my earlier fieldwork, I felt that more could be learned about
teachers’ philosophy and teaching techniques from continuous long-term
observation of one or two classes, than from observing several classes less
frequently. It was clear that teaching was based on units of the textbook
(tangen), and that teachers thought of and planned lessons as series that
covered a particular unit. The style and format of lessons changed as differ-
ent stages of the series were reached, so it was better to observe the entire
series in order to grasp the teacher’s approach. Continuous observation of
one or two classes also allowed more extended exploration of the worlds
of meaning that the teachers were attempting to create in their classrooms.
Experienced and able teachers were chosen for observation because I felt
10 Introduction: self, society and education
that they provided examples of Japanese primary teaching that were as
close as possible to what Japanese teachers themselves would see as its ideal
realization. Yoshioka-sensei’s class was prioritized for observation because its
children were the most lively and responsive, both to the teacher and to me,
of any of the three sixth year classes at Nakamachi. As well as observing
classes, I carried out 35 interviews with 11 teachers at Nakamachi, not includ-
ing informal conversations.
After four fascinating months at Nakamachi, I returned to Morikawa at
the beginning of February 1996. Having already managed to carry out in-
depth long-term observations in two classrooms, I decided to make observa-
tions in all four of the sixth year classes at Morikawa, in order to see several
teachers at work and gain a broader view of upper primary teaching. I also
carried out 24 interviews with ten teachers.
At both Nakamachi and Morikawa, I was given a desk in the staffroom,
and arrived each day in time for the morning staff meeting (uchiawase) at
8.20 a.m. After the staff meeting, I spent most of the day observing and
taking notes on lessons and other class activities, starting with the morning
meeting (asa no kai) in one class.5 Some lessons were also videotaped. During
breaks, I usually stayed in the classroom, or played with the children on the
exercise ground or in the gymnasium. I ate the school lunch with the children
in their classrooms, and participated with them in school cleaning. As time
went on, I usually spent an hour or two of the school day in the staffroom,
taking a break and updating my notes. After lessons finished, I was usually at
school until five or six o’clock, since this was the best time for interviewing
and conversing with teachers.
Besides observing everyday activities, I also took opportunities to attend
research lessons and seminars. At Nakamachi, there were several such
research lessons during my stay; these were preceded by preparatory meetings
and followed by discussion seminars, during which teachers discussed their
plans for these lessons with their colleagues, and later reflected on how they
had gone.6 Listening to such discussions helped me learn about the issues that
preoccupied teachers, as well as the key concepts and vocabulary they shared.
I also attended two two-day action research conferences for teachers during
the summer vacation of 1996, one in Yamanashi prefecture and the other in
Mie prefecture. Most participants were primary school teachers, while organ-
ization and leadership was shared between primary teachers and university
professors, the latter including Professor Inagaki Tadahiko, former Dean of
the Tokyo University Faculty of Education, and Professor Satō Manabu, also
of the Education Faculty at Tokyo University. At these conferences, several
discussion sessions centred on videos of lessons by teachers from various
parts of Japan, and this confirmed the similarity of basic pedagogical prac-
tices nationwide. Though teachers at these conferences came from widely
dispersed parts of Japan, they clearly talked and understood a common edu-
cational language. Conversations and discussions at these events were useful
for deepening my understanding of teachers’ approaches and assumptions.
Introduction: self, society and education 11
Besides these educational meetings, I also joined a number of dinner and
drinking parties with staff at Nakamachi and Morikawa – an excellent
opportunity for informal conversation and relationship-building.
Since leaving Sakura in March 1997, I have revisited the city and its schools
several times. In June and July 1998, I returned to Tachibana to interview 21
third years who had been sixth year primary pupils in 1995–96, including 15
from Nakamachi and 2 from Morikawa. I also interviewed 4 teachers at
Nakamachi and 2 at Morikawa. In January 1999, I spent several weeks at
another of the primary schools in Sakura, conducting observations of fourth
and fifth year maths lessons there. In 2002, I observed single fifth year lessons
at Morikawa and Ishida primary schools, and in 2003 I conducted interviews
with the principals of Nakamachi and Taira primary schools about further
reform measures. Finally, in 2004 I revisited Morikawa for two weeks.
Since 1997, an important change affecting Japan’s primary schools has
been the announcement of a revised national curriculum in 1998, followed by
its introduction into schools in 2002. Equally important was the reduction of
the school week to five days, also in 2002. As described in Chapter 1, the
revised curriculum encountered sustained criticism, amid concern about
allegedly falling academic standards in Japan’s schools. In response, the
Japanese government encouraged primary schools to introduce small-group
teaching ‘adapted to the needs of the individual’, mainly in mathematics. In
June 2004, I made a two-week visit to Morikawa, to learn how the school was
dealing with the challenges posed by the new curriculum and the backlash
against it. The new curriculum and its impact are discussed in Chapter 7.
Visits to Sakura since 1997 have enabled me both to observe a larger num-
ber of teachers at different schools, and to continue to talk to teachers about
the ongoing educational reform process. In all, since the beginning of my
research in 1994, I have observed sixth year primary lessons by 15 different
teachers in various Sakura schools, mostly on more than one occasion, as
well as observing lessons in other years of primary education by 11 other
teachers. I remain in touch with many of the teachers mentioned in this book.
It was also a personal pleasure to meet many of the children – now adults – at
their coming-of-age ceremony (seijinshiki), held at the Sakura Cultural Plaza
in 2004. These continuing observations and conversations have confirmed my
view that the discourses and practices described in this book are reasonably
representative of Sakura primary schools – and, evidence from other authors
would suggest, of primary schools elsewhere in Japan. Having said this, I
would also echo Nancy Sato’s insistence (2004: 15–17) that Japanese primary
teachers are individuals; though they work within a broadly shared para-
digm, and choose from roughly the same extensive repertoire of practices,
they do so in a way that suits their own personal capacities, and the perceived
needs of their particular pupils at the time. The variety in teachers’ practices
was repeatedly emphasized to me by the teachers I observed, and could also
be seen while watching lessons at Nakamachi and Morikawa. Different
teachers often approached the same textbook unit in different ways. It is also
12 Introduction: self, society and education
worth repeating that the teachers whose lessons are discussed at length in this
book were very good teachers, both in my judgement and that of their peers
and pupils. Of course, not all teachers in Japan are so good, nor is every
lesson in Japan successful. But even so, I consider that the discourses and
practices that I describe would be recognized by Japanese primary school
teachers as individual teachers’ variations on common themes. They are not
idiosyncratic or far from the mainstream. They represent the attempts of
talented professionals to meet the challenges of the time, and do their part in
bringing up Japanese children who can flourish in the twenty-first century.
Notes
1 In 2004, 1,753,393 children were enrolled in kindergartens (Monbukagakushō,
2006), and 1,544,659 children aged 3 to 6 were enrolled in day-care centres
(Zenkoku Hoiku Dantai Renrakukai/Hoiku Kenkyūjo, 2006 182), a total of
3,298,052 children. In comparison, the total number of children enrolled in the six
years of primary school in the same year was 7,200,933 (Monbukagakushō, 2006).
2 Tertiary education includes four-year universities, two-year junior colleges (almost
entirely female), and a very wide range of vocational courses at specialist training
schools (senmon gakkō). In 2005, 47 per cent of high school graduates entered either
university or junior college.
3 All names of schools, teachers and children in the book are pseudonyms.
4 The names of teachers and certain other respected, educated professionals, such as
doctors, are customarily followed by the suffix – sensei, a word which can also itself
mean ‘teacher’.
5 At primary schools in Sakura, morning meetings were held by individual classes;
the week did not begin with a whole-school assembly, as it did in the schools
observed by Nancy Sato in Tokyo (Sato, 2004: 65).
6 Action research lessons in Japanese schools are described in Fernandez and Yoshida
(2004).
1 Education and individuality
in Japan
The period since the mid-1980s has been a time of ferment for Japanese
education. There have been frequent expressions of dissatisfaction with the
educational system, and repeated calls for reform, in response to what are
seen as new demands resulting from changes in Japanese society and the
world economy. Debates have taken place in government, universities, and the
media about what kinds of change are needed, and why. Reform programmes
have been published, and reform measures implemented. As the foundation
of Japanese schooling, primary education has been significantly affected
by these developments. This educational ferment reveals much about the
challenges facing Japan’s contemporary society, and provides a window on
the different visions of Japan’s future that are being debated. Particularly
important have been arguments about the extent to which education should
develop individuality, and what this should mean in practice. Debate has
centred on the issue of how to develop children who are not only creative
individuals, but also well-socialized members of society. These debates can-
not be adequately grasped without understanding discourses of selfhood in
Japan, and in turn, the focus on developing individuality shows the need for a
reappraisal of those discourses.
In this chapter, I will first describe key debates about education that have
taken place in Japan since the late 1980s, along with the major reform meas-
ures implemented, particularly those affecting primary education. I will then
analyse the discourse about ‘individuality’ (kosei), which has been a domin-
ant motif in reform debates, and trace the history of this concept within
Japanese education. The question of whether or not more individuality is
needed in education is related to the issue of selfhood in Japan, which has
often been seen as stressing the group over the individual. This chapter argues
that analyses of selfhood in Japan have not sufficiently recognized the multi-
plicity of discourses of self in Japanese society. After outlining these dis-
courses, I suggest that emphasis on individuality has grown with postwar
social change.
Finally, I introduce recent educational research that illuminates the wider
pedagogical significance of practices in Japanese primary schools. This work
in sociocultural pedagogy has attracted wide interest among educational
14 Education and individuality in Japan
researchers, but has not yet been connected with the practices of Japanese
teachers. The summary of this research in this chapter provides the founda-
tion for more detailed analyses of practices in Japanese primary education
later in the book.
While life [for children] has become affluent and education has quantita-
tively expanded, the educational influence of the home and local com-
munity has declined, excessive examination competition has emerged as
educational aspirations have risen, and the problems of bullying, school
refusal, and juvenile crime have become extremely serious.
(Monbushō, 1998a: 1)
Baba Masashi, an official of the left-wing teaching union Zenkyō, blamed the
ills of children and young people on excessive competition: ‘Competition in
education has been so accelerated that new words, i.e. “examination hell” and
“school failure” have been coined. This has resulted in a great many school
refusers and high school drop-outs. Bullying and consequent suicides by chil-
dren have sharply increased’ (Baba, 1997).
Individual commentators might well have disputed diagnoses such as
the above as simplistic. Nonetheless, during the late 1980s and 1990s they
attained the status of common sense among large parts of the public and
media. Within Japanese public discourse, a broadly-based consensus emerged
about the chief problems of the country’s education, and any reform pro-
posals had to contend with this consensus if they were to be publicly credible.
This paragraph was not present in the previous 1977 curriculum. Further new
sections instructed teachers to emphasize experiential (taiken-teki) activities,
harness children’s interests, adapt teaching to individual pupils’ needs, and
encourage independent and spontaneous learning ( jishu-teki, jihatsu-teki
gakushū) (Monbushō, 1989: 3). The result was a tone significantly different
from that of earlier curricula. However, the only major change in curriculum
content came in the first two years of primary school, with the replacement
of Social Studies and Science by the new subject of Daily Life (seikatsu-ka),
which was intended to allow more integrated, experiential, and exploratory
learning.
18 Education and individuality in Japan
Educational reform during the 1990s
The next major step in the educational reform programme came with the
publication of the 1996 report of the 15th session of the government’s
advisory council, the Central Council for Education (Chūō Kyōiku Shingikai
or Chūkyōshin), entitled On Education for the Twenty-First Century in Japan
(Monbushō, 1996b). The report effectively authorized the mainstream view
of the failures of Japanese education and socialization, outlined above. On
the one hand, it deplored what it saw as the decline in the quality of children’s
socialization, linking this to a decline in local community and correspond-
ingly, in children’s ethics, social skills (shakaisei) and independence ( jiritsu).
An important element in this supposed deterioration, according to the
report, was that children were spending less time in experiences of play, daily
life, and nature that the report’s authors considered natural and appropriate
for them (kodomorashii seikatsu taiken/shizen taiken). On the other hand, the
report also urged the need for more creative self-starters to cope with what it
envisioned as a rapidly changing future society in which knowledge would
quickly become obsolete. It argued that having achieved the long-standing
goal of catching up with the West, Japan’s economy was now a world leader
and could no longer rely on copying from elsewhere; the situation therefore
called for the creation of new scientific technology and the penetration of
new frontiers. Moreover, as the structure of the economy changed, practices
such as lifetime employment and seniority-related promotion were being
questioned (Monbushō, 1996b: 12–19). In these circumstances, knowledge
acquired by rote-learning alone would be inadequate for coping with new
situations. Children would need to be able to learn, think, and act independ-
ently, identifying and solving problems for themselves, and so there was
a need to identify children’s individual talents (sono ko nara dewa no kosei-
teki na shishitsu) and actively develop their creativity (sōzōsei) (Monbushō,
1996b: 21).
The report thus advocated the development of both traditionally valued
qualities – feeling for others (omoiyari), cooperation, and sociality – and
newly demanded ones, particularly creative, individual, and independent
thinking. It labelled this combination ‘ikiru chikara’ (literally, ‘power to live’,
though somewhat misleadingly translated by the Ministry of Education as
‘zest for life’). The key to developing this combination of qualities, according
to the report, was to enable children to live less pressured lives with more time
in the family and community, while introducing more interdisciplinary study
and subject choice at school. What the report called ‘excessive exam competi-
tion’ should therefore be relaxed, while the educational role of the home and
locality should be recognized and used to the full.
Concrete measures to realize these aims were proposed both in the 1996
Chūkyōshin report (Monbushō, 1996b) and in a second report a year later
(Monbushō, 1997). Besides further curricular reform, the proposed measures
included the expansion of alternatives to conventional exams for entrance to
Education and individuality in Japan 19
high school and university, and the introduction of six-year secondary schools,
which would remove the need for children to take a high school entrance
exam. These and other measures have since been implemented on a limited
scale.6
The Chūkyōshin also made the very significant recommendation that
Japan’s schools move fully from a five-and-a-half day to a five day school
week. This move had originally been advocated in the late 1980s, for reasons
connected with foreign relations rather than education. A major motive was
the desire to align Japanese working practices and lifestyle with those of
other leading industrialized countries, to counter overseas criticisms that
Japanese trade competition was unfair because Japanese working hours were
too long.7 One Saturday a month was made a full day’s school holiday from
1992, increasing to two Saturdays a month from 1995. The policy was then
given educational rationalization by the argument that giving children more
free time would allow them to learn freely through experience and explor-
ation outside school (Monbushō, 1996b: 66).
The Chūkyōshin’s proposals were put into effect in the curriculum revision
published in 1998. The major feature of the revision was a cut in the content
and hours of traditional compulsory subjects at primary and junior high
level, in order to allow more hours for elective subjects and a new, cross-
disciplinary area called sōgō-teki na gakushū (usually called by teachers sōgō
gakushū, and literally translated as Integrated Studies).8 The media trum-
peted the changes as a ‘30 per cent cut’ in the traditional curriculum; the
reality may have been less dramatic, but even so, the changes represented the
most radical overhaul of the school curriculum since its inception in the late
1950s.9 At primary level, the introduction of sōgō gakushū was the curric-
ulum’s major new feature. The aim of sōgō gakushū was given as to develop
children’s abilities to think, learn, and explore independently and creatively,
discovering and solving problems by themselves (Monbushō, 1998b: 2–3).
The curriculum gave teachers considerable freedom in this new area, laying
down only the briefest and most general guidelines about content and teach-
ing approach – a stark contrast to the detailed specifications for traditional
subjects, and a radical departure for an educational system that had trad-
itionally been regarded as subject to strong central control.
Kariya Takehiko did not voice outright opposition to the goals of the
reforms, but argued that they could not be achieved if the acquisition of basic
knowledge and understanding were neglected:
Yet while there were few direct attacks on ‘individuality’, there could be no
doubt that the weight of criticism favoured teaching all children ‘the basics’
(kiso/kihon) (usually conceptualized as those academic subjects that had
been central to the postwar curriculum, especially maths, Japanese, science,
English and social studies). Whether or not this was ‘back to basics’, in the
sense of an explicit preference for the past, depended on the writer; Wada
(1999, 2001), for example, definitely gave this impression, while Kariya’s
position was more complex, arguing that the past achievements of Japan’s
Education and individuality in Japan 23
schools should not be despised, and that any reform should be pursued with
care and with adequate support for the teachers who had to carry it out.
Kariya also pointed out that the idea that Japan’s primary teachers had
simply been stuffing knowledge into children’s heads before the 1990s was
far from the truth, as research done in the 1980s had shown (Kariya, 2002:
193–6).
Concern about falling standards and inequality did not necessarily trans-
late into opposition to the introduction of sōgō gakushū and exploratory,
project-style learning into the curriculum. Some writers, such as Kariya, criti-
cized the obligatory introduction of sōgō gakushū in all schools, arguing that
teachers often had an inadequate understanding of how to make this time
into a genuinely valuable learning experience (Kariya, 2002: 80–90). Others
were positive about the potential of sōgō gakushū, but unhappy about the
cutting back of traditional subjects to make way for it: for example, Kyoto
University professor Ueno Kenji wrote that ‘if sōgō gakushū could be set up
and run well without cutting core subjects, it could send a fresh wind through
education’ (Nishimura, 2001: 42). Primary school principal Kageyama
Hideo, who became a ‘poster boy’ for critics of yutori education through his
energetic advocacy of practice exercises and drilling in the ‘three Rs’, none-
theless welcomed the possibilities offered by sōgō gakushū, setting out a
plethora of practical examples of this kind of learning (Kageyama, 2002:
181–204).
Ryoko Tsuneyoshi (2004: 366–7, 388) has plausibly suggested that the
debate was affected by a national loss of confidence about Japan, its society,
and its future in the late 1990s and early 2000s. After ten years of economic
stagnation and amid increasing media reports of youth crime and disorder,
there was a general sense of malaise encapsulated by the popularity of the
term ‘collapse’ (hōkai). First used with reference to classroom indiscipline
(‘class collapse’ or gakkyū hōkai), it was soon being used in book titles about
falling academic standards (‘the collapse of academic attainment’ or gakury-
oku hōkai) (Wada, 1999) and ‘school collapse’ (gakkō hōkai) (Kawakami,
1999). Without wishing to minimize the genuine concerns raised by critics, it
is hard not to agree with Tsuneyoshi (2004) that the anxiety and harking back
to the past that characterized the criticisms were remarkable, when one con-
siders the continued good performance of Japanese children in international
tests.
The government’s response to its critics was not a dramatic reining back of
the promotion of individuality. In fact, the measures that were taken tended
to further promote individualized teaching, at least in the sense of teaching in
small groups organized according to children’s academic attainment. Despite
the calls for an earlier-than-scheduled full-scale revision of the curriculum,
no such revision was carried out. Sōgō gakushū, the cuts to traditional sub-
jects, and the five-day school week remained in place. Moreover, by no means
all those who participated in the debate were critical of the reforms, as
Tsuneyoshi (2004: 380–3) has pointed out. On the other hand, the intense
24 Education and individuality in Japan
public concern stirred up about academic standards did force the government
to institute measures to deal with the issue. The furore also forced schools to
pay close attention to the kind of academic attainment and study habits that
critics of reform favoured. As a result, the debate did not end in a clear-cut
victory for either the proponents or critics of educational reform. This was
perhaps not surprising, since the debate clearly showed how wide a variety
of views existed within Japan about the nature of teaching and learning,
the importance of discipline and freedom, and the relationship between
individuals and society.12 There was obviously no consensus in favour of
either full-blown ‘progressive’ education, or education focused on teacher-
transmitted, exam-tested knowledge. The debate also suggested that while
there was considerable support in Japan for increased emphasis on ‘individu-
ality’, there was also disagreement about what exactly that might mean in
practice – as well as suspicion among some that too much emphasis on indi-
viduality might result in laxness, indiscipline, and a weakened social order. As
we shall see, ‘individuality’ is a term whose meaning has been variously inter-
preted and debated in Japan over the last hundred years, and which has
been claimed by proponents of various points of view in support of their
arguments.
One of those whose work was influenced by the Vygotskian tradition was the
American psychologist Jerome Bruner. In a study of the tutoring of young
children, Bruner and the British psychologist David Wood introduced the
influential concept of ‘scaffolding’, referring to the process whereby a more
skilled person helps a child to learn to do a task by showing her how to
perform key activities, simplifying the task, removing distractions, or high-
lighting an important point that the child had overlooked (Wood, 1998:
98–101). This and later studies of ‘scaffolding’ showed how a key element in
Vygotsky’s theoretical paradigm was borne out in practice.
Another important writer stimulated by the Vygotskian tradition is Neil
Mercer. Together with other British social psychologists such as Michael
Billig and Derek Edwards, Mercer was instrumental in creating what has been
called ‘discursive psychology’ during the 1980s and 1990s, focusing on ‘how
discourse accomplishes and is a part of social practices’ in order to better
grasp the relations between language and understanding (Edwards and Potter,
1992: 17). Mercer’s work is especially important because it takes into account
the realities of formal education systems. It is thoroughly grounded in quali-
tative classroom research, analysing particular school situations using detailed
discourse analysis. Mercer points out the limitations of Vygotskian theory
when applied to school education, and the further work that needs to be done
if such theory is to be of use in such settings:
. . . the theory must take into account the nature of schools and other
educational institutions, as places where a special kind of learning is
meant to happen. . . . Although Vygotsky offers us valuable insights into
the relationship between thought, language and culture, his theory was
not based on research in classrooms. . . . the concept of ‘scaffolding’
emerged from research on one-to-one relationships . . . the differences
between these and classroom education are obvious – a matter of the
number of learners per teacher and their effects on the kind and quality
of communications involved. . . . But one of the most crucial differences
between classroom education and other, more informal kinds of teaching
and learning is that in school there is a curriculum to be taught.
(Mercer, 1995: 78–9)
Conclusion
The educational reform debates of the last twenty years have revealed much
about views of Japanese society within Japan, as well as the different visions
of the country’s future that exist. There have been arguments about whether
education should place more emphasis on the individual, or else continue to
stress standardization, equality, discipline, and the teaching practices that are
seen to have maintained high levels of academic attainment as traditionally
conceived. There have also been debates about what increasing stress on the
individual actually means in practice – how it should be translated into spe-
cific policy and practical measures. In addition, educational reform has
addressed concerns that children are inadequately socialized, as a result of
too much studying and school time, and too little experience of social life
outside school. The debates have taken place in the context of anxieties about
Japan’s changing society, and the changing international reality with which
the country has to deal. On the one hand, concerns about quality of life and
social order at home spur arguments that children need either more freedom,
or more discipline, depending on the diagnosis of the ‘problem’. On the
other, the demands of the rapidly changing, high-tech and globalized world
that many envisage lead to calls either for a focus on developing creative,
independent individuals, or for a return to the rigorous and egalitarian
across-the-board schooling that accompanied the postwar economic miracle.
The overall picture is one of anxiety and confusion. While individual com-
mentators may have strong and clear views about how to identify and meet
Japan’s educational needs, it is currently hard to detect a consensus on these
issues among the public at large.
It can be seen, however, that Japan’s ongoing debates about education are
conducted in the context of broader arguments about self, society and human
nature. Behind the discussions lie questions about what kind of people the
Japanese believe they are or should be, and what kind of society they want to
live in. As Fujita (2000) has pointed out, an emphasis on the individual can
mean very different things, since individuals can be self-oriented and indiffer-
ent to others, or socially oriented and cooperative. Ishiyama Shūhei’s postwar
education guidelines also remind us that ‘individuality’ does not necessarily
have to be understood as opposed to sociality. Understanding human beings
as inherently social may result in a simultaneous stress on individuality and
interdependence. Indeed, this seems to me the most likely outcome of current
debates in Japan, given the fundamental differences between the Japanese
understanding of human selfhood and that prevalent in the West. The kind
of ‘individuals’ the country ends up with will depend partly on the education
system and educational practices Japan adopts.
Education and individuality in Japan 49
Debates about educational policy among policy-makers, academics, and
other commentators, while important, are almost always conducted at a
remove from schools and classrooms, the places where formal education
actually goes on. The following chapters therefore move to the school level,
exploring how primary teachers themselves tackled the practical challenge
of placing greater emphasis on the individual. Did they see this as incompat-
ible with developing interdependence and sociality among children? How did
they face the twin challenge of trying to develop individuality, while provid-
ing more opportunities for healthy socialization? What kind of choices did
they make as they tried to ensure that children learned? Did they abandon
interactive, class-focused teaching strategies in the quest to develop the
strengths of individuals? The answers to these questions may shed light on
the fundamental understandings that infuse Japanese primary teachers’
approaches, as well as help illuminate how Japan’s educational dilemmas can
be resolved in practice.
Notes
1 For more details on the Rinkyōshin and the Chūkyōshin, see Schoppa (1991),
Roesgaard (1998), and Okano and Tsuchiya (1999: 210–28). Schoppa refers to the
Rinkyōshin by the acronym AHCR, whereas Roesgaard uses NCER (National
Council for Educational Reform) to refer to the same body. Schwartz (1993)
analyses the role of government advisory committees in Japan.
2 For violence in school, see Kakinuma and Nagano (1997). For bullying and school
refusal, see Okano and Tsuchiya (1999: 195–207) and Yoneyama (1999). For class-
room indiscipline, see Asahi Shinbun Shakaibu (1999) and Takahashi (1999).
3 Hendry (1986: 59–60) refers to this phenomenon, and also notes that the idea that
children learn sociality from neighbourhood play goes back at least to the early
twentieth century and celebrated folklorist Yanagita Kunio.
4 For examples from a leading business organization and the largest teachers’ union
respectively, see Keizai Dantai Rengōkai (1996: 18) and Japan Teachers’ Union
(1995: 21).
5 The wording of the Primary and Junior High Courses of Study is identical.
6 For more details on these measures and their implementation, see Cave (2001,
2003), and Aspinall (2005).
7 This point has been made by Fujita in (1997: 135ff.), and at the Symposium ‘New
Challenges to Japanese Education: Economics, Reform, Immigration and Human
Rights’ at the University of California, Berkeley on 8 April 2006. In 2001, an
official from the Ministry of Education also confirmed to me in conversation that
the five-day school week was not originally a Ministry initiative.
8 This translation is somewhat misleading, since it is not clear that sōgō-teki na
gakushū actually integrates studies. The content would be better described as
cross-curricular exploratory learning. For this reason, I will refer to the subject by
the abbreviation usually used in Japanese schools, sōgō gakushū.
9 For details, see Cave (2001: 179; 2003).
10 As the OECD report made clear, the drop in the score of Japanese students was
the result of the introduction of extra areas of mathematics into the 2003 tests,
and there was no drop in score in the areas that were tested in both 2000 and 2003
(OECD, 2004a: 90). The mean score of Japanese students in 2003 was 534 from a
possible 700, compared to 550 in the top-ranked ‘country’, Hong Kong. Other
50 Education and individuality in Japan
countries above Japan were Finland, South Korea, the Netherlands, and Liechten-
stein (!). One wonders in how many other countries such a performance would be
greeted with concern.
11 In the Daily Yomiuri (8 December 2004), for example, the headline of an article
translated from Japan’s bestselling Yomiuri Shinbun newspaper read ‘Japan
academic skills fall’. The article placed all its emphasis on negatives such as the
drop in maths and reading scores, with Japan’s top-ranking scores in science and
problem-solving mentioned almost in passing.
12 In this summary, I have not mentioned the reports of the National Commission on
Education Reform (Kyōiku kaikaku kokumin kaigi) set up by former Prime Minister
Obuchi, which met during 2000. This is partly to avoid complicating the already
complicated picture further, and also because the Commission seems to have made
little impact on curriculum or pedagogy. Its focus was on attempting to push
forward neo-conservative proposals such as introducing community service in
schools and revising the Fundamental Law of Education (FLE), along with neo-
liberal proposals for increased school choice and tracking into elite and non-elite
streams. A number of changes have been introduced in line with the Commission’s
recommendations (e.g. schoolchildren are now required to do short periods of
community service), and education policy seems to be moving increasingly
towards a combination of closer external evaluation of schools, and greater choice
of schools for students. However, such changes are at present gradual and incre-
mental. Most hopes of the Commission’s members have not yet been realized, nor
is there a clear prospect of their realization. Nonetheless, the Commission’s
reports do make clear the views of the neo-conservative and neo-liberal Right in
Japan, and one of its major recommendations, to revise the FLE in a conservative
direction, to stress the importance of ‘Japanese tradition’ and love of country, was
realized in December 2006. For more on the Commission and the move to revise
the FLE, see Okada (2002) and Yoneyama (2002).
13 That is, ‘subject’ in the sense of ‘thinking agent’.
14 The first of these quotes is of Matsumoto’s own words, the second, of the words
of prewar socialist thinker Kawakami Hajime, whose analysis Matsumoto cites
approvingly.
15 Though he is not explicitly aligned with any political camp within the educational
debate, Fujita Hidenori’s opposition to the extension of school choice is based on
a similar view of the importance of a ‘basic, common education for all children’ at
primary and lower secondary schools that are rooted in their local communities
(Fujita, 2000: 54). Satō Manabu has also suggested that ‘basic academic attain-
ment’ (kiso gakuryoku) should be understood not as ‘the three Rs’, but as ‘a
common basic education for all’ (kyōtsū kyōyō), which he also regards as equiva-
lent to the English concept of ‘literacy’ (Satō, 2001: 39–42).
16 It is worth noting that Japanese superhero dramas aimed at small children, such
as Ultraman, Sailor Moon, and the Ranger (Renjā) series, often also feature
cooperation and interdependence among teams and families, rather than the self-
sufficient independence of American superheroes such as Superman (Gill, 1998).
17 Tada also pointed out that ironically, in practice, ‘my-home-ism’, often meant that
an employee became more strongly tied to the company, by taking out a company
loan in order to buy his new house. Nonetheless, Tada sees ‘my-home-ism’ as
showing a new tendency to accept the legitimacy of the private sphere, especially
among the young.
18 The Japanese term literally means, ‘looking for oneself’, in contrast to the English
‘finding oneself’. The difference is subtle, but possibly expresses a less confident or
more relaxed attitude towards the quest.
19 Writers of juku literature can be highly eclectic, drawing on Western as well as
indigenous sources of seishin advice. In a book of pep-talks used by a well-known
Education and individuality in Japan 51
and highly successful Kyoto-based juku, for example, the author draws on Bertrand
Russell and Plato to emphasize his point that taking exams should be a contest
with oneself, not with others (Momose, 1995: 72–5)
20 While competition indicates that an individual places importance on his success
vis-à-vis others, it does not indicate that he is not other-oriented or group-oriented
– in fact, rather the reverse. Being competitive means wanting to achieve according
to a scale of values that one shares with one’s reference group (Béteille, 2002). As
Kuwayama (1992) has pointed out, in Japanese farming villages being competitive
often means wanting to be ‘at least as good as’ everyone else in terms of the status
brought by possession of the latest machinery. This implies that people are
expected to be able to succeed by their own efforts, but according to a common
scale of values. In a sense ‘individualism’ and ‘group-orientation’ are thus
combined.
21 The meaning of the term shutaisei has been fiercely debated by postwar Japanese
thinkers, as Kersten and Koschmann show, but it is arguable that it is most
closely associated with the renowned political scientist Maruyama Masao, who
believed that it represented the Lockean idea of autonomy as disciplined self-
determination, an idea which Maruyama believed had not developed adequately
in Japan, but which needed to do so (Koschmann, 1996: 149–202). Koschmann
suggests there is a certain ambiguity in the concept of shutaisei as developed by
Maruyama and, before him, Ōtsuka Hisao, as it may be hard to distinguish
between apparent autonomy that results from internalizing the gaze of state
authority, and true autonomy (Koschmann, 1996: 169, 239). The apparent auton-
omy he posits is, of course, that of the modern individual according to Foucault,
who comes into being as a result of techniques for self-surveillance developed by
the modern state (Foucault, 1977; Koschmann, 1996: 169, 241). The ambiguity of
the concept, and the variety of its permutations, should thus be kept in mind, but
its importance should not therefore be forgotten.
22 An interesting example of this involves what might be regarded as a British piece
of seishin literature, Rudyard Kipling’s poem If. Kipling is not considered a polit-
ically progressive writer, but according to Sheila Cassidy (1978), If was very popu-
lar among left-wing activists imprisoned in Chile after the Pinochet coup of 1973.
They found its emphasis upon self-discipline and perseverance entirely appropri-
ate to their situation. Similarly, imprisoned Burmese democracy leader Aung
San Suu Kyi has used If at political rallies and describes it as ‘a great poem for
dissidents’ (Garton Ash, 2000).
23 Long (1999: 13) similarly points to the term jiga, glossed as ‘egotistical self’.
24 There seem to be important similarities between Lave’s view of learning and that
implied by the concept of the ‘hidden curriculum’.
2 Groups and individuals at
primary school
In Japanese primary schools, learning takes place through both academic and
non-academic activities (Lewis, 1995). Teachers attach great importance
not only to subject lessons, but also to the activities that take place outside
lessons, ranging from everyday matters such as serving lunch and cleaning
the classroom, to major events such as sports days and graduation cere-
monies. Considerable trouble is taken to try to achieve the aim of a cohesive
class group whose members help, support, and feel for one another. As part
of this process, children learn implicit understandings of selfhood – what
kind of person they are expected to be. While there were variations in the
ideals of moral and personal development that teachers at the schools stud-
ied embraced, as well as the approaches they used, these remained vari-
ations within the common basic paradigm of the class group as a cohesive
community.
In this chapter, I first give more details about the schools and teachers
studied. I then go on to explain the concept of the class group as community
in Japanese education in general, and at Nakamachi and Morikawa primary
schools in particular. Particular attention is given to the concept of the class
group as nakama – people who naturally belong together. I then explain vari-
ous approaches that were used by different teachers to try to shape the chil-
dren’s experiences and achieve the goal of a warm and cohesive class group.
Though the class group was the dominant organizational concept at the
two schools, teachers’ concerns for children’s development went beyond this.
Teachers also wanted to develop children’s autonomy, and their ability to
have good social relations with older and younger children. The increasing
importance attached to the individual also led to debates about the extent to
which unorthodox behaviour by children should be accepted. These issues are
discussed later in the chapter.
If he can bring forth the fruit of communal harmony (kyōdō wagō), with
the pupils as his beloved children (aiji), together growing in friendly
intimacy, discipline and good health, and serious and diligent too, then I
think we can probably say that most of the purpose of class management
has been achieved.
(quoted in Nakano and Oguma, 1993: 5)
Nakano Akira points out that Sawa stressed the influence of the class over
the characters of its members, and quotes his statement that: ‘The atmos-
phere of the class (gakufū) possesses a special air, with the character ( jinkaku)
of the teacher as its centre, and the character of the children as a whole ( jidō
no sōgō-teki jinkaku) as the surrounds’ (Nakano and Oguma, 1993). Even at
such an early date we see the stress upon the central role of the class teacher,
upon class atmosphere, and upon the feeling that the teacher should have for
his ‘beloved children’. These emphases on the role of the teacher and the
importance of class atmosphere developed in subsequent decades, and have
continued to be central to Japanese school pedagogy throughout the twen-
tieth century. Sato (1998) outlines prewar developments in the theory and
practice of the class group. One thinker and practitioner whose emphasis
upon the class spans the prewar and postwar periods was Saitō Kihaku, not
only a primary teacher and principal himself but also one of the most widely
read authors of books on primary pedagogy in postwar Japan. According to
Saitō, ‘Good things will appear for the first time when there is a good class
group (yoi gakkyū shūdan)’ (Matsumoto and Takahashi, 1983: 153). One
should also note the influence of groups such as the Zenseiken (Zenkoku
Seikatsu Shidō Kenkyū Kyōgikai), or National Life Guidance Research
Association, which has disseminated its particular, Makarenko-influenced
approach to the class group widely through books and meetings. Many
books have been and continue to be published on the topic of ‘creating
the class group’ (gakkyū-zukuri), and the important anthology of Japanese
Groups and individuals at primary school 57
pedagogical writings, Nihon no kyōshi, devoted one of its 24 volumes to the
topic (Nakano and Oguma, 1993).
Figure 2.1 Poster over the front blackboard in 6–3 at Nakamachi. In a format seen in
many classrooms, each child paints her or his own face, and the pictures
are then put together – uniting individuals as a group.
62 Groups and individuals at primary school
being friends,’ she told me. ‘And I emphasize warmth (attakasa)9 more than
kindness (yasashisa).’ For Yoshioka-sensei, ‘friends’ was a broader category
than nakama – a distinction illuminated by the contrast she drew between
‘warmth’ and ‘kindness’, whose relationship seemed to be parallel to that
between nakama and friendship, in her terms. Whereas yasashisa (kindness)
was something one could show to anyone in the school, she suggested,
attakasa (warmth) could only come about between children who had been
together in a class for a long time. It was a question of ‘whether one is really
thinking of the other person or not’. It was hard to get across to the pupils in
the fifth year, but by the second half of the sixth year, she thought they began
to realise what it meant. Because she set out the aim of a warm class (atatakai
kurasu) from the start of the fifth year, the children gradually came to realise
what was and wasn’t in accordance with this aim, through talking through all
sorts of incidents in class as they happened. The process of tackling projects
all together (minna de tsukuriageru) was also important.
According to this view, therefore, kindness is something one can show to
anyone, whether they are a member of your nakama or not, and furthermore,
being friends has no necessary connection with membership of the nakama.
One may have friends outside the nakama, and one may have special friends
within the nakama. This is a matter of individual attachment. Being nakama,
however, is a relationship that demands that you give special help and support
to one another, regardless of personal likes and dislikes. Calling the class
group a nakama is thus to state that its members belong together in a special
way – not out of personal volition but simply by virtue of having been placed
in the same class – and that they have a special responsibility to one another.
This idea is clearly linked to the notion of necessary human interdependence,
introduced in Chapter 1.
What is particularly interesting is that the implications of the nakama rela-
tionship seem to go beyond duties to act in a certain way. There should also
be a special feeling in a nakama, as Yoshioka-sensei’s comment about aiming
for a ‘warm class’ suggests. There may appear to be a paradox here, since I
have suggested that being nakama is independent of personal likes and dis-
likes. Insofar as the paradox is resolved, it is resolved on the basis that mem-
bers of the class should come to feel warmth for one another on the basis of
their shared experiences and efforts together, even if their personalities are
very different. This is why being together for a long time is important, as
Yoshioka-sensei suggested.
Such an understanding is suggested by an essay in the 1994 Nakamachi
graduation album (sotsugyō arubamu), by one of that year’s graduating
pupils, in a class taught by Nishihara-sensei. The essay is entitled, ‘From
Friends to Nakama’ (tomodachi kara nakama e):
I made lots of friends (tomodachi) from the first year onwards. As I went
up with my friends from the fifth year to the sixth year, from being
friends we became nakama who helped one another in all sorts of ways.
Groups and individuals at primary school 63
There were various opportunities for becoming nakama. There was all
the helping one another on the school trip (shūgaku ryokō). I experienced
the ties (tsunagari) with my nakama, the hardship (kurushisa) and the fun
(tanoshisa) when we stayed overnight together (gasshuku) at [a local
countryside centre].10
We experienced hardship and learned endurance (gaman) at the sports
day in the autumn. We tried our hardest and managed to achieve great
success making human pyramids11 and in coming third for the Fighting
Spirit Prize. Everyone gave all they had in the cheering (ōen) and the 100
metres race too. It was a really good feeling. . . .
Through the school events (gyōji) in the sixth year, we changed from
friends into nakama. Sometimes being joyful together, sometimes going
through hardship together, we became nakama. . . .
If one person was away, everybody was concerned (ki o tsukau). That
showed we had become nakama. It was really good that I became nakama
with everyone.
Figure 2.2 Children making human pyramids at the Nakamachi sports day, 1996.
Figure 2.4 Class meeting (gakkyūkai) in a fifth year class at Morikawa, 1994.
Class meetings could also be called by the teacher in order to discuss what
she saw as problems within the class. During an interview with Tachibana
junior high third years in July 1998, a former member of class 6–1 at
Nakamachi recalled how Sanada-sensei had once spent an entire day on an
extended class meeting, in order to thrash out problems of clique-making
among the girls in the class. Yoshioka-sensei also used class meetings for a
similar purpose. During interviews in July 1998, I specifically asked most
students (and all the former Nakamachi students that I interviewed) whether
they preferred this approach to class problems, or an approach whereby indi-
viduals were counselled by the teacher. Of the 17 students asked, nine pre-
ferred the whole-class discussion approach, six said both should be used,
depending on whether the problem involved the entire class or only indi-
viduals, one said both should be used together, and one preferred an indi-
vidual approach. It did not seem that students had unpleasant memories of
this type of meeting; indeed, when I asked another former 6–1 member
whether having to say what she thought in Sanada-sensei’s marathon class
meeting hadn’t been difficult, she specifically denied this, saying that she
didn’t like giving her opinion in lessons, but she didn’t mind in a class
meeting.
In class meetings, children thus learned to discuss matters of concern to all,
and to make decisions which should be binding on all. Most import-
antly, they learned that the good of the entire class should be the prime
68 Groups and individuals at primary school
criterion when making decisions. Thus the sense of the class as a unit was
strengthened.
Besides class meetings, other class events were held as and when appropri-
ate. Children who transferred to another school were invariably given a ritual
send-off with a class farewell party (wakarekai). Parties for fun (tanoshimikai)
and other events were also common. During my three months at Nakamachi,
the kakari group responsible for leading such events in 6–3 organized a kara-
oke concert and snowball fight, in both of which the whole class took part
(together with Yoshioka-sensei and myself). One class also organized a kara-
oke concert while I was at Morikawa, and another held a class basketball
tournament. Classes at Morikawa also frequently spent their morning or
lunchtime breaks in the school gym, doing jumprope (ōnawa) as an entire
class. This involved two children turning a long rope, while the rest of the
class lined up to jump in turn. The aim was usually to record as many succes-
sive jumps as possible. In 6–4, Teraoka-sensei made a wallchart, headed ‘6–4
Power’ (6–4 no chikara) on which the children could record how many jumps
were achieved in each performance. Events and recreation of this sort were
meant to bring the class together, and could also offer experience in working
with others to organize an event.
Even play could be organized to involve everyone in the class. Many classes
seemed to have a kakari group responsible for play or recreation. While chil-
dren usually played spontaneously during their morning or lunchtime breaks,
occasionally a kakari group member would get up as lunch ended and pro-
pose playing all together (zenin asobi). There would then be a brief discus-
sion, and perhaps a vote, on what everyone wanted to play. While this did not
happen often, that it happened at all showed a consciousness on the part of
the class that it was appropriate to do things all together sometimes in order
to strengthen class solidarity and have fun as an entire group.
Some teachers also sought to bring the class closer together by regularly
printing and distributing a collection of short extracts of class members’
writings. These ichimai bunshū comprised a sheet of paper (usually B4 size)
on which the teacher extracted writings on certain topics from class work or
class diaries,17 usually adding his own comments. The topics could originate
from lessons, a recent class or school event, or a problem that had arisen in
the class. Extracting from responses to a story or poem read by the class in
kokugo lessons was common. By this means teachers sought to make children
better aware of what their fellow class members were thinking and feeling,
and so increase companionship and mutual understanding within the class.
None of the sixth year teachers at Nakamachi or Morikawa were making
ichimai bunshū during my main fieldwork in 1995–95, but two teachers at
Morikawa were doing so during my pilot fieldwork.18
Classes also worked together for school events. At Nakamachi, such events
included a school concert (ongakkai), a sports day (undōkai), a ‘stamina run’
athletic meet ( jikyūsō-daikai), and several events to do with the sixth years’
graduation; the Send-off for the Sixth Years (rokunensei o okuru kai), the
Groups and individuals at primary school 69
graduation show (sotsugyō happyōkai), which was a revue staged by the sixth
years for their parents, and the graduation ceremony (sotsugyōshiki) itself
(discussed in Chapter 6). All except the graduation show (a Nakamachi spe-
ciality) seemed to be events common throughout the city’s primary schools.
Before the concert, Sanada-sensei used these lyrics as the text in a 6–1 kokugo
(Japanese) lesson. As preparation, he told the children to write out the lyrics
and annotate them with their thoughts about the meaning. In the lesson itself,
he first asked two children to come to the blackboard and draw the doors as
they imagined them, asked the children what they thought was on the other
side of the doors, and wrote up some focal words and phrases to think about,
as follows:
1 Doors
2 Various doors
3 Let’s open
4 Shining
5 Green fruit
Red fires
He then asked the children for their interpretations of these words and
phrases. One boy suggested that the doors were ‘doors from which one sets
out on a journey’ (tabidachi no doa), adding, ‘you overcome hardships (tsurai
koto o norikoete) and open them’. This interpretation was taken up by other
children, and Sanada-sensei wrote on the blackboard, ‘endure hard things;
if we overcome them, we can open the door’. In response to his question
about the meaning of the ‘various doors’, the children suggested ‘suffering’
(kurushimi no doa), ‘sadness’, ‘trials’ (shiren no doa), ‘failures’ (shippai),
‘embarrassment’, and others. Sanada-sensei’s next question was how one
should respond to these things, to which the children offered answers such as
‘overcome failures’. ‘What doors do you have in front of you?’ asked Sanada-
sensei next. ‘A new [sports] record’, ‘a diet’, ‘study’, ‘homework’, ‘employ-
ment’, offered various children. The class then moved on to the second verse:
Just as the lyrics of Into the Wide World stated that the singers not only linked
their hands but also their hearts, so It’s You Who Walk the Path, with its
emphasis on friendship, mutual support, and shared feelings, invited applica-
tion of its lyrics to the children themselves, reinforcing the idea that the class
should be a true nakama. Further, it seemed to suggest that there might be
numberless other potential friends and sources of support waiting to be met –
the as yet unknown and nameless ‘you’ who is ‘walking the path’ and ‘climb-
ing the mountain’ (of life?) and whom the singers hope to meet one day. In
this sense, the song expressed the common Japanese notion that the world is
full of ‘mutual support networks’ of living beings (Morioka, 1991: 90), and
helped to educate the children into this idea, in a similar way to the poems to
be examined in the next chapter.
Some pupils wrote about class singing in their compositions for the gradu-
ation album. One girl from a previous class taught by Yoshioka-sensei wrote
a composition entitled ‘Songs and the Class’ (uta to kurasu) for the 1994
graduation album, as follows:
Until now, I thought that ‘all you have to do with a song is sing it’.
But as we took singing seriously (shinken ni) in the fifth and sixth years, I
learned that what matters is putting your heart into singing what you
want to convey through that song (sono uta de tsutaetai koto o kokoro o
komete utau).
I think that we have all been singing not just because we all like songs, but
in order to widen the circle of the class and the circle of friends, to
combine everyone’s power together, and to rise and come together in a
joint project.
The first song [we sang in the local concert] was Into the Wide World. No
matter how big the door, [I/we] will cut it open.21
The second song was Valley of Butterflies. No matter what painful things
there might be, no matter what sad things there might be, like the butter-
flies that endure (taeru), [I/we] will become strong.
Filled with that confidence, I will surely never forget these companions
(nakamatachi). . . .
Together with those songs we’ve been singing. . . .
Usually referred to by his first name, perhaps an indication of the feeling for
him in Japan, Kenji is the author not only of poems but of children’s stories,
which are part of the canon of modern adult literature as well. A number of
his stories are included in kokugo (Japanese) textbooks, including Yukiwatari
(Crossing the Snow) and Yamanashi (Mountain Pear). His self-sacrificing life,
love for his sister, and early death are as famous as his works, and, as with
authors such as Keats, Wilde, or Wilfred Owen, knowledge of the life adds to
the power of the works. Significantly, Ame nimo makezu was one of two
poems given to the sixth years at Morikawa as the final exercise in their
calligraphy lessons, to be written out as beautifully as possible on specially
marbled paper and perhaps kept as a memento of primary school.23 The vice-
principal, who taught the sixth years calligraphy, clearly felt that it was a text
that deserved especially memorable treatment. The poem was also performed
as a choral recitation (rōdoku) by class 6–2 at Nakamachi in the graduation
show, in which each sixth year class did various dramatic and musical per-
formances for their assembled parents. According to class teacher Fujitani-
sensei, the poem was the class’s own choice, suggesting that it had made a
significant impression upon them.
You have your original self (saisho no jibun), and then after a certain period
and certain experiences, you have your later self (ato no jibun). . . . There’s
a part of you which is changing, and I think it’s a question of that change
being the kind where you think, I’ll do this, and then giving your attention
to it, or where you think, I’d like to become like that, and then acting
accordingly – not change where you’re swept along or just influenced by
others (nagasarete kawatta toka, hito no eikyō bakka o ukete kawatta toka).
Conclusion
As discussed in Chapter 1, writers on Japanese schooling have generally
found an emphasis upon interdependence and group cohesion, although
Cummings (1980: 177–8, 192–7) has argued that Japanese primary schooling
successfully aims to develop the individual. At Nakamachi and Morikawa,
both emphases could be seen. As I have shown, teachers at the two schools
strongly emphasized interdependence. In some cases, such as that of Yoshioka-
sensei, this was expressed in terms of the class group as nakama. This concept
implied that members of the class group should support one another and
share a special feeling of class warmth, not on a voluntaristic basis, such as
individual likings for one another, but on the basis of being members of
the same class. According to this concept, the demands made by the nakama,
as group of primary membership, went beyond general ethical demands, such
as showing kindness to others. However, even teachers who did not seem
to articulate this concept explicitly, such as Sanada-sensei, nonetheless
emphasized interdependence and mutual support.
Moreover, the experience of school was organized in such a way as to make
this understanding of the class group plausible. This was done through tech-
niques such as the organization of the class into small groups, the use of big
school events as foci for class endeavours, class meetings, class newsletters,
and class singing. Both embodied activity and the verbal discourse in terms
of which this activity was understood were crucial in creating experience
which might exercise a lasting influence on children.
However, the discourse of interdependence was not the only major dis-
course of selfhood at the two schools. The individual was also emphasized,
both through the encouragement of perseverance and individual willpower,
and through emphasis on moral autonomy. These emphases were less prom-
inent within the type of non-academic activities described in this chapter, but
they were nonetheless present.
Educational reform appeared to have had little impact upon the organiza-
tion of non-academic activities at the two schools. It might be expected,
however, that the impact of reform would be felt more strongly in the
sphere of academic activities. These are therefore examined in the next two
chapters, concentrating on the subjects of kokugo (Japanese) and mathema-
tics. In addition, academic activities are a major part of school life, and there-
fore can be expected to have important implications for the development of
understandings of selfhood.
Groups and individuals at primary school 85
Notes
1 There were different levels of research lesson. Some were carried out on a year
(gakunen) level: that is, the individual teacher’s lesson would be preceded and
followed by meetings of the teachers of the classes in that year, to discuss the plans
for the lesson or the lesson itself. Others were carried out on a departmental
(gakubu) level, there being three departments, comprised of teachers of first and
second year, third and fourth year, and fifth and sixth year classes respectively. In
such cases, pre- and post-lesson meetings would involve all the teachers in a
department. In these two cases, the research lessons would be open to any teacher
within the school. The most elaborate type of research lesson was open to teachers
from outside the school; these lessons were usually part of a presentation (happyō)
of the results of research which the school had been directed to carry out over a
two-year period by the City or Prefectural Boards of Education, or even by the
Ministry of Education itself. In the last-named case, a hundred or more teachers,
educators, and administrators could be expected to come from all over the country
to see the lessons and hear the rest of the presentation. I had witnessed such
an event at Morikawa in 1994. Schools nominated to do such research are called
shitei-kō.
2 That is, a shitei-kō (see previous note).
3 Teachers and other school staff may be transferred between schools before the
beginning of the new school year in April. Details of transfers are decided by the
Personnel Department in the Prefectural Board of Education. Teachers can apply
for a transfer to another school, but their wish is not necessarily granted. In short,
transfer between schools is not under teachers’ own control.
4 A plethora of such journals are published in Japan. Targeted at school teachers,
they are usually monthlies, and contain a variety of articles and lesson plans,
mostly written by practising teachers, and therefore very practical. Besides general
journals with titles such as Kyōiku gijutsu (Education Techniques), there are also
journals focused on specific year-groups, or on particular subjects, such as Jissen
kokugo kenkyū (Practical Research in Japanese) or Atarashii sansū kenkyū (Elem-
entary Mathematics Teaching Today).
5 Privately organized research groups, where a small group of individuals met regu-
larly to discuss a common interest, must be distinguished from the city-wide or
prefecture-wide research groups of which almost all teachers were members, but in
which few teachers were actively involved. In Sakura, membership of a privately
organized research group was likely to show an unusually high level of commit-
ment to professional self-development.
6 After being President of Tohoku and Kyoto Imperial Universities, Sawayanagi
founded and became principal of Seijō Primary School, a private school in Tokyo,
where he became a leader of the progressive education movement. See Nakano
(1968), Mizuuchi (1989), and Hirahara and Terasaki (1998: 126).
7 According to a television programme on the subject, Kinyō fōramu: terebi dorama
ga egaku kyōshi to kodomotachi (Friday Forum: Depictions of Teachers and Chil-
dren in Television Dramas), broadcast by the public broadcasting channel NHK-
Sōgō on 18 October 1996.
8 Kinpachi is the teacher’s given name (his surname is Sakamoto). In my own
experience in Japanese schools, it is unusual, but by no means extraordinary, for
teachers to be known informally by their given names. This usually happens
when two teachers have the same surname, or when the teacher in question has a
rather unusual given name. In Kinpachi-sensei’s case, it is also a symbol of the
warm feelings between the teacher and his class.
9 The standard form of the noun is atatakasa, but Yoshioka-sensei emphasized to
me that she meant attakasa, the more informal variant. Unfortunately, she was
86 Groups and individuals at primary school
unable to explain what exactly the difference was. Possibly the informality of
attakasa suggests closer (and thus ‘warmer’) relations between class members.
10 Although I have supplied the subject ‘I’ as most appropriate in English transla-
tion, neither this sentence nor the two following (where I have supplied the sub-
ject ‘we’) contain a grammatical subject in the original Japanese. As I suggested
in Chapter 1, the fact that subjects are often unnecessary in Japanese means
that (as here) no clear distinction is made between ‘I’ and ‘we’. I would suggest
that this helps to make consciousness of such distinctions between self and
others weaker than it would be in a language where subjects are always clearly
distinguished.
11 In human pyramids (kumi taisō), children work in teams of two, three, or more,
two children lifting a third off the ground while she strikes a pose, for example.
The importance of reliable mutual support is thus learned through physical
experience.
12 The importance of enactment is also strongly emphasized by Clifford Geertz’s
famous essay on the Balinese cockfight. Geertz argues that participation in cock-
fights is, for the Balinese, ‘a kind of sentimental education’ (1993: 449).
13 Children at Japanese schools spend about 20 minutes every day in school cleaning.
14 Kakari simply means ‘person/people responsible’. Katsudō means ‘activities’.
15 Japanese pupils stand and bow to the teacher at the beginning and end of the
lesson, at the beginning with a formulaic expression of humble request, and at the
end with an expression of thanks.
16 Similar class meetings at primary schools in other parts of Japan have been
described by Tsuneyoshi (1990: 132–7) and Lewis (1995: 111–13).
17 Most teachers I observed had all their class members write a diary (nikki) every
day. The main purpose of this practice is to allow better communication between
teacher and pupils, since, with up to 40 children in a class, teachers usually have
less time than they would like to talk with children individually, and it is particu-
larly easy for quieter children to be overlooked. Teachers hope that through the
diary they will be able to detect when a child is unhappy or having some problems.
Teachers often have children write diaries for ten minutes or so during the after-
noon going-home meeting (kaeri no kai). The topic is usually free, but occasionally
teachers may ask children to write about a particular subject.
18 Besides ichimai bunshū, which are mainly made up of extracts from pupils’ own
writings, some teachers make gakkyū tsūshin, which are class newsletters mainly
written by the teacher and directed primarily at parents of class members, to keep
them up to date about recent and forthcoming class events. See Nagata (1996).
19 The morning and going-home meetings were held at the start and end of each day
respectively, and lasted for fifteen minutes each. Such meetings are standard prac-
tice in Japanese primary school (Lewis, 1995: 104–5; Tsuneyoshi, 2001: 21, 31–2).
20 Both Sanada-sensei and Yoshioka-sensei sometimes had their pupils write reflec-
tions on the lesson immediately afterwards. Pupils assessed how well they had
understood and how satisfied they were with their own performance during the
lesson. The teacher would read the reflections and sometimes respond with a
written comment.
21 As with the previous graduation album composition, the sentences where I have
inserted the subject [I/we] have no grammatical subject in the original Japanese. In
this case, it does not seem possible to make clear decision about which first person
subject is most appropriate.
22 In the collection of Miyazawa’s poems translated by Hiroaki Sato, from which this
translation is taken, the poem bears the title November 3rd. The translation will
soon be re-published in a forthcoming collection (Miyazawa, 2007).
23 The other poem was Takamura Kōtarō’s Dōtei (Journey), which I also encountered
in schools several times.
Groups and individuals at primary school 87
24 Buraku discrimination refers to Japanese people known as burakumin, who have
faced long-standing discrimination within Japan as supposed carriers of ritual
pollution, partly based on their professions (leather-working, therefore involving
contact with dead animals), and partly as a result of stigmatization by the Tokugawa
Shogunate as an outcaste group (Neary, 1989).
3 Stories of the self
In To Live, we gaze upon the ‘life’ (inochi) that is living now; in Yuzuriha,
we talk about the ‘life’ that parents are handing over, while Ezo Pines
relates the harsh conditions within which new ‘life’ is born.
(Mitsumura Tosho Shuppan Kabushiki Kaisha, 1992: 254)
生きているということ To be living
いま生きているということ To be living now
それはのどがかわくということ Is for the throat to be dry
Stories of the self 91
木もれ陽がまぶしいということ To be dazzled by sunlight through
trees
ふっと或るメロデイを思い出すこと To suddenly remember some melody
くしゃみすること To sneeze
あなたと手をつなぐこと To hold your hand
***
生きているということ To be living
いま生きているということ To be living now
泣けるということ To be able to weep
笑えるということ To be able to laugh
怒れるということ To be able to be angry
自由ということ To be free
***
生きているということ To be living
いま生きているということ To be living now
鳥ははばたくということ Is for birds to take flight
海はとどろくということ For the sea to roar
かたつむりははうということ For snails to glide
人は愛するということ For people to love
あなたの手のぬくみ The living warmth of your hand
いのちということ Life
(Kurihara, 1994a: 94–7)
As with the previous poem, the emphasis is on the children’s being part of the
natural, unstoppable cycle of life, which they cannot control but must simply
accept. They belong to the natural world as much as the yuzuriha, an idea that
is reinforced by the similes that describe them as ‘singing like birds and laugh-
ing like flowers’. The poem is also about the process whereby one generation
(parents) hands over the world to the next (children). In one class at Morikawa
where I watched this poem being taught, the teacher tried to focus attention
on how much the children owed to their parents. The lesson fell rather flat,
however, with students showing few signs of engagement. This might have
been because there was too little time to dwell on the poem, or else because
the teacher was too directive and did not focus on the children’s own inter-
pretations of the poem. In another class, the teacher eschewed such didacti-
cism and concentrated on eliciting the ideas of the children, confining her
own comments largely to a few observations at the end of the lesson. This
teacher gave the children time to write out their thoughts, and was more
successful in engaging them in thinking about the poem and its meaning.
Finally, the children read Kanzawa Toshiko’s poem, Ezo Pines (Ezomatsu).9
The poem explains how pine seeds are able to take root and grow, despite the
heavy rains and harsh winds of northern Japan, because they often alight upon
the rotting, moss-covered trunks of old pines that have fallen in strong winds.
The seeds can then thrive thanks to the shelter and nutrients that their fore-
bears’ rotting trunks provide. The poem foresees the time when these new trees
will themselves grow old and fall, as part of an endless cycle of death and birth:
夜の森。えぞまつたちは、星をあおいで立っている。
小さな種だったとき落ちた所に、立っている。
百年 ——— 二百年 ———三百年、立ち続けている。
そうして、この木たちもまた、ある日たおれる。
Stories of the self 93
その上に種が落ち、新しい命が育ってゆくだろう。
年取ったものから次のものへ、命は受けつがれてゆくのだ。
この世のある限り。
Night in the forest. The Ezo pines stand gazing up at the stars.
They stand, where they fell as small seeds.
A hundred – two hundred – three hundred years, they continue to stand.
And then one day, these trees too will topple.
Upon them seeds will fall, and new life (inochi) grow up.
From those that have grown old to their successors, life is passed on.
While the world remains.
(Kurihara, 1994a: 107)
Again in this poem, humans are seen as essentially part of nature, and their
similarities with other living things are emphasized. The emphasis is on the
cycle of life, life that continues unendingly in a constant stream, even while
individuals appear and vanish. The seeds are dependent for survival and
growth on what has been provided by those that have gone before. As noted
in chapter 1, Ruth Benedict argued that the Japanese see themselves as
‘debtors to the ages’ (1974 [1946]: 98), a notion that is powerfully expressed
by this poem, with its implicit parallel between the natural and human
worlds. This parallel was pointed out by several children at Morikawa, who
compared the old falling trees to parents (oya), and connected this theme of
the parent-child link with the similar theme of Yuzuriha. While it is clear that
interdependence is the dominant way of thinking about self in all three of these
poems, it is also possible to see echoes of the discourse of seishin independ-
ence in Ezo Pines. Several Morikawa children saw this poem as being partly
about growing up as a battle through hardship (kurō shite sodatsu), in which
the seeds that survive have to overcome trials that ultimately help them grow
(seichō suru tame no shiren). This was not without foundation in the text, which
stated that weak saplings died and only strong ones survived, but it could not
be called an obvious interpretation. That the children could make this inter-
pretation suggested that they had already thoroughly absorbed discourses
about the inevitable need to overcome hardship in order to achieve personal
growth.
‘Study, study, endure what’s hard,’ (benkyō sē, benkyō sē, tsurai koto
demo gaman shite) the mortar began to sing. On the brows of Chieko and
Mizue, sweat gathered moistly.
(Kurihara, 1994b: 68)
The message of the story is that life requires dedication and effort, and a
willingness to buckle down to quotidian yet essential tasks. By showing this
willingness, the two girls demonstrate that they have achieved maturity. The
story also associates this maturity with a willingness to take over roles and
responsibilities from the older generation (as in the poem Yuzuriha). It is
praiseworthy to show selfless dedication to the group of which one is a mem-
ber. This, the story implies, is where true heroism is to be found, and also true
satisfaction, for we are told at the outset that Chieko had once hated the song
of the mortar, but had come to love it.
In terms of the ways of thinking about selfhood discussed in the opening
chapter, the model of mature selfhood in this story is clearly derived from the
discourses of interdependence and seishin self-discipline. We should also bear
in mind Rohlen’s suggestion (Rohlen, 1986: 332) that in Japan, conformity
to roles and responsibilities is often viewed as a sign of maturity and inner
strength. Thus, Chieko’s change of attitude might be seen not as unthinking
submission to the demands of a social role, but as determined self-direction
resulting from new understanding, thus reconciling the self-discipline dis-
course of selfhood with the discourse of selfhood as autonomy (shutaisei).
Yoshioka-sensei herself strongly believed in such a combination of auton-
omous self-direction and self-discipline. She once told me that she wanted
the children to realize that ‘within things that are hard, there’s something that
sparkles’ (kibishisa no naka ni kira-kira shiteiru mono ga aru), meaning that
doing things whole-heartedly led to a sense of reward, and also to personal
growth. This philosophy was connected to her desire for the children to be
self-directed and say what they really wanted, even if that meant reacting
strongly to others. She preferred this to drifting through life without what she
called a sense of crisis (kikikan). Children in modern Japan were to be pitied
for their lack of such a sense of crisis, she thought, because as a result, few
felt impelled to make decisions about what they had to do.
The second textbook story to deal with the theme of selfhood was by the
songwriter Aku Yū, and was entitled Garasu no kobin (The Little Glass
Bottle). In this first-person story, selfhood and personal identity were more
complex and problematic matters than in the texts discussed so far. The
narrator explains that he has an empty glass bottle which he has kept ‘like a
part of my body’ since he was a sixth year at primary school (the same age as
Stories of the self 95
the children reading the text). The bottle is nothing special to look at, and he
has often thought of discarding it, but has never quite been able to do so.
Occasionally he has even deliberately left it somewhere and then retrieved it.
The empty bottle used to belong to the narrator’s father, and at that time
was full of earth from Kōshien stadium, where his father had competed in the
National High School Baseball Championships – the acme of sporting glory
for Japanese youth.10 His father had been extremely proud of having played at
Kōshien and had talked about it often – too often for his son, who felt slight
resistance (hanpatsu) at those times. The father seemed almost to feel that the
earth had magical powers, even though his adult life had not been tremen-
dously successful. Finally, one day the son had an explosion of resentment
after a severe scolding by his father, and threw the earth away into the garden
– only to be overcome with horror at the thought of his father’s reaction. In
the event, however, his father didn’t get angry, but seemed almost cheerful.
Giving his son the empty bottle, he said to him, ‘You’re to fill this with some-
thing in place of my earth from Kōshien.’ The now-adult narrator ends by
saying that the bottle is still empty, and he hasn’t decided what he should put
in it.
The story had clearly been included in the textbook because it was perceived
to be appropriate for sixth year primary children. Yoshioka-sensei told me
that it was meant as material for children who were just starting to feel a sense
of separation from and resistance (hanpatsu) towards their parents. It is also
fascinating for its exploration of selfhood and personal identity. It expresses
the sense that a person’s self is unique and that he must create it himself, and
yet also the sense that one’s life is irrevocably linked with that of one’s parents,
and that one has an obligation to them to use one’s life as well as possible. All
this is suggested by the symbolism of the glass bottle. The receptacle itself
comes from the narrator’s father, with an injunction to fill it with something.
The boy is technically free to fill the bottle with anything he likes, or even to
ignore his father’s words, yet it is clear that he cannot escape a sense of obliga-
tion to fill the bottle with something that his father would see as evidence of a
life well-lived. Like The Song of the Mortar, and the songs discussed in the pre-
vious chapter, this story strongly suggests that life should be lived with dedi-
cation; dedication is what the Kōshien earth symbolizes, and the son clearly
feels the obligation to fill the bottle with a symbol of his own dedication, as
the story’s final sentence shows:
One girl at Nakamachi described this mission as a trial (shiren), the same
word as was used by children at Morikawa to describe the obstacles faced by
the growing saplings of Ezo Pines. This once again shows how children’s
96 Stories of the self
familiarity with the discourse of seishin self-reliance led them to readily
interpret texts in its terms.
By accepting his father’s mission, the son is also implicitly accepting his
attitude to life. Though the story expresses ambivalence about the binding up
of identity with filial obligation, it seems clear that the narrator has accepted
this obligation, albeit precariously. It is probably no exaggeration to say that
the story encapsulates the conflicting feelings of many Japanese, torn between
desire for individual freedom and autonomy on the one hand, and acceptance
of obligations to others, and especially to parents, on the other. By accepting
the bottle and by continuing to keep it despite his impulses to throw it away,
the narrator embraces a view of selfhood that accepts that ties to others,
especially parents, can never be completely broken. Even as an adult, one can-
not pretend to complete independence. Even so, the transmission of identity
from the older generation to the younger is much more problematic in this
story than in The Song of the Mortar. The ambivalence of the younger gener-
ation towards the older, and its desire to be independent and autonomous, are
more clearly present. Even in the narrator’s present, there remains conflict,
and the possibility that the bottle might be discarded.
Figure 3.1 Painting a picture to illustrate a story from the kokugo textbook in 6–3 at
Nakamachi, 1996.
‘In fact, children feel at ease (anshin suru) with that kind of lesson. They know
what to do, they are happy to raise their hands and speak. Maybe that kind of
kokugo lesson is more fun. But I don’t think that is the ultimate purpose.
What I want to do is to have the children develop the power of choosing their
own way of studying, judging for themselves what they want to do and how.
That’s what I’m trying to do in the present unit, with The Little Glass Bottle.
But it’s difficult! There are quite a lot of children who prefer to be told what
to do, and don’t enjoy having to decide for themselves, or who just decide to
do what their friend is doing. In a sense my class is unfortunate in having
started school before the current [1989] curriculum came in and the way of
teaching changed. The new emphasis on having children choose, nurturing
their ability to do things themselves, came in then; before that, it was just a
question of pouring knowledge in (oshiekomi).’
A few days later, 6–3’s first whole-class lesson on The Little Glass Bottle
took place. Yoshioka-sensei had the children move their desks closer to the
front and centre of the classroom, so that everyone was physically very close
to one another, with almost no space between the desks. (She told me later
that the purpose of this was to bring the experience of whole-class discussion
closer to that of ordinary conversation, thus encouraging children to speak
out and share their thoughts.) She started the discussion herself by posing
some simple but fundamental questions about the first section of the story.
Compare how ordinary people see the bottle, and how the narrator sees it.
Stories of the self 99
What points are the same? What points are different? From this, the lesson
developed into a discussion of the meaning of the bottle for the narrator. While
Yoshioka-sensei gave no opinion of her own, she exercised some control over
the discussion by choosing those who were to speak and by asking questions
to develop the discussion at various points; for example, ‘If the bottle is so
important to the narrator, why has he often tried to throw it away and then
gone back to get it?’ However, the discussion also developed in response to
ideas introduced by children, including the idea, mentioned above, that there
was a trial (shiren) connected with the bottle. Finally, Yoshioka-sensei asked
the class what they wanted to make the centre of attention for the next lesson,
when they would look at the second part of the story. Six children made (very
similar) suggestions, focusing on the differences between how the father and
son saw the earth in the bottle. After a brief discussion, one boy dictated the
heading for the next lesson: ‘Differences and similarities between the son’s
and father’s perceptions of the earth’. Yoshioka-sensei wrote this on a large
sheet of paper.
The next lesson therefore concentrated on the father’s and son’s different
views of the earth in the bottle. As in the previous lesson, the children raised
their hands and gave their ideas. Yoshioka-sensei wrote their ideas up on the
sheet of paper on the blackboard, and then after twenty minutes she asked
two key questions. What is the son resisting? (Nani ni hanpatsu shiteiru?) Why
is he resisting? This spurred the children to further thought and discussion
which occupied the rest of the lesson. Two further lessons along similar lines
concluded the class’s study of the text.
Figure 3.2 Whole-class session on The Little Glass Bottle in 6–3 at Nakamachi, 1995.
100 Stories of the self
How did Yoshioka-sensei’s approach differ from that of the research lesson
at the other school? Both were based on a pattern whereby children spent sev-
eral lessons working individually, followed by one or more lessons of teacher-
moderated class discussion. The difference lay in Yoshioka-sensei’s desire to
give the children more autonomy than usual, first in deciding how to study
the text as individuals, and then in determining the focus of discussion in the
whole-class lessons.14 She exercised little overt control over class discussion,
responding to the children’s ideas with expressions of interest or requests
for clarification, but almost never disagreeing and rarely even asking a ques-
tion.15 Rather, she exercised a broad control by more subtle means – by some-
times calling on children from whom she anticipated particularly perceptive
remarks, and by herself asking a very searching question perhaps once in the
lesson, a question which would direct the discussion towards an issue she
regarded as fundamental to understanding the text.
Yoshioka-sensei saw whole-class in-depth discussion as very important, not
only for the cognitive development of individuals, but also for the social and
emotional development of the class as a group. In terms of cognitive develop-
ment, she believed that listening to others’ opinions was very useful for chil-
dren whose understanding of the text up to that point had been insufficient
(yometeinai ko). Like other teachers I encountered, she considered that chil-
dren often found it easier to understand the explanations of their peers than
those of the teacher. Thus, intensive whole-class discussion of a text allowed
slower children to learn from the insights of the more able; they were not left
to do their best on their own. Yoshioka-sensei was representative of other
primary teachers I met in making it a primary goal to have all her pupils
achieve acceptable and roughly equal academic progress, and in seeing such
whole-class discussion lessons as an essential tool to this end.
Besides being a key instrument of cognitive development, these kokugo dis-
cussions were also vital for Yoshioka-sensei’s approach to class management
(gakkyū keiei). She explained that kokugo helped the teacher to ‘form the class
group’ because it enabled the development of the children’s mental and emo-
tional selves (kokoro o sodateru) as they expressed their thoughts and feelings
( jibun no omoi o shaberu). Her ultimate aim, she said, was a class that could
talk to one another about what they thought and felt (katariaeru kurasu). Since
kokugo was so concerned with deepening understanding of thoughts and
feelings, she saw it not just as an academic subject, but as a locus for emo-
tional growth. It was one means of creating a class whose members were sensi-
tive, open, and trusting of one another. Whole-class discussion was essential
for this end.
In its focus on increasing understanding through constructive discussion,
and its emphasis on the need to create a classroom community, Yoshioka-
sensei’s class displayed features of the kind of group that Wells has described
as a ‘community of inquiry’ (Wells, 1999: 121–4). Kokugo lessons were not
didactic or teacher-dominated. Rather, the teacher took on the role of a
facilitator, who structured the lessons in the way she felt would best promote
Stories of the self 101
inquiry, and then responded to the children’s initiatives when necessary, in
order to guide discussion into deeper and more productive directions (Wells,
1999: 300, 308). One structuring move was the practice of having children
write an initial kansōbun, which allowed them to initiate dialogue about the
story. Another structuring move was the ‘practice of recording ideas that
emerged in whole-class discussion on large sheets of chart paper’, which, as
Wells writes of the same technique in a Canadian primary classroom, ‘helped
the children to focus on what was happening’ and ‘provided a collective record
of [the class’s] emerging understanding’ (1999: 309). Yoshioka-sensei’s inter-
ventions were also facilitative rather than didactic. She made relatively few
interventions in the whole-class discussions, mostly confining herself to the
role of moderator and recorder, and allowing the children to speak at enough
length to explain and justify their views, in a way similar to that advocated by
Mercer (1995: 28) and Wells (1999: 156–7). On the relatively rare occasions
when she did pose a question, it was an open-ended and challenging one to
which there was no clear answer – a question designed to stimulate the chil-
dren to a deeper level of thought and engagement. In this way, the teacher’s
interventions worked to focus the children’s activity without dominating or
directing them, thus ‘scaffolding’ the children’s progress to a higher level of
understanding (Wood, 1998: 99–100; Wells, 1999: 127, 222) – what Mercer
describes as ‘doing the job [teachers] are expected to do, of guiding the con-
struction of knowledge’ (Mercer, 1995: 114). In Vygotskian terms, Yoshioka-
sensei was helping the children move forward within the ‘zone of proximal
development’, defined as what they would be capable of alone, and what they
can become capable of with appropriate guidance (Wells, 1999: 313).
As Wells has noted, however, the creation of a ‘community of inquiry’
involves more than merely the implementation of a set of teaching techniques,
or even the adoption of an open, inquiring stance towards experience and
ideas. It requires the kind of interpersonal relations that can only flourish in
an ethos where children are encouraged ‘to engage with and share the per-
spectives of others in order to understand them’ (Wells, 1999: 126). Wells
argues that ‘interaction in the [zone of proximal development] necessarily
involves all facets of the personality’, and in this sense, the zone of proximal
development is ‘a site of identity formation’ (1999: 327). Children are learning
to become collaborative inquirers, at least to some extent, or they are learning
to become something different. We can therefore see that Yoshioka-sensei’s
emphasis on the class as nakama and her approach to kokugo teaching were
intimately interlinked. The creation of the classroom community helped to
create the sense of safety within which children would be willing to speak out;
and as they did so, sharing their ideas and feelings, the sense of trust and
mutual understanding was further deepened, in a virtuous circle. Academic
lessons were thus not a separate issue to that of the class as a community, but,
as Sanada-sensei also told me, an integral means for the creation of that
community.
Other teachers at Nakamachi were also trying to increase children’s
102 Stories of the self
autonomy in kokugo, with varying success. One fifth year teacher, Fukushima-
sensei, gave a research lesson about the story Old Man Daizō and the Geese,
explaining at a research meeting with fifth and sixth year teachers before the
lesson that she wanted to get away from ‘the old kokugo’ (mukashi no kokugo).
According to Fukushima-sensei, this involved children studying themes
decided by the teacher, whereas in ‘new kokugo’, the children’s studies were
determined by their own interests.16 Accordingly, she allowed the children in
her class to choose their own themes for study, with those who had chosen the
same subject sitting in small groups which alternated between individual
work and group discussion. After finishing the unit, however, Fukushima-
sensei admitted to regaining some respect for ‘the old kokugo’. She felt that
the children’s self-chosen study themes had been of a disappointingly low
level, and reflected that though the older approach might not be so good
for encouraging independent study, it was effective for deepening children’s
understanding. Fukushima-sensei’s experience indicates the difficulties that
teachers may encounter in their attempts to implement educational reform
and increase learner autonomy. Conflicts may arise between goals (such as
autonomy and increased understanding) that are not only educational ideals
but also aims written into the curriculum. Such conflicts can only be resolved
through ongoing development of the practices of inquiry within schools. It
is also possible that instead of a resolution, one aim will be abandoned or
de-emphasized.
Both Yoshioka-sensei and Fukushima-sensei modified their teaching prac-
tices in order to increase the children’s autonomy. In both cases, the catalyst
for their innovations was the imperative to encourage independent learning,
in line with the 1989 curricular reforms and the ongoing educational reform
programme. The results were varied, and seemed to satisfy Yoshioka-sensei
more than Fukushima-sensei. Yet the increased emphasis on the children’s
individual learning autonomy did not radically change established practices
of teaching and learning in kokugo, partly because these already incorporated
considerable scope for individual interpretation of texts. Pedagogical practice
continued to involve the whole class studying the same text or texts17 together,
with individually-oriented lessons being followed by whole-class lessons in
which the texts were discussed by all. In short, Nakamachi teachers were not
abandoning the discourse of interdependence, but modifying their practices to
allow more emphasis upon autonomy and individual difference. Their prac-
tices continued to be based on the view that interdependence in learning and
life was fundamental for the children’s intellectual and social development.
Mountains team (M): The sea is dirty, whereas the air in the mountains is
clean and good for the health.
Sea team (S): You can eat good things at the sea; in the mountains, you
might be injured.
M: You might drown at sea.
S: You won’t drown at sea if you follow the rules.
Stories of the self 105
M: Babies might drown.
S: You don’t let babies swim in the sea; on the other hand, young children
go walking in the mountains. People rarely die at sea if they wear a
rubber ring.
M: There is less litter in the mountains, because they are notices against it.
S: There are notices at the sea too, and there are people and machines to
pick up any litter.
You can eat lots of good things at the sea.
M: In the mountains, you can camp, so you can have various experiences,
you don’t have to stay at a ryokan [a Japanese-style inn].
S: You can camp and cook for yourself around the beach too, so you can
enjoy yourself in two ways [staying in an inn, or camping].
M: That’s true of the mountains too.
In the mountains, you can eat matsudake [a gourmet mushroom].
S: You can’t get matsudake so easily; it’s not always available, and it’s
expensive.
M: The scenery in the mountains is fine, there’s so much green; it’s a feast
for the eyes and good for the health.
S: People are destroying nature in the mountains.
M: It’s better to cut down the trees than it is to make the sea dirty, because
trees are made into paper.
S: But then there’s more carbon dioxide, and it takes time for new trees to
grow.
M: One shouldn’t cut down trees, true, but it is useful to do so. Also, paper
is recycled, so tree-cutting is decreasing.
Yoshioka-sensei (interjecting): The debate seems to be going in the direction
of pollution; can we get back to enjoying ourselves?
M: In the mountains, the scenery enters into your heart, and you can
relax. It stinks of fish at the sea; in the mountains, it’s a nice smell, not
a harsh one.
Each side could ask for a time-out to hold a brief discussion about strategy.
After this free debate session, a concluding speaker on each side made a
speech. The rest of the class then voted on the winner, and Yoshioka-sensei
asked some of the listeners to give an assessment of the two teams’ efforts.
The debates encouraged analytical thinking, individual oral skills, and
independent research to find supporting evidence for arguments. At the same
time, they also encouraged teamwork and careful listening to others’ argu-
ments. As she directed the activity, Yoshioka-sensei maintained a balance
between independence and individuality on the one hand, and cooperation
and mutual responsibility on the other. Children did not work individually
but in han (the small groups they sat, worked, and did chores in), cooperating
to make an effective presentation. Moreover, Yoshioka-sensei emphasized the
role of the children listening, trying to ensure that the debates involved the
entire class, not just the two groups debating at the time. Listeners were to take
106 Stories of the self
careful notes, and at the end of a debate Yoshioka-sensei asked some of them
for an assessment of the presentations. She emphasized that this was useful for
the debaters, as usual stressing that everyone in the class had a responsibility
to be helping everyone else. As she presented it, listening and commenting was
not a passive, uninvolved role, but an active and important one.
I talked to another Nakamachi teacher about how he had taught the debate
unit, and also to a teacher at the adjacent primary school, Ishida. In both
cases, the teachers had modified the textbook plan, with the Ishida teacher
combining kokugo with social studies (shakai) to stage debates about histor-
ical issues. I found this willingness to modify the textbook to be characteristic
of Japanese primary teachers. Meanwhile, one sixth year teacher at Morikawa
told me that since she couldn’t remember the unit, she suspected she may
have skipped or rushed through it (tobidashita) because of lack of time. The
variety of ways of treating the textbook suggests that schooling in Japan is not
as standardized as has sometimes been thought. Different teachers can vary
dramatically in the amount of time they spend on a unit, depending on their
personal interests and their perceptions of their needs of their particular class.
The second expression unit that I observed at Nakamachi was entitled
‘Research Presentations’ (kenkyū happyōkai), and involved children’s re-
searching a self-chosen topic and then writing a report about it. Again 6–3’s
lessons departed significantly from the textbook, which recommended that
children work in groups, suggested the use of questionnaire surveys, and
proposed uncontroversial research topics, such as ‘How people spend break-
times’, ‘Slogans around the school’, ‘Play in the past, play today’; ‘Places
of historical and cultural interest (bunka isan) around the school’, and
‘Our school’s history’. Such topics were certainly consistent with some of the
attitudes that were aims of the kokugo curriculum, especially ‘love and under-
standing of Japanese culture and traditions’ (Monbushō, 1989: 23). Under-
lying both curricular aims and textbook topics seemed to be an implicit view
that children should find out about an officially approved version of culture
and history, and there was no mention of encouraging a critical, questioning
stance. In fact, the research report given as an example by the textbook was a
model of conformity, the imaginary writers criticising their classmates for not
using breaks to prepare for the next lesson, and urging them to ‘use break
times effectively’ (yasumi jikan o yūkō ni katsuyō suru).
Yoshioka-sensei had children read out the textbook for reference (sankō),
but she also modified the unit to allow the children more individual freedom
and initiative. Children were to work individually, rather than in groups, and
Yoshioka-sensei encouraged them to think of topics that interested them, not
just the textbook examples. She also encouraged them to think more broadly
than just questionnaire surveys. She told them that graphs and tables were
good because they were easy to understand, but when asked by one girl about
pictures, she agreed that they were okay too, saying, ‘I leave that kind of thing
up to you’ ( jiyū ni shimasu).
After doing the research and writing the report, each child made a presen-
Stories of the self 107
tation to the class, using tables, graphs, and pictures as appropriate. Most
reports were in fact based upon questionnaire surveys, on topics ranging from
favourite television programmes or brands of pot noodle to what people ate
for breakfast, where they would like to travel, what kind of pet they would
like, or what they would like to be reincarnated as. However, some of the most
interesting presentations were not based on questionnaires. One boy, a fishing
enthusiast, explained the relation between pollution and the decline of the
black bass, using pictures and tables to show how pollution affected insects
and micro-organisms at different levels of lakes and rivers, and thus eventu-
ally affected the fish too. One girl investigated what kinds of goods were
recycled, and which were not, and another made a presentation about hot
spring resorts (onsen) and why people went to them.
As with the debate unit, more room for individual initiative and freedom
was balanced by emphasis on the class group. Children did not simply do
their research, write their reports, and hand them in to the teacher; they made
a presentation to the whole class. Yoshioka-sensei again emphasized the role
of the listeners; the children had to make brief notes on the presentations and
assess them for clarity, interest, persuasiveness, and thoroughness of research.
The presentation of individual work to the whole class made it clear that the
work was not of concern to that individual alone. (The extensive use of ques-
tionnaires among the class also encouraged class interaction and probably led
to children learning more about one another, although I doubt this was
intended by Yoshioka-sensei.) Thus the encouragement of individual initiative
was once again reconciled with an emphasis on the whole class.
Conclusion
During kokugo lessons at Nakamachi, children encountered various dis-
courses of selfhood, together with learning practices that were important
for personal formation. The texts that they read mostly presented models of
selfhood and identity as interdependent – either with other human beings,
or even, beyond this, with all of life (inochi) and nature. However, a minority
of texts problematized these models, or else drew children’s attention to their
self-consciousness of themselves as individuals. Children certainly cannot be
assumed to have completely and unproblematically accepted the models pre-
sented in these texts. Nevertheless, the texts contributed to the ideas about
self that children were absorbing, and they also indicated what kinds of
discourses about these issues the educational authorities, in the form of text-
book writers, found of primary importance.
In comparison with texts such as stories and poems, expression assignments
provided more scope for individuality and independence, giving some encour-
agement for doing research and developing articulacy in arguments. Even
so, some assignments also placed heavy emphasis on developing a socially-
oriented and even socially shared consciousness, and others focused on
becoming an empathetically sensitive, impressionistic writer, rather than an
108 Stories of the self
analytical, detached one. There was no attempt to develop children’s ability
as writers of imaginative fiction. All in all, therefore, the sixth year kokugo
textbook only made limited attempts to encourage the development of
independence, autonomy, and individuality.
In the organization of learning by the teachers studied at Nakamachi and
Morikawa, on the other hand, there was more of a balance between inter-
dependence and individuality. The standard approach to fictional texts divided
time between individual and whole-class work, so that individual insights
could be developed independently, then shared in order to deepen the under-
standing of all. Some teachers took this further by increasing children’s
autonomy to decide what and how to study. When teaching the debate and
research presentation units, Yoshioka-sensei modified them to allow not only
greater autonomy for the children but also greater interaction between them.
There was no doubt that the learning practices observed gave more
emphasis to autonomy and individuality than did the texts that children
encountered. This indicates the danger of relying too heavily upon the analysis
of school texts for understanding the relationship between education and the
development of selfhood. It also suggests that insofar as the development of
individuality and autonomy has made progress in Japanese primary schools,
this is to a significant extent due to the initiatives taken by classroom teachers
– though we should also recognize that textbooks have also made limited
moves in the same direction, as in the introduction of the debate unit. Such a
shift in emphasis is more likely to be successful when its initiation comes not
only from teachers, but also the educational authorities.
The evidence of practices at Nakamachi and Morikawa also shows how
Japanese teachers are creative initiators of educational change, although it
needs to be recognized that teachers’ power to initiate change is not limitless,
but remains constrained by institutions such as textbooks, as well as by the
degree to which the school and the broader educational climates are friendly
to innovation. It is certainly true that the mid-1990s was a period when inno-
vation was encouraged, and that Nakamachi in particular was an innovation-
friendly school. Yet there is plenty of evidence in the work of earlier researchers
on Japan’s long and impressive record of pedagogical action research (Inagaki
and Yoshimura, 1993; Inagaki, Yoshimura and Horie, 1994; Sato and Asa-
numa, 2000: 115–17; Fernandez and Yoshida, 2004) to indicate that teacher-
led innovation is by no means merely a recent phenomenon.
This analysis of the teaching of kokugo also indicates ways in which learning
in Japanese primary schools can be understood as taking place in a ‘com-
munity of inquiry’, to use terms derived from neo-Vygotskian and practice
theories of learning. This is achieved through teaching and learning practices
that focus on open-ended tasks, cast the teacher in the role of constructive
facilitator, and encourage children to share and engage with one another’s
perspectives. Also crucial to its success is a classroom ethos within which
children feel safe to share and engage in this way – the kind of ethos that
Japanese primary teachers in general aspire to create. It may well be that such
Stories of the self 109
forms of learning are more prominent in Japanese primary education than
in other countries, such as England, if the research of British scholars such
as Edwards and Mercer (1987) and Galton and Williamson (1992) gives a
representative picture. Given the widespread international interest in such
approaches among educators today, this suggests that what goes on in the
kokugo lessons of Japan’s primary schools may be important not only because
it gives us insight into the development of selfhood in Japan, but because it
may contribute to the inquiry that is continually going on worldwide in search
of effective and humane education.
Notes
1 Kokugo literally means ‘language of the country/nation’, and is sometimes
translated as ‘National Language’ (Gerbert, 1993).
2 The curriculum figure is a standard that teachers are expected to approximate
rather than meet exactly. For example, fifth year teachers at Nakamachi actually
spent between 208 and 227 hours on kokugo lessons in 1994, and Morikawa fifth
year teachers taught between 196 and 217 hours, even though the fifth year curric-
ulum stipulated 210 hours. Since 2002, both the number of kokugo lessons and
the total curriculum hours for the sixth year have been reduced, to 175 and 945
respectively (Monbushō, 1998b), and kokugo now takes up 18 per cent of the sixth
year curriculum.
3 The Sakura City Board of Education had decided that primary schools in the city
should use the kokugo textbooks published by Mitsumura Tosho during the three
years from 1993 to 1996. Mitsumura textbooks were also being used by Sakura
primary schools when I did a follow-up study in 2004. According to Gerbert
(1993: 154), the kokugo textbooks published by Mitsumura are the most popular
in Japan.
4 Three of the poem’s five stanzas are quoted here in full, including the first and last.
5 In another stanza, the poet says that to live is ‘miniskirts’, ‘planetariums’, ‘Johan
Strauss’, ‘Picasso’, ‘the Alps’, ‘to encounter all beautiful things, and to resist hid-
den evil with care’. Human culture and moral action is present in this stanza, but
there are no defined human actors; Johan Strauss and Picasso are not being seen
as individual actors but are synecdoches for the cultural objects they produced.
6 The generalized subject ‘people’ in ‘For people to love’, the soldier in the line
‘For a soldier to be wounded at this moment somewhere’, and presumably the
‘newborn’s cry’ (ubugoe) in the line, ‘For a newborn’s cry to rise at this moment
somewhere’.
7 There appears to be no common English name. The plant’s Latin name is
Daphniphyllum macrolobum.
8 Yokota (2002: 79) suggests that it is the yuzuriha bush itself that is addressing the
children. This is another possible interpretation, though one that was explicitly
rejected by the teacher in one kokugo lesson at Morikawa, who suggested that the
author is addressing the children, trying to convey the feelings of their parents.
9 The English name of this tree is Jezo Spruce (Latin, Picea jezoensis), but since
matsu refers to both pine and spruce trees, and ‘pine’ summons up a more impres-
sive image for me than ‘spruce’, I have translated ezomatsu as ‘Ezo Pine’. Ezo was
the pre-Meiji name of the island now known as Hokkaido; Yezo or Jezo was a
variant spelling in the Meiji period.
10 Moeran (1989: 59–64) sees these Championships as emblematic of the seishin
discourse of self-discipline and dedication. Members of losing teams are permit-
ted to take away a little earth from the baseball ground as a memento.
110 Stories of the self
11 There is a voluminous literature in Japanese on pedagogical practices in kokugo (as
for other subjects), much of it written by teachers. Examples can be found in Ishii
(1995) and Ishii, Ushiyama, and Maejima (1996), in monthly educational journals
for teachers, such as Kokugo Kyōiku (Kokugo Education) and Jissen Kokugo
Kenkyū (Kokugo Lesson Study), and in the publications of pedagogical associations
run by and for teachers, such as the Tōkai Kokugo Kyōiku o Manabu Kai (Tōkai
Region Association for the Study of Kokugo Education), whose 1996 conference I
attended.
12 See note 15 below.
13 In fifth year and sixth year lessons I watched at Morikawa in 1994, the teachers
directed all children to do individual kakikomi – meaning to read the text carefully
and annotate it with their thoughts and questions. After one or two lessons during
which children worked individually on a section of the story, there were some
whole-class lessons for sharing thoughts and feelings about the text. This approach
did allow children to develop individual readings of the text, and in one class, the
teacher allowed the children to choose which characters in the text they chose to
focus on. However, the children did not get to choose the approach itself.
14 Though Yoshioka-sensei allowed children the freedom to choose their own study
topic, not every topic could become the subject of focus in whole-class discussion
lessons. Discussion tended to focus on issues pursued by the majority, with minor-
ity interests receiving little whole-class attention, since limited time made it hard to
discuss more than one or two issues in depth during a lesson.
15 Tsuchida and Lewis (1996: 207) and Benjamin (1997: 44–8) have recorded similar
teaching approaches by Japanese primary teachers.
16 Fukushima-sensei’s research lesson was followed by a school research meeting
attended by a prefectural expert on kokugo teaching, formerly in charge of kokugo
research at the Prefectural Education Centre. This teacher commented that hith-
erto, the normal style of kokugo teaching had been to pick up four or five themes
(kadai) for whole-class discussion from the initial kansōbun. However, he saw this
approach as problematic in that it tended to result in themes that were given to the
children (ataerareta kadai) and not close to their hearts.
17 Fukushima-sensei had her class read and study not only Old Man Daizō and
the Geese, but also two other stories by the same author which were not in the
textbook.
18 In one class at Morikawa, children did a related exercise in art and craft (zukō) and
skipped the kokugo unit – another example of primary teachers’ flexibility.
19 According to Roden, however, the institution of a debating club at the First
Higher school in the 1890s caused controversy among the students, as debate was
seen as ‘dangerous to the collective ethos’ (Roden, 1980: 115).
4 Mathematical relationships
Thus, Western observers notice, and note, how lively and clear Japanese
instruction is, and how often the students are given the opportunity to
become active, i.e. to undertake practical operations, to develop their
own ideas, to articulate them, and to introduce them into discussion.
(Schümer, 1999: 401)
112 Mathematical relationships
Schümer goes on to note other apparently widespread features of the Japanese
primary maths classroom that are attractive to many maths educators, such
as the centrality of vividly presented problems, the thorough discussion of
various methods for solving problems, and the focus on mathematical under-
standing rather than simply obtaining a correct solution (1999: 402–3).
Particularly important studies of Japanese primary mathematics practices
have been done by Stevenson and Stigler (Stigler and Perry, 1990; Stevenson
and Stigler, 1992; Stigler, et al., 1996), Lewis (1995), and Whitburn (1999a;
1999b; 2000), with valuable smaller-scale studies by Hendry (1997; 2000), and
it is important to note that the research by Stevenson and Stigler, as well as
some of that by Lewis, was carried out during the 1980s – in other words,
before the stress on ‘individuality’ and ‘diversity’ introduced by the Rinky-
ōshin. It seems clear that emphasis on problem-solving, explanation, and
discussion in primary maths education goes back a good deal further than the
last 15 years or so, though unfortunately we do not yet have any historical
studies of Japanese maths education, at least in English.
Despite the range of illuminating studies that have been made of maths
teaching in Japanese primary schools, research has not taken serious note
of the fact that Japanese maths textbooks are divided into textbook units
(tangen), nor has it been shown how teachers tackle the teaching of an entire
unit. Attention to the textbook unit is important, since the series of lessons
that makes up a unit on a particular subject is designed to be taught as a
unified whole, progressing through introduction and development stages to a
conclusion. This chapter shows how Yoshioka-sensei and Sanada-sensei
taught one entire textbook unit from start to finish, allowing greater insight
into their teaching processes that could be gained from a single lesson.
Looking at how two experienced teachers taught the same material also
illuminates the extent to which different teachers exercise autonomy in using
varying approaches, while exchanging ideas with each other.
doesn’t change
The children copied this into their books, and one said, ‘so, you can do
anything’. ‘Right,’ agreed Yoshioka-sensei, and asked the children for similar
statements. They came up with several, including:
‘When the volume below changes, the volume above changes too.’
‘When the depth of the water below changes, the depth of the water
above changes.’
‘Even when the depth changes, the area of the base doesn’t change.’
‘When the time you sleep changes, the time you wake up changes too.’
‘When the area of the base changes, the volume also changes.’
Yoshioka-sensei then told the children that they would continue with the
topic in the next lesson, and asked them to hand in their exercise books.
and
Three ideas about which there was a particularly big debate and no clear
consensus were assigned by Yoshioka-sensei to a special category of ‘extras’
(bangaihen), including:
‘As the amount of rain increases, the weight of one’s clothes increases.’
With all the ideas categorized, Yoshioka-sensei told the children that she
wanted next to investigate those in the ‘increasing’ category, to see if the way
they changed (kawarikata) was the same.
She said to the class that she’d like to investigate this, and how did they
Mathematical relationships 119
think they should do it? Teramoto-kun and a girl called Mizutani-san then
suggested a wording for a written problem:
Yoshioka-sensei then asked the class, ‘How shall we investigate this?’ Some
children said, ‘a table’, others ‘a bar graph’. Yoshioka-sensei told them they
could use either. She herself started drawing a table on the blackboard and
asked the children, ‘What kind of table shall we make?’ Teramoto-kun sug-
gested that she draw a table with two rows, one each for the left and right sides
of the videotape, but then Yoshioka-sensei asked another girl, Koide-san,
what she thought, and Koide-san suggested that there should be another row
for the number of minutes elapsed, to which Yoshioka-sensei said, ‘Yes, I
think so too.’ She went on to ask how the other two rows should be labelled,
and after Teramoto-kun had suggested ‘length’ or ‘metres’, Yoshioka-sensei
accepted another boy’s suggestion of ‘right’ and ‘left’. Mizutani-san, mean-
while, called out that she was going to use a line graph.
After the children had spent about five minutes working on their tables or
graphs, Yoshioka-sensei chose two boys from several volunteers to describe
their tables. She filled in tables drawn on the blackboard according to their
directions, drew a line graph like that of Mizutani-san, and finally held up
another boy’s bar graph and pointed out to the class how it showed the same
information in a different way – thus drawing the children’s attention to
different ways of investigating the same problem.
There remained a second problem in the ‘extras’ category, this one thought
up by a girl named Murata-san:
‘Masako-san and her younger sister are two years apart in age. Masako-
san is now 12 years old. As each year passes, how will the two girls’ ages
change?’
The children agreed that this problem should be put in the ‘increasing’
category.
Finally, Yoshioka-sensei told the children that each han should choose two
problems to investigate, emphasizing that they must write out the problems in
a way similar to the two that the class had looked at in that day’s lesson. She
120 Mathematical relationships
checked that the groups had not all chosen the same problems to investigate,
and then ended the lesson.3
and said, ‘I wonder if the way things increase will be the same in each group’s
problem? That’s what we’ll need to find out. Okay, first of all try doing it
on your own, and if you get stuck, ask someone in your group. I’ll give you
15 minutes.’
The children in the same han pushed their desks together and started work-
ing, each person copying out their group’s problem and then making a table
to express it. As they conferred, Yoshioka-sensei walked around looking at
their work and helping where necessary. She changed the values in one
group’s problem to make it easier for them. Once the children had finished
making tables individually, each of the eight groups drew a table on a large
piece of paper. They then fixed the problems and tables to the blackboard.
For three of the eight problems, a child from that group stood to explain the
table, while Yoshioka-sensei herself explained one table, and no explanation
was thought necessary for the remaining four problems.
Yoshioka-sensei then asked the children what they noticed about the way
Mathematical relationships 121
the values in the tables increased,5 in particular directing them to look at the
table made by group seven (Table 4.1), and saying that there should be two
things to notice. Group seven’s problem went as follows:
‘There is a pool whose capacity is 30 litres. Three litres of water enters the
pool in one minute. How will it change in one minute?’
Yoshioka-sensei also told the children they could look at the textbook for
help if they wished, and said that the values in the upper row of a table could
be called x, and those in the lower row, y. (This was the first time the textbook
had been mentioned since the unit began.) ‘Please start by saying things that
are simple and obvious.’ About six children raised their hands, and Yoshioka-
sensei then asked, ‘Who doesn’t feel confident about their ideas?’ More chil-
dren then raised their hands, and from these Yoshioka-sensei chose one boy
to say what he had noticed about group seven’s table. Several other children
then added their ideas:
‘x × 3 = y, y ÷ 3 = x.’
This last statement was offered by a boy named Fukao-kun, who was among
the better and more confident pupils at maths, and Yoshioka-sensei asked
him and then another able pupil, Mizutani-san, to explain to the class what
this equation meant. She next asked the class, ‘Who understands?’ and most
(though not all) raised their hands. Yoshioka-sensei then expanded on the
pupil insight that ‘x and y increase in proportion’, writing on the blackboard:
She told the class that in the next lesson, she wanted each group to look at the
problem it had made, and see if this statement applied to that problem.
Finally, the teacher handed out to the children a piece of paper on which
Time (minutes) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Volume of water (litres) 0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30
122 Mathematical relationships
they could record their reflections (furikaeri)6 about each lesson, including
what they had understood in the lesson and what they had learned from
others. On it they also evaluated their level of satisfaction (manzokudo) with a
number from 1 (low) to 5 (high). ‘If you didn’t understand something, write
that honestly,’ she told them. Most children evaluated the lesson with a 4.
‘What we noticed:
Time (minutes) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Volume of water (litres) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
124 Mathematical relationships
Yoshioka-sensei asked one of the boys in group two, Yamada-kun, to come
to the front and talk the class through these points. After the first point,
‘When x increases by 1, y also increases by 1’, she asked, ‘Is it right to think
that that’s the same as the first point about group seven’s table (“when x
increases by 1, y increases by 3”)?’ Many children called out, ‘Yes!’ and raised
their hands when Yoshioka-sensei asked who understood the meaning of her
question. However, then she went on, ‘But in group seven’s case, when x
increases by 1, y increases by 3, and in group two’s case, when x increases by
1, y increases by 1.’ The children were temporarily reduced to puzzled silence,
one saying, ‘They’re not the same’, and Yoshioka-sensei also saying, ‘They’re
not the same, are they?’ ‘I don’t understand how this problem gets to be like it
is,’ said one child. ‘We’re trying to investigate how things change,’ Yoshioka-
sensei reminded the class. ‘3 and 1 are different. Are we saying that the first
point about group seven’s table [“when x increases by 1, y increases by 3”]
doesn’t apply here? Is that what we’re saying? Really, is that true? Well,
Koide-san, what do you think? Does it apply?’ Koide-san insisted it did, but
couldn’t adequately explain why. Nor could Teramoto-kun when he tried.
Murata-san, the next to try, emphasized that the two tables were the same
because each was increasing ‘per go’ (zutsu). ‘Can you elaborate that a bit?’
asked Yoshioka-sensei. ‘What does this “per go” thing mean?’ She took
group five’s problem and table and fixed them to the blackboard, pointing
out that in this problem, y increased by 50 for every 1 that x increased. ‘It’s
totally different! Are you saying that this and this and this (pointing to the
three tables on the blackboard) are the same?’ ‘Right!’ replied a number of
children. ‘The numbers are totally different! What’s the same?’ Yoshioka-
sensei persisted. Teramoto-kun pointed out that the tables were increasing
‘in the same way’, and another boy, Okinaka-kun, said that ‘the top row
and the bottom row move together’. After three more boys had tried to
explain, Yoshioka-sensei said again, ‘You admit that these numbers are dif-
ferent.’ ‘Yes,’ said many children. ‘So who thinks they understand that the
meaning is the same?’ A number of children raised their hands, but by no
means all. ‘Maybe we need to go on a bit before we can understand,’ said
Yoshioka-sensei. ‘Let’s go on to point two.’ Yamada-kun read the second
point:
‘Well, this one’s different from the other groups’ tables, too!’ Yoshioka-sensei
said. Many children called out in protest, insisting that they were the same.
Yamada-kun continued reading the points. At the fourth point,
Yoshioka-sensei said, ‘Ah, this one’s the same for all the tables. At last!’ And
when Yamada-kun reached the sixth point,
Mathematical relationships 125
‘When x decreases to ¹⁄³ (¼), y also decreases to ¹⁄³ (¼),’
it was also agreed to be true of both group two’s and group seven’s tables.
Yoshioka-sensei then asked all the groups to stick their problems, tables,
and points they had noticed to the blackboard. She drew the children’s
attention to group three’s work, which had produced results quite different
from those of the other groups. Group three’s problem concerned two
brothers, originally aged 13 and 11, whose ages would change as they got
older (Table 4.3).
Group three had noted that the points found by group seven did not
apply at all to their table. Rather, when the age of the older brother was
taken to be x and that of the younger brother y, they found the following
points:
Yoshioka-sensei pointed out that group three’s problem did have one point in
common with that of group two – in both cases, it was true that ‘when x
increases by 1, y also increases by 1’. Otherwise, she confirmed what group
three had noted, comparing their table with the four points written on the
blackboard. She noted, for example, that in this case, it was not true that
‘when x increases 3 (4) times, y also increases 3 (4) times’. Whereas the other
problems they had looked at had been similar (niteiru), this one was quite
different.
Next Yoshioka-sensei took group eight’s problem and table (Table 4.4),
which read as follows:
Speed (kph) 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95
Distance (km) 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95
126 Mathematical relationships
It is clear that this problem is really a non-problem, since the distance is
actually included in the definition of the speed, but Yoshioka-sensei did not
point this out. One boy in group eight stood up and explained that some of
the rules found in other groups applied to this problem, but others did not.
‘This one has some features that are close to other problems, but some differ-
ent features too,’ Yoshioka-sensei commented. She allowed the last two
groups to bring up their problems, pointing out that their results were very
similar to those of group seven, and then had the class consider all the
problems as a whole. Were they the same, similar, different? As before,
many children insisted that most of the problems were ‘the same’ (issho), but
Yoshioka-sensei insisted in turn that she still didn’t know what they meant by
‘the same’. She suggested that in any case, group three’s problem was quite
different to the others, while group eight’s was close to the majority though a
little different. ‘How shall we investigate next?’ she went on. ‘With graphs,’
many children called out. ‘So, if the shape of the graph is the same, the
problems are similar?’ Yoshioka-sensei suggested. ‘You have all been saying
that the problems are the same – so shall we accept that they are the same if
they have the same kind of shape?’ ‘Right!’ several children called out. ‘Okay,
next lesson we’ll do graphs,’ Yoshioka-sensei agreed, and brought the lesson
to an end.
Figure 4.2 Children explaining to the class in 6–3’s maths lesson at Nakamachi, 24
November 1995.
128 Mathematical relationships
which she had brought into the classroom because the main blackboard no
longer had space left on it. Sato-kun explained that in the case of the prob-
lems made by the majority of groups, y would result if you multiplied x by
something. ‘Why did you say “something” (nanika)?’ Yoshioka-sensei asked.
Sato-kun explained that the exact number was different in various problems.
In the case of the problems made by groups three and eight, however, he
went on, even if you multiplied x by something, y would not result. ‘Won-
derful,’ Yoshioka-sensei said. She recapitulated, and then asked who had
understood. This time almost all the children raised their hands. The teacher
then asked if they could say anything else about the differences. Various
children volunteered answers, pointing out that in the ‘red problems’, y
would increase by the same multiple as x, whereas this was not true of the
‘yellow problems’, and that the ‘red problems’ could be explained by multi-
plication and division, whereas the ‘yellow problems’ were explained by add-
ition and subtraction. Yoshioka-sensei wrote this on the blackboard and
told the children to write down in their lesson reflections what they had
understood.
‘2. When you buy x apples costing 100 yen each, the price is y yen.’
‘3. When you share 5 dl of juice between your older sister and your
younger brother, your sister’s share is x dl and your brother’s is y dl.’
She told the children to choose two problems and investigate whether the five
rules they had discovered about group seven’s problem applied, and whether
the problems they chose belonged to the ‘red group’ or the ‘yellow group’. If
they had enough time, they could do three problems, and it was all right to do
just one, but important to do it thoroughly right to the end. She then fixed the
four new problems to the blackboard and had the students read them aloud
before letting them choose the two they wanted to do. Most chose problems 1
and 2, with few choosing 3 and 4. Some – especially Mizutani-san and
Fukao-kun – completed problems very quickly and seemed to enjoy doing so.
When they went to collect their fourth problem after spending about four
minutes apiece on the first three, Yoshioka-sensei commented to the class that
the aim was not to do lots of problems, but to do the problems carefully.
Pupils freely consulted one another as they worked.
After twenty minutes, Yoshioka-sensei stopped the children for a whole-
class session. Each problem was projected on to a screen, and Yoshioka-
sensei asked for volunteers to come to the front and explain how they did it
and what they understood (wakatta koto). They also gave the appropriate
equations to express the mathematical relationships involved. It was agreed
that all of the problems could be explained by multiplication and division
and thus belonged to the ‘red’ group, with the exception of No. 3, which
used addition and subtraction. Teramoto-kun pointed out that No. 3
resembled the videotape problem they had examined in the third lesson, with
x increasing as y decreased.
The two girls who explained No. 4 had used decimals in their answers, and
Yoshioka-sensei pointed out that it was okay to use decimals in other prob-
lems when appropriate, though there could be practical considerations –
apples were not usually sold in halves, for example. She then had the children
write their lesson reflections.
130 Mathematical relationships
Lesson 9 (Monday 27 November 1995, 8.59–9.28 a.m.: 29 minutes)
Lesson 9 began with a whole-class session during which the teacher checked
that the children remembered how to draw graphs. After a session of indi-
vidual work, during which children drew graphs to investigate their group
problems, there was a short whole-class session to share what could be under-
stood from the graphs. One-quarter of the lesson was individual work, and
three-quarters was whole-class work.
Yoshioka-sensei told the class that today they would do graphs, investigat-
ing their group problems further. She asked what kind of graphs there were,
and what kind the children thought would be best for investigating how
things changed. Several children suggested that line graphs would be best,
and Yoshioka-sensei agreed. ‘Let’s check you remember how to make one,’
she went on, drawing the x and y axes for the swimming pool problem on the
blackboard and then asking the children what numbers they would put in
along the axes. When Funada-kun suggested numbering both axes 1, 2, 3, 4
and so on, Yoshioka-sensei pointed out that since the numbers had to go up
to 30, there would be insufficient room. Mizutani-san then suggested number-
ing the axis 3, 6, 9 and so on, which the teacher accepted, though pointing out
that it was unusual to count in threes.
The children then worked on graphs individually for about seven or eight
minutes, after which Yoshioka-sensei stopped them and asked them to tell the
class something they could see from looking at the graph. ‘Something really
simple and obvious is fine.’ A boy named Iwata-kun volunteered that his
graph went up in a diagonal straight line starting from 0. Yoshioka-sensei
asked if everyone else had found the same, and other children agreed they
had. The teacher then concluded the lesson, saying that they would continue
finding points next time.
Okinaka-kun pointed out that the line did not start at 0 (it started at x = 1,
y = 3). Mizutani-san further pointed out that there was no 0 on the group’s
table either. The children voiced some dissatisfaction with the graph’s not
starting from 0, and Yoshioka-sensei asked them whether they thought this
graph was all right, pointing out that in all the other graphs, the line passed
through 0. ‘Do you think it needs to go through 0 or not?’ Opinions were
given both ways. Fukuda-kun, whose group had drawn the graph, suggested
that while their graph might need to go through 0, there might be graphs
where the line didn’t need to go through 0. ‘I wonder what kind of graphs
might not need it,’ Yoshioka-sensei said. ‘So, you forgot to have it start from
0, did you? What do you say, Murata-san?’ Murata-san, one of Fukuda-kun’s
fellow group members, said that the group had decided they did need to
start the line from 0, since a little water would enter the receptacle in the
problem even in the first minute. ‘Who understands what she’s saying? She
expressed that well, didn’t she?’ said Yoshioka-sensei. ‘Who can say the
same thing?’ Another girl raised her hand and expressed the same point in a
slightly different way. Yoshioka-sensei agreed that the water was not going to
suddenly start building up from a level of 3 cm once the tap was turned on.
She pointed out that though they had only plotted points at one-minute
intervals, in reality one could think of there being other points at smaller
intervals along the line. ‘So after all, we want the line to go through 0,’ she
concluded.
Next Yoshioka-sensei showed the class the graph drawn by group three
(Figure 4.6), the group whose problem, about two brothers with different
ages, had not yielded equations of multiplication and division, but of addition
and subtraction.
‘Look for the difference,’ she told the class, holding up the graph together
with that made by another group, and giving the students some time to look
at the two. ‘Who understands the difference?’ she asked, and a number of
children enthusiastically raised their hands and called out that they did.
‘Differences are important, you know, even really simple things,’ Yoshioka-
sensei emphasized, continuing to show the two graphs to the class. Once
Mathematical relationships 133
quite a lot of students had raised their hands, she chose Funada-kun to
answer, and he pointed out that group three’s graph about the two brothers
‘started from 2’. ‘Eh? It starts from 0,’ Yoshioka-sensei said. ‘From 0 and 2,’
Funada-kun corrected himself. Yoshioka-sensei asked Yamada-kun to try to
say the same point, but he was unable to improve on Funada-kun’s wording,
which Yoshioka-sensei obviously felt was not completely adequate. She
pointed out that one really had to look at the point before the younger
brother was born, to which Mizutani-san’s response was, ‘minus 2’. ‘Great,’
said Yoshioka-sensei, ‘That you’ll study at junior high school. If we knew
about the world of minuses, then it would become minus 1, minus 2. We don’t
touch on the world of minuses in primary school.’ She pointed out that
looking at both group three’s table and their graph showed that their problem
belonged in a different group to the problems the other groups had made, and
that in the next lesson she’d have them learn the name for the way things
changed in these problems.
Yoshioka-sensei then returned to the graph, saying that just as one could
make a graph from a table, so one should be able to do the reverse and look
for a table or for numbers from a graph. ‘For example,’ she said, ‘if you had
no table, and you wanted to know how much y was when x was 3, how would
you look for it? In other words, in terms of group seven’s problem, if you
wanted to know how much water had entered the pool after 3 minutes?’ A few
children raised their hands, and Yoshioka-sensei asked Shimura-kun to come
to the front and explain. However, he could not actually use the graph to get
his answer, so Yoshioka-sensei asked another volunteer, Fujisaki-kun, to try
instead. Fujisaki-kun showed how the correct answer (9) could be derived
from the graph by drawing a vertical line from the x axis to the line of the
graph (marked in red) and then a horizontal line across from the line of the
graph to the y axis. Protests from some other children that ‘that red line isn’t
in the graph originally, so how can you use it?’ alerted Yoshioka-sensei to
the fact that a number of children – including some of the more able ones
– mistakenly thought that the word ‘graph’ (gurafu) referred to graph
paper, rather than to the mathematical graph itself, and there was a minor
134 Mathematical relationships
uproar when the children discovered their mistake. To check that they now
understood properly, Yoshioka-sensei asked what the value of y would be
when x was 4.5, a number not in the table that group seven had made. Point-
ing at the table that group seven had made, she showed the class how one
could estimate the answer from the table, since it showed that when x was 4, y
was 12, and when x was 5, y was 15. Only a few children raised their hands
offering to find the answer from the graph, however, and Yoshioka-sensei
chose Murata-san, who came to the front and used the graph on the black-
board to show how one could trace a line up from 4.5 on the x axis to the
graph line, and then from that line across to the y axis. Yoshioka-sensei then
drew lines in with chalk, and some students called out the answer (13.5). Soon
after this Yoshioka-sensei ended the lesson.
‘When you connect x and y, you find the position of the point on the
graph.’
‘When you go up from the position of x axis to the graph line and then go
across to the y axis, you find the value of y.’
Mathematical relationships 135
‘The rules don’t change, the only things that change are certain numbers.’
Yoshioka-sensei reminded the children that they had learned this before when
studying ratio (hi). She then gave the class a further problem:
‘A hose costs 150 yen for 1 metre. Express the relationship of the length
of the hose and its cost with an equation and a graph.’
She suggested that they would need to write the equation first, and then make
a table before drawing the graph. The class spent the last ten minutes working
on this problem, while Yoshioka-sensei walked around looking at their work
and helping them where necessary. Few seemed to be having problems. Later,
Yoshioka-sensei assigned two pages of the textbook as homework.
‘There are two iron sheets of the same thickness but different shapes. One
is rectangular, with sides of 6 cm and 10 cm, and weighs 120 grams. The
other is an irregular shape and weighs 300 grams.’
‘We want to find the area of the second sheet,’ said Yoshioka-sensei. ‘How
can we do that? Here’s a hint – the thickness is the same, and the two iron
sheets are of the same type.’ The children started thinking, with some discus-
sion. Yoshioka-sensei told them that Okinaka-kun had said something useful
– that one could put the smaller sheet inside the bigger sheet. ‘I understand!’
said Mizutani-san and a few others. As Iwata-kun and Mizutani-san bounced
up and down with excitement, Yoshioka-sensei asked what ways the class had
thought of for tackling the problem. Iwata-kun pointed out that 300 g × 2 =
600 g, and 120 g × 5 = 600 g; from this, one could work out the area of the
second sheet. Koide-san pointed out that the first sheet’s ratio of weight to
area was 120 : 60, or 2 : 1, and since the two sheets had the same ratio of
weight to area, one could use that information to work out the area of the
136 Mathematical relationships
second sheet. Teramoto-kun expressed the same idea in the form of an
equation: x/300 = 1/2. Another boy, Shimura-kun, pointed out that the areas
of the two sheets should be in the same proportion as their weights: 300 ÷ 120
= 2.5. ‘Ah, so there are various ways of doing the problem,’ commented
Yoshioka-sensei, suggesting that Shimura-kun’s way might be the easiest to
understand. She then brought the lesson to an end.
1. 10 ÷ 2 = 5
100 × 5 = 500
Mathematical relationships 137
2. Multiples of 2
2g ×2 100 cm2
×3
×4
×5 × 5 times
10 500
3. 2 : 10 = 1 : 5 → 1/5 10 : 2 = 5 : 1 → 5/1 = 5
She then reiterated that if the materials – the conditions – were the same, it
would possible to compare, and asked, ‘Who found proportion in this prob-
lem?’ Five children raised their hands. Yoshioka-sensei then asked the chil-
dren to think of characteristics of proportion that they could find in the
problem. She then asked what the area of the paper would be if its weight was
1 gram. Eight children raised their hands. Yoshioka-sensei then removed the
piece of paper labelled 10 grams, leaving the one labelled 2 grams – at which
most though not all children raised their hands. The boy whom Yoshioka-
sensei chose to answer said, ‘50 cm2,’ and she then asked, ‘Okay, where did
you find proportion?’ choosing another boy from the volunteers to answer.
He explained that if x increases twice or three times, then y also increases
twice or three times, and in this case, if you multiply 1 gram by 10, you get
10 grams, while if you multiply 50 grams by 10, you get 500 grams. ‘Right,’
said Yoshioka-sensei. ‘So with this, you could make a table, a graph, and an
equation. This time, I’d just like you to produce an equation.’ After a little
while, she wrote on the blackboard:
y=䊊×x
However, a little while later she commented that since a lot of people seemed
to be having trouble with the equation, they would try making a table. She
drew one on the blackboard and then asked Fukao-kun to fill in the figures
(Table 4.5).
‘It will be good if we can write the equation,’ she commented. ‘How many
have done one?’ About ten children raised their hands, which rather dismayed
Yoshioka-sensei, who remarked, ‘Where has all that study of proportion
gone?’ However, when she walked around the class she discovered that in fact
138 Mathematical relationships
xg 1 2 3 4
y cm2 50 100 150 200
most children had written the correct equation (y = 50 × x), though only
about ten had had enough confidence in its correctness to admit to it.
Reiterating again that one could only do this comparison if the conditions
were the same – for example, if one had two pieces of the same kind of paper
– Yoshioka-sensei then gave the children another problem, which she said was
usually in the textbook (though not that year). Writing the problem on the
blackboard, she explained that there is a big tree whose height you want to
know. How do you work it out? Teramoto-kun suggested, ‘The shadow.’
Yoshioka-sensei then drew the tree on the blackboard and explained that if at
12 noon you were to measure the shadow of a rod whose height you knew,
and then measured the shadow of the tree, you would be able to work out the
height of the tree. She then had Funada-kun explain the reason to the class,
and when she asked at the end of the explanation how many people under-
stand it, almost all the children raised their hands. No doubt prompted by the
diagrams of the tree and the rod on the blackboard, Yoshioka-sensei pointed
out to the children that making a reduced drawing (shukuzu) was the same
idea as ratio and proportion.
Next Yoshioka-sensei returned to the problem of the two iron sheets, which
was still written up on the main blackboard, and said, ‘Okay, let’s get the
answer to this problem.’ She asked the four children who had suggested
different methods of solving the problem in the previous lesson to each work
out the problem using their own method. First was Shimura-kun:
300 : x = 2 : 1
7 × 700 = 4,900
700 ÷ 140 = 5
¥980 × 5 = 4,900
She asked who had used each method; most children had used the second
method, with one or two using the first, and Teramoto-kun yet another
method. This was the end of the lesson and the unit.
Figure 4.7 Children in 6–1 at Nakamachi looking at graphs made by different small
groups.
Mathematical relationships 141
problems in groups or individually, and the children preferred individual
work. This took up the sixth lesson. In the seventh, eighth and ninth lessons,
there were whole-class sessions in which the children reported the rules they
had found and discussed the results, with Sanada-sensei introducing and
defining the term ‘proportion’ in lesson eight, and discussion of whether the
problems displayed proportion or not in lesson nine.
At the end of lesson nine, Sanada-sensei told the class that while all the
problems they had been investigating over four lessons displayed proportion,
there were differences between them too. In lessons ten and eleven, therefore,
the class used the graphs and tables they had made to try to work out these
differences. These lessons were divided between group work and whole-class
work. The children worked out for themselves that one can use decimals in
some problems but only integers in others, while Sanada-sensei had to draw
to their attention that in some problems, such as those involving containers
of limited capacity, there was a necessary limit to the values involved that
needed to be shown in a graph, whereas other problems had no necessary
limit.
In lesson thirteen, Sanada-sensei introduced the problem of the two metal
sheets that 6–3 had also examined. The class then spent the best part of four
lessons investigating this problem in groups, using tables or graphs, and then,
as a whole class, discussing various ways of tackling it. In total, 16 lessons
over almost a month were devoted to the unit.
Conclusion
Sixth year teachers at Nakamachi approached the teaching of mathematics
with a combination of long-standing aims, and newer aims that have arisen in
the context of the educational reform programme. They wanted children in
their classes to understand the mathematics they studied, but they also
wanted them to develop the ability to study in an independent, self-directed
way. In the terms of Edwards and Mercer (1987), the understanding they
aimed at was not ‘procedural’ but ‘principled’. To that end, they acted as
‘learning managers’, avoiding closed, factual questions, fragmentation of
learning, and close teacher control, in favour of larger, more challenging
questions and investigation and discussion by pupils. In this, they were teach-
ing in a way that has previously been observed in Japanese public primary
classrooms from the mid-1980s on by Stevenson and Stigler (1992), Lewis
(1995), and Whitburn (2000). The accumulation of studies at different times
and in different parts of Japan gives confidence that this mode of mathematics
Mathematical relationships 149
teaching is widespread and long-standing in Japanese primary education;
there is every indication that it represents the mainstream mode.
In order to promote independent, self-directed learning, Yoshioka-sensei
and Saneda-sensei let children in their classes devise their own problems for
mathematical investigation, and also allowed them a significant role in decid-
ing how to investigate the problems. Besides achieving the aim of developing
children’s autonomy for its own sake, these practices are also consistent with
the approaches to maths learning advocated by situated learning theorists
such as Lave (1988), and constructivists such as Jaworski (1994). Teachers
also recognized individual differences in children’s learning by encouraging
them to share a variety of approaches to solving the same problem, so that
children could appreciate this diversity and feel comfortable about using
whichever method suited them best. In this sense, the Nakamachi maths
lessons promoted individuality as well as autonomy. However, the basic
teaching approach, whereby the whole class came together to think about and
discuss problems, did place some limits on the degree to which individuality
and autonomy could be developed. Had children pursued their own math-
ematical interests without regard for what their classmates were doing, it
would probably have become difficult to hold meaningful whole-class ses-
sions. The importance attached by Nakamachi teachers to children’s learning
from one another meant that this was not a practical option.
The value that teachers place on children’s learning from one another is
connected to pedagogical conceptualizations of the nature of learning. There
is nothing intrinsically ‘Japanese’ about these conceptualizations; however,
the common Japanese disposition to see humans as interdependent, and the
view of the class group as a small community whose members help one
another, are certainly likely to make Japanese primary teachers receptive to
such ideas. In this sense, we can see a link between Japanese understandings
of selfhood, and the pedagogical approaches adopted in primary classrooms,
including mathematics classrooms. At the same time, Japanese understand-
ings of selfhood are multifaceted and various, as pointed out in Chapter 1,
and autonomy, individuality, and self-reliance are also valued alongside
interdependence. This makes possible the kind of shift towards greater
emphasis on individual self-direction seen at Nakamachi, and also means
that larger moves in this direction are possible. It needs to be remembered
that the importance of learning from one another diminishes greatly in
Japanese secondary classrooms, whose dominant pedagogy is much closer
to an individually-oriented transmission model (Rohlen, 1983; Fukuzawa,
1994).8 I would argue that Japanese primary teachers do not only value chil-
dren’s learning from one another because of dispositions towards certain
understandings of selfhood, but also because this pedagogical approach has
become strongly entrenched within the primary education system – an system
that is, for practical purposes, an almost entirely separate institution from the
secondary education system in terms of both teaching and personnel. Even
more than culturally significant views of selfhood, institutionally dominant
150 Mathematical relationships
understandings of pedagogy and human development create significant
resistance to pedagogical approaches that assign little or no role to learning
from one another.
The implications of this are that while culturally specific dispositions in the
understanding of human selfhood may make Japanese primary teachers more
receptive to sociocultural pedagogy, such dispositions are themselves not suf-
ficient to determine whether this or any other type of pedagogy will become
established in schools. In other words, sociocultural pedagogy is not cultur-
ally specific, though its reception may be affected to some degree by local
understandings of human selfhood. In fact, the studies of researchers such as
Jaworski and Boaler show striking resemblances between the approaches to
maths teaching in some British schools and that of Japanese schools such as
Nakamachi. That the British schools appear to prefer an approach focused
on small groups, with more freedom for individual exploration, while the
teachers at Nakamachi remained committed to the value of learning as a
whole class, probably does stem in part from different views of human self-
hood in the two societies at this historical moment. Yet, given that within
both societies there is appreciation both of the value of the individual and of
the significance of human interdependence, it is not difficult to envisage the
justification of future pedagogical shifts through a change in the emphasis
given to one part of the society’s understanding of selfhood over another.
Indeed, it can be argued that the kind of shift in approach seen at Nakamachi
is an example of just such a process.
Notes
1 A number of time clashes between lessons that I was observing in 6–3, and maths
lessons in 6–1, made it impossible to watch all the 6–1 lessons. However, there was
also an advantage to watching a sequence of lessons that were not planned with a
research lesson in view, since such a sequence is inevitably given special attention by
the teacher and is, in this sense, uncharacteristic.
2 As noted in Chapter 2, nakama does not literally mean a ‘family group’, but a
‘group whose members belong together’. ‘Family group’ is used here as an idiomatic
English equivalent.
3 In a later interview on 22 December 1995, Yoshioka-sensei told me that she also
told the students just to make problems in which both values were increasing, so
that the whole class would have this in common. I did not realize this at the time of
the lesson. Yoshioka-sensei also noted in this interview that she had dealt with other
types of problem (e.g. with both values decreasing, or one increasing and one
decreasing) in the following unit on inverse proportion (hanpirei).
4 I missed all but the final 20 minutes of this lesson, as I had agreed to a request from
the principal to help with interpretation for some American exchange students
who were visiting the school. The first part of the lesson is therefore as described
afterwards by Yoshioka-sensei; also, timings for the lesson cannot be given.
5 This translation makes Yoshioka-sensei’s question sound more precise and tech-
nical than it actually was. In Japanese, she merely asked the students what they
noticed about the ‘way of increasing’ (fuekata) without specifying what was
increasing.
Mathematical relationships 151
6 Furikaeri literally means ‘looking back’ or ‘reflecting’.
7 Unfortunately I did not manage to copy down the working for these last two
methods while I was taking notes on the lesson.
8 According to the research of Stigler and Hiebert (1999), students at junior high do
continue to learn from one another in maths lessons, as the teacher will often ask
several students to present different solutions to a problem. Their focus on maths
lessons may have enabled them to observe practices missed by Fukuzawa. However,
my own observation of junior high maths lessons in Japan indicates that while
students may continue to learn from one another’s presentations, they volunteer
comments and take an active part in class discussion much less than in primary
school.
5 Learning gender
Children’s play
During breaks between lessons, children at Nakamachi and Morikawa could
be seen playing all sorts of games, either outside in the playground, in the
gym, or in the classrooms and corridors. Some of these games, especially
skipping and chasing games, seemed very popular with boys and girls alike;
there was usually a tendency for such games to be more popular among one
gender than the other, but individual preferences seemed to play at least as
Learning gender 163
Figure 5.3 Children at Morikawa playing at keeping the volleyball in the air.
Conclusion
Practices at Nakamachi and Morikawa helped to maintain or strengthen
gender categories in significant ways. On the institutional level, boys and girls
were differentiated by the use of separate toilets, separate lists on the class
register, and certain items of clothing, such as indoor shoes and safety hats.
Differentiated gender roles were also reinforced by holding consultations
between teachers and parents during the day, when many fathers were at
work. The schools were also obliged to use textbooks that other research
(Kameda, 1995; Ushiyama, 2005a; 2005b) has shown perpetuate conventional
gender representations.
Classroom practices revealed the difficulties that teachers faced in dealing
Learning gender 171
with questions of gender, especially in relation to issues of individuality,
choice, and the encouragement of autonomy in children. Teachers at both
schools were keen to encourage children to develop the ability to act autono-
mously and make their own decisions. They also wanted them to participate
actively in lessons. However, in practice, giving children choice about issues
such as seating tended to result in greater gender segregation, while encour-
aging children to speak out in class spontaneously resulted in more boys’
than girls’ voices being heard. Teachers dealt with these dilemmas in various
ways; in most cases, they ensured that boys and girls were seated in mixed-
gender pairs, avoiding gender segregation, but on the other hand, they gener-
ally preferred to let children speak out freely in class, even when this resulted
in a preponderance of boys’ voices. It seemed that giving children more
choice and more freedom of action actually resulted in the strengthening of
gender categories: as Davies and Kasama (2004: 99, 102) have pointed out,
discourses that emphasize the individual can work to advantage those who
are strong, dominant, or even oppressive. In the class within which gender
relations were best, 6–3 at Nakamachi, there were strong emphases on think-
ing for oneself (not just being swayed by others), as well as on the idea of the
whole class being nakama, and this dual emphasis may well have contributed
to the relatively good gender relations within the class. Indeed, girls and boys
were ready to play together at least some of the time in many classes observed
at both schools, and this may also indicate that the emphasis on the whole
class group that is normal in Japanese primary schools went some way to
combating gender segregation.17
As I noted at the start of this chapter, most writing on gender and educa-
tion in Japan has been critical of Japanese schooling practices. Based on
observations at Nakamachi and Morikawa, I would agree that Japanese
primary schools could do more to reduce gender differentiation, and to free
children from those aspects of gender that are oppressive. At the same time, I
would argue strongly that in many respects, primary schools like Nakamachi
and Morikawa do already provide an environment with far less emphasis on
differentiated gender identity than is apparent in the wider Japanese society.18
Teachers at the schools did genuinely strive to treat children equally, and
refrained from many practices that reinforce gender, such as customary use of
gender discourse or the reservation of large parts of the playground for
games dominated by boys. Moreover, as I have described, many of the prac-
tices and identity markers that differentiated boys and girls came from the
children themselves, in the form of the games they chose to play, the material
culture they brought to school, and the choices they made about speaking or
not speaking in class. Stepping outside the school gates quickly brought an
acute appreciation of how strongly gendered the world beyond the school
was, with items such as clothes, toys, and comics explicitly marked as for girls
or boys, and with all sorts of material culture items, such as stationery,
designed to be conventionally masculine or feminine. As many authors have
shown, the development of gender identity dates from children’s earliest
172 Learning gender
years. All this indicates that Japanese primary schools face a complex and
difficult task if they are to make serious headway in further reducing gender
differentiation and weakening gender identity and its effects. In the mean-
time, however, we should consider whether, rather than inculcating con-
ventional gender identities, Japan’s primary schools largely offer children an
alternative experience, of a life in which gender is relatively unimportant in
determining what people do and become.
Notes
1 In a personal communication, Glenda Roberts has told me of encountering
expectations among female university students that there would be relative gender
equality in the workplace.
2 2005 was the first time when Cabinet Office survey respondents opposing the
statement ‘men should work outside, and women look after the home’ out-
numbered those who agreed, by 48.9 per cent to 45.2 per cent (Asahi Shinbun,
2005).
3 It is true that the percentages of female principals at each level have roughly
doubled compared to ten years before (Monbushō, 1996a), but the figures are
still not impressive, considering that the proportion of teachers who are women is
65 per cent at primary level, 41 per cent at junior high level, and 26 per cent at high
school level.
4 Textbooks are produced by commercial publishers, though inspected and approved
for school use by the Ministry of Education.
5 I am not aware of any statistics about the prevalence of school uniforms in Japan,
but my own impression from literature, school visits, casual observation and the
media is that nationwide, uniforms are much less commonly worn at primary
school than at junior high or kindergarten. Uniforms were not worn at any of the
six Sakura primary schools that I have visited since 1994.
6 However, at the adjacent primary school, Ishida, all children wore indoor shoes
with a yellow trim, without any gender distinction. On my 2004 visit to Morikawa,
the Head of Academic Administration, Imai-sensei, showed some embarrassment
about the distinction at his school, commenting that it was not really appropriate.
7 According to Kimura (1999: 34), a 1993 survey by the Japan Teachers’ Union
indicated that only 20 per cent of primary schools and 8 per cent of junior high
schools used non-gendered class registers at that time. However, since then the
issue has been the subject of significant initiatives and agitation, as seen from the
websites of both local governments and right-wing pressure groups (the latter
concerned about the spread of non-gendered registers). There are a number of
areas where the use of non-gendered registers is reported to have become wide-
spread, often, it seems, resulting from efforts by prefectural and local boards of
education (Murao, 2003): such areas include Kochi Prefecture, where usage was
reported at 100 per cent in 2005 (Kochi-ken, 2005), Niigata Prefecture, where
usage was 98 per cent at primary schools and 69 per cent at junior high schools in
2005 (Niigata-ken, 2006), Chiba Prefecture, where usage was 87 per cent in pri-
mary schools and 64 per cent in junior high schools in 2005 (Chiba-ken, 2005), and
Saitama Prefecture, where 79 per cent of primary schools and 69 per cent of junior
high schools were using non-gendered registers in 2004 (Saitama-ken, 2004). It
may be, however, that only prefectures that have promoted non-gendered registers
report such figures, in which case the national figure might be significantly lower.
8 However, it was interesting to see that in class 6–3 at Nakamachi, which had 16
boys and only 10 girls, the last three boys in the register joined the end of the ‘girls’
Learning gender 173
line’ on ceremonial occasions in order to make two lines of equal length (13
children each).
9 No such consultation took place while I was at Morikawa.
10 In her study of a Saitama primary school during 1989–90, Benjamin (1997: 41)
notes that some classes seated boys and girls in pairs, while others did not. In the
Tokyo primary schools studied by Whitburn in 1995–96, first and second year
children were seated in mixed-gender pairs as far as possible (Whitburn, 2000:
173). At Nakamachi and Morikawa, children were divided into different small
groups for science lessons; these were also mixed-gender.
11 In some classes observed, no pupils were recorded as speaking out to the whole
class, because the lesson was comprised of individual work or group work. It must
also be remembered that most of the classes observed were in the three subjects of
Japanese, maths, and social studies, with one or two classes of home economics
(katei) ethics (dōtoku) and class activities (gakkyū katsudō or gakkatsu).
12 Dodgeball is a familiar game in some but not all parts of the world. It involves two
teams of any number of players, each of which is confined to half of a rectangular
pitch. Players throw a volleyball at members of the opposite team; if you are hit
by the ball, and fail to hold on to it, you are out. The team that eliminates all
members of the opposition wins.
13 The game called ‘cops and robbers’ by Sakura children has similarities to
‘Relievo’, as described by the Opies (1969: 172–4). Children are divided into two
teams, the ‘cops’ (keisatsu or tantei) and the ‘robbers’ (dorobō). The cops chase the
robbers; if a cop touches a robber, the robber must go to the ‘prison’, a marked-off
area, guarded by one of the cops. A robber in the prison can be released if another
robber who is still on the loose manages to touch him or her. The cops win if they
manage to get all the robbers into the prison.
14 In this game, the person who is ‘it’ hides his eyes, and the others have to get as close
to him as they can during the time it takes him to say ‘daruma-san ga koronda’ (the
daruma doll fell over). Immediately he finishes saying this, he looks up, and any-
one he sees moving has to go and link hands with him or with someone else
already caught. This is repeated until someone gets close enough to touch him or
one of those linking hands with him, at which point everyone runs away while the
person who is ‘it’ counts to 10 and then shouts ‘stop!’ He can then take as many
paces as there are syllables in a person’s name (e.g. four for ‘Ki-ta-ga-wa’) to try to
touch that person and make them ‘it’.
15 During the two class snowball fights, the 6–3 girls also participated less actively
than the boys. The class was organized into two teams (not on gender lines), and it
was noticeable on the first occasion that all the girls stood in a line, rather apart
from the boys and from the main scene of the action. The boys were much more
mobile and took part much more enthusiastically. The next day the girls took part
more actively, though still less enthusiastically than the boys.
16 Kokoro no nōto literally means ‘notebook of the heart’. It is common for Japanese
primary teachers, at least in the upper years, to give each child an exercise book in
which they can write about what is going on in their lives for the teacher to read.
This is a way for the teacher to understand them and communicate with them
better. Kokoro no nōto is a common term for such books.
17 Davies and Kasama (2004: 90–4) have also argued that showing dominance and
leadership in a responsible way that involves caring for others is seen as more
legitimate in Japanese than Australian education, and they suggest that this may
make it easier for boys in Japan to take on an identity that combines strength and
dominance with the role of good citizen.
18 Gender differentiation may increase to some extent at junior high and high school
levels; for example, most junior high and high schools in Japan enforce the wearing
of gendered uniforms, and many school sports clubs are also divided along gender
174 Learning gender
lines, with some reinforcing traditional gender stereotypes (Blackwood, 2003,
2007). Junior high and high school teachers are subject specialists, and this may
lead to some subjects becoming associated mainly with male teachers, and others
with female teachers (Kimura, 1999: 33). Gendered class registers are more com-
mon at junior high than at primary level (see note 7 above). Moreover, at high
school level, 30 per cent of students attend private schools (Monbukagakushō,
2006), many of which are single-sex. According to Kimura (1999: 44), about 20 per
cent of high school students attend single-sex schools. However, even at these
levels there are no gendered differences in the design of the national curriculum.
More research is needed on gender in Japanese secondary education.
6 Ceremonial creations
Figure 6.1 Cards recording memories and the number of days remaining until gradu-
ation, hung in the classroom of 6–2 at Morikawa.
180 Ceremonial creations
However, in a later interview, Yoshioka-sensei told me that she had banned
sain-chō in her class, on the grounds that some children would receive a lot
and others very few. Instead, each child in the class wrote a letter to each
other child, so that all children received an equal number of letters. This
approach was clearly more in harmony with Yoshioka-sensei’s approach to
the class as nakama. The difference between her class and the Morikawa
classes in this regard illustrated the variation in teachers’ practices within a
common paradigm. Yoshioka-sensei’s approach diminished the children’s
autonomy in one sense, but arguably forced them to think more carefully
about the other children in the class; and by substituting a letter, whose
content was decided by each individual, for the formulaic sain-chō, it poten-
tially gave more scope for children’s individuality to emerge.
Seki-kun: The long time we have lived at primary school will soon
end
Okabe-kun: We who will advance to the new path called junior high
school
Kimoto-kun: Our dreams become bigger with each day that passes
Inada-kun: The power with which we tackled this year as leaders
Minami-kun: We want to show at junior high school too
Yamada-kun: And the rucksacks on our backs are packed full of
memories
Ogi-san: The sports day, the school trip, the mixed-age activities
Machida-san: So many memories. And
Teramoto-kun: The days we passed looking at the figures of our friends
(nakama) come floating to our minds
All: Come floating to our minds
Ceremonial creations 183
The recital then moved on to recollections of each year the children had spent
at school, with many references to the love shown by their parents – though
mothers received more mentions than fathers – and culminating in thanks
to them:
The next section was entitled ‘Thank you to our friends (nakama)’, and spoke
of how they had helped one another during their school life, with the longest
mention going to the human pyramids at the sports day:
Finally, each teacher with whom the children had interacted, as well as the
janitor and the cooks, were individually thanked by name for specific teach-
ing, help and support they had given, before the recitation ended by recapitu-
lating thanks to all who had supported the children during their time at the
school.
The graduation show at Nakamachi gave the children themselves an
important role in deciding what to perform and in executing the perform-
ances. It was the children themselves who chose the themes and who wrote
the lines for some of the plays and recitations, thus exercising a degree of
autonomy. On the other hand, the show was also about working together and
giving everyone recognition. Every performance involved the whole class
and gave each child a role. It was also clear that the show had a definite
unwritten script that embodied clear expectations about the kind of things
that should and should not be said, and that had guided the children in their
preparations. The values and sentiments that pervaded 6–1’s play about a
disabled boy, 6–2’s recitation of Neither Yielding to Rain, or 6–3’s series of
presentations on the theme ‘to live’ – thoughtfulness, kindness, perseverance,
184 Ceremonial creations
selflessness, and valuing life – were exactly the kind that the school had been
trying to develop in them; indeed, as we have seen in earlier chapters, they had
encountered more than one of the poems and songs they presented at the
school itself. The final recitation followed a basic framework provided by the
sixth year teachers (beginning with recollections of school and thanks to
parents, then to classmates, and finally to each teacher), with the children
writing the specific words for most of the text.6 Its focus on thanks for the
support and love received from others followed a clear cultural imperative to
acknowledge one’s dependence on others and to express gratitude to those
who gave necessary support (Kondo, 1990: 76–115; Reader, 1995: 233). This
had indeed also been evident in the Send-off, a few days before (there
expressed by the younger children to the sixth years themselves).
It was not only towards people that the children expressed gratitude. A
week before the graduation ceremony, the sixth years at Morikawa spent two
periods in an expression of gratitude to the school building itself – by clean-
ing some of the stairwell walls. The action was mainly symbolic, since only a
limited part of the building was affected, but was no less significant for that,
not least in its representation of the importance of symbolic ritual action
itself. As Reader (1995) has pointed out, cleaning is frequently a symbolic act
in Japan, used to express cleansing and burnishing the self, gratitude, and the
imposition of order on the environment.
Figure 6.2 Sixth years at Morikawa cleaning the school walls, a week before their
graduation in 1996.
ensure an orderly entrance by the sixth years, the teachers instructed them to
step up to a yellow line on the floor of the gym once the preceding children
had taken three steps beyond it. The procedure for receiving the graduation
certificate was also minutely prescribed. After leaving their seats, children
proceeded through a series of intermediate wait points before reaching the
second step up to the centre of the stage, at which point the class teacher read
his or her name, and the child replied ‘Hai!’ (yes) in a loud voice, stepping up
to the stage alongside the previous child, who had just stepped back after
receiving the certificate from the principal. Both children then bowed, and
while one walked off the stage to the left, the newcomer received the gradu-
ation certificate from the principal with both hands. After descending from
the stage, the child would then walk to a table at the side of the gym and
hand the certificate over to a teacher with a bow. Returning the bow, the
teacher rolled up the certificate, inserted it in a long box, and handed it back
186 Ceremonial creations
to the child with another bow, holding the box with both hands, one at each
end; the child received the box with upturned palms before returning to his or
her seat.
The morning of the day before the graduation ceremony was taken up by
the final rehearsal. After lunch, the sixth years cleaned up their classrooms
for the last time. Gradually, over the preceding days, the posters and artwork
that normally covered the classroom walls had been stripped away, and the
children’s school gear taken home, until by the end of this penultimate day,
the classrooms were virtually bare – a state that symbolically echoed the in-
between, liminal state into which the children were entering (Turner, 1967:
98–9, 109–10). All of those things that made the classrooms ‘their places’
had been taken away; they had been ‘divested of trappings of their social
selves’ (Kondo, 1990: 89). Over the previous week, they had engaged in a
series of events that had symbolically bound them together for a final time as
a class, events that would be memorable precisely because they were unusual –
lunch prepared for themselves in 6–1, a joint artwork in 6–2, a kick-base
tournament in 6–3, the karaoke party in 6–4. Now, with their classrooms bare
and featureless, the children were ready for the final event, the reality-defining
ceremony that would declare their primary school lives over.
The final two periods of the day were devoted to class activities. The chil-
dren received their graduation albums, which included not only many photo-
graphs taken by the school photographer during their six years at the school,
but also the compositions that each one of them had written. The children
were soon writing messages to one another on the blank pages at the end of
each album. The class activities over, they left for home.
Meanwhile, the other teachers and the fifth year pupils had been preparing
the school, decorating the gym and the corridors. Just after five o’clock, there
was a short meeting (uchiawase) in the staffroom. Normally, such meetings
were held at the start of the day, not the end, and this deviation from the
normal pattern marked the day as extraordinary. The principal made a
speech, thanking all the teachers for the work in preparation for the gradu-
ation ceremony. The four sixth year class teachers then left their seats to stand
in a line at the end of the staffroom. The head of year, Kotani-sensei, made a
speech thanking all the teachers for their help, and expressing her hope and
confidence that the children would give of their best next day. Then the sixth
year teachers went to their classrooms, to make the final preparations for the
morning. On each child’s desk, they laid the pink bunches of ribbon that the
children would pin to their breasts, and they prepared the blackboard by
writing on it a poem, or the children’s names, along with decorative flourishes
in coloured chalk. Once Satoyama-sensei had taken down the poster that
expressed the year-group goal from over 6–2’s blackboard, all the classrooms
were completely bare except for vases of flowers on the teachers’ desks, which
stood out all the more because all other objects had been removed. In 6–1’s
classroom, the vase was full of lilies brought by one of the children, sending out
a delicious fragrance. Other teachers gradually left for home, but three of
Ceremonial creations 187
the sixth year teachers were still at the school by the time I departed at
6.30 p.m.
The next day dawned bright and clear. Both teachers and children started
arriving quite early, around 8 a.m. All three of the female sixth year teachers
were wearing traditional Japanese dress (kimono and hakama), while Teraoka-
sensei wore a black suit and white tie, and the principal was in morning dress.
The sixth years were also smartly dressed, some wearing all or part of their
school uniforms, which had otherwise hardly been in evidence during my time
at the school. The children had each written a letter to their parents, and these
were laid out on tables outside each of the sixth year classrooms, for the
parents to find when they arrived a little later. Once all the parents had come,
group photos of parents and children were taken in the gym, after which
the sixth years returned to their classrooms while the younger pupils filed into
the gym.
Finally, the moment came for Kotani-sensei to lead the sixth years into the
decorated gymnasium, amid solemn music and much applause. Once each
class was assembled, they bowed as one to the stage, adorned with a banner
with the words ‘Congratulations on your graduation’ above the national and
city flags, and then sat down as one. When all were seated, the ceremony was
declared open. After the singing of the national anthem came the presenta-
tion of certificates, each child going up to the stage and back in the prescribed
fashion, as each name was read by the class teacher to the accompaniment of
wistful, uplifting music. As each child received the certificate, video allowed
his or her face to be seen in close-up on a huge screen. The presentation of
certificates was followed by speeches from the principal and the chairman of
the Parent–Teacher Association, then the introduction of VIPs and the read-
ing of telegrams of congratulation.
Now the sixth years, who had been facing the stage up to this point,
turned their chairs around to face the audience. They sang Yuzuriha no uta
(Yuzuriha song), which echoed the yuzuriha poem they had read a few weeks
earlier with its reference to the growth of a new generation; then all except ten
children sat down, while those who remained standing began a recitation
whose first part recounted the main events of their collective life at the
school, beginning with their entrance ceremony six years before:7
Each child had a line to speak out in a loud voice, with some lines spoken by
all; as they spoke, sentimental background music played softly, becoming
louder at transition points. After the first ten children had spoken, they took
their seats again, and the next ten stood to continue. After the first part of the
recitation, dealing with memories of schooldays, all present sang the school
song: it was then the turn of the younger pupils to respond with their own
recitation, congratulating their ‘big brothers and big sisters’ and thanking
them for their help and their example:
Conclusion
The graduation ceremony and its associated events and activities create a
ritualized context by taking certain motifs and values familiar to primary
children (interdependence, friendship, gratitude, the significance of age-roles,
the importance of memory) and presenting them in an increasingly formal-
ized and systematic way, a way that strips away potential distractions to allow
what remains an unhindered prominence. As Kondo (1990: 110) has pointed
out, both familiarity and formalization can contribute to making ritual con-
texts emotionally persuasive. The considerable elaboration of the basic ritual
of graduation is certainly intended to carry emotional power, and this in
itself is significant. Ritual is not always designed to have emotional effect; as
Bell (1992: 186) has noted, it is often enough for participants simply to assent
to going through the motions. Moreover, from a ritual point of view, the
graduation ceremony in itself is quite adequate to perform the function of
192 Ceremonial creations
symbolically moving children out of the status of ‘primary school pupil’;
events and activities such as the Send-off for the Sixth Years and the gradu-
ation show are unnecessary, as indeed are the recitations and songs that
formed part of the Morikawa graduation ceremony. Indeed, in my personal
experience, graduations at junior high school and high school in Japan
become progressively more austere, with fewer and fewer elements intended
to move the participants emotionally. The comments of teachers about the
gradual elaboration of primary school graduations suggest that at this stage
of schooling, efforts to make these events emotionally meaningful to the
children have increased over the years. The complex of events and activities
that surrounds graduation from primary school indicates that these rituals
are not intended only to perform a rite of passage, but also to impress upon
participants certain values, and create in them shared memories. It is worth
remembering that children participate in events such as the Send-off for the
sixth years and the graduation ceremony six times in their school career,
albeit only once as graduating pupils. Such events are thus educationally as
well as ritually significant.
Rohlen (1989: 27) has written that in Japan, much more ritual attention is
paid to entrance to than exit from a state or institution. This may often be
true, but not in the case of primary school, where graduation undergoes as
much ritual elaboration as entrance, if not more. This may be explained by
the fact that the whole of the primary school experience is equivalent to the
kind of initiatory training that new employees undergo when they first enter a
company – primary school being the first (compulsory) stage of initiatory
training for life as a whole. The primary school graduation ceremony and its
associated activities are thus in one sense situated part-way through the long-
drawn-out educational process that forms the entrance to modern life. When
one considers again that children experience the graduation events repeatedly
throughout their school career, it can be seen that while ritually they may
be ‘exit’ ceremonies, educationally they can be understood as ‘entrance’
ceremonies.
Yet in a more profound sense, they do indeed represent an end. In pre-Meiji
Japan, boys underwent the genpuku ceremony to make them men from the
age of 12 onwards. In today’s Japan, it is only up to the end of primary school
that children are eligible for child fares on public transport – as the sixth year
teachers sometimes reminded their pupils, to impress on them the significance
of their graduation. With entry to junior high school, children enter a more
ambiguous phase of life, where they are still seen as children, yet children
with a qualification – children in a kind of pupa state, undergoing the difficult
process of transformation into adults. As they went out from the school gates
after their primary school graduation ceremony, the pupils of Morikawa and
Nakamachi were indeed entering a new world – and bidding farewell to
unambiguous childhood.
Ceremonial creations 193
Notes
1 Benjamin (1997: 97–104) gives a detailed description of a primary school sports
day in Saitama in 1989, including features found in the Nakamachi sports day,
such as a whole school dance, cheering, and human pyramids. Cheering and
dancing also feature in Hendry’s description of a kindergarten sports day in
1981 (Hendry, 1986: 142–3).
2 In 1996, mobile phones were not yet widespread enough to be given a space on the
cards, but some cards did have a space for a pager (pokeberu) number.
3 Tsuneyoshi (2001: 75–6) gives an outline of a similar event at a Tokyo primary
school, with some differences in details.
4 At Nakamachi, the sixth years concluded with the upbeat pop hit Tomorrow (also
played on recorders by the fourth years at Morikawa).
5 This included not only the three class teachers, but also three other teachers who
had each taught a subject to one of the classes.
6 The first two sections excerpted above were provided by teachers, while the third
was written by the children.
7 Tsuneyoshi (2001: 75–6) describes a very similar recitation at a Tokyo primary
school, and points out that the format is ‘suggested in some teachers’ guidebooks’.
8 Boys said ‘bokutachi’ a first-person pronoun conventionally used by boys and men,
while girls said ‘watashitachi’, a pronoun conventionally used by girls.
9 Van Gennep (1960 [1908]: 35–6) notes that rites of separation often take place in
stages, and surmises that the intent is ‘to make the break gradual’.
10 Nonetheless, Morikawa teachers were told at a staff meeting that their school
continued to have responsibility for giving guidance (shidō) to the sixth years even
after the graduation ceremony, until they formally entered junior high school.
Moreover, the sixth year teachers were required by the school to make patrols in
the locality during the spring vacation, to help ensure that the newly graduated
children did not get into any trouble – despite the fact that at least one of the
teachers told me that she thought such patrols were a waste of time. This demon-
strates once again the extraordinary expectations that are made of Japanese
schools; it might well be thought that supervision of the children during these
three weeks could fairly be left to their families.
7 The next stage – 2002 and
all that
The 2002 curriculum and its aftermath: sōgō gakushū and small-
group teaching
According to the curriculum published in 1998 and implemented in 2002,
schools were to use the time allocated to sōgō gakushū for ‘creative edu-
cational activities such as cross-curricular and integrated studies, and studies
based on the interests of children’ (Monbushō, 1998b: 2). The curriculum
stated two main sets of aims for the new area. The first was ‘to develop
[children’s] abilities in the areas of identifying key questions, learning, and
thinking by oneself, judging autonomously, and becoming better at problem-
solving’ (1998b). The second set of aims was ‘to have children learn how
to learn and how to think, to develop [in children] an attitude that tackles
problem-solving and exploratory activities autonomously and creatively,
and to enable them to think about their own ways of living’ (1998b: 3). In
December 2003, following the furore about allegedly falling academic stand-
ards, a third aim was added: ‘to interconnect and integrate the knowledge and
skills acquired in other curricular areas and subjects, making use of them in
study and in life’ (Monbukagakushō, 2007). The curriculum suggested inter-
national understanding, information technology, the environment, and health
and welfare as examples of specific areas that could be the focus of study in
sōgō gakushū, and it noted a number of points for schools to bear in mind.
First, they should incorporate experiential (taiken-teki) study and problem-
solving, such as experience of nature, volunteer activities, studies that used
observation, experiments and surveys, presentations and debates, and making
things. Second, schools should try to use diverse modes of study, such as
groupwork and mixed-age activities, and should make active use of study
materials and environments provided by the local area (chiiki), with the
cooperation of local people. Third, schools should ensure that where children
learned conversational foreign languages as part of education for inter-
national understanding, these studies should be experiential and appropriate
for primary school level (Monbukagakushō, 2007).
As noted earlier, what was remarkable about these stipulations was their
brevity and the amount of freedom they gave schools in developing their own
curriculum content. They also represented a clear response to the two key
issues identified by the reports issued by the Chūkyōshin, the government’s
196 The next stage – 2002 and all that
main advisory body, in the mid-1990s: first, the need to encourage creativity,
initiative, and independent problem-solving ability, and second, the need to
provide children with better socialization, especially by connecting them more
adequately with the natural and social environment of their localities. The
wording of the curriculum made it clear that sōgō gakushū time should not be
used for the formal, text-centred teaching of English.
Between the publication of the curriculum in December 1998, and its
implementation in April 2002, there were just over three years for schools to
ready themselves to teach sōgō gakushū. Their primary means of preparation
was through the continuous in-school research programmes (kōnai kenshū)
in which all public primary schools in Japan engage as a matter of course
(Fernandez and Yoshida, 2004), and which involve, among other things, open
lessons followed by discussion seminars. When I interviewed Imai-sensei, the
head of academic administration (kyōmu shunin) at Morikawa in June 2004,
he told me that following the publication of the first drafts of the new curric-
ulum, Morikawa had made sōgō gakushū the main theme of its in-school
research for a full five years. This approach is likely to have been typical of
schools throughout Japan, faced as they were with a major new curricular
area to teach. They were also helped in their preparations by a flood of
writing about how to teach the new area. In December 2001, for instance,
I counted 160 different books about how to teach sōgō gakushū on sale at
a major Tokyo bookstore – 23 written by teachers themselves about their
schools’ pilot programmes (Cave, 2003: 96). Using these means and resources,
schools prepared themselves for the new challenge.
The introduction of small-group teaching was a very different story.
Whereas sōgō gakushū had been introduced with a long lead time, as is nor-
mal for curriculum revisions in Japan, small-group teaching was a measure
that the Ministry of Education had not expected to take, one that it was
forced into by the furore over supposed ‘falling standards’ that erupted from
1999 onwards. From 2001, the Ministry announced that prefectures should
allocate extra teachers to schools for the purpose of implementing small-group
teaching (shōninzū shidō). Such teaching also went under the title of ‘teaching
adapted to the individual’ (ko ni ōjita shidō) and ‘teaching according to degree
of learning mastery’ (shūjukudobetsu shidō). Terms such as ‘ability grouping’
(nōryokubetsu shidō) were scrupulously avoided, given the opposition they
would have been likely to arouse among teachers and parents who believed in
the egalitarian treatment of children. The Ministry also designated 1,692
primary and junior high schools as ‘frontier schools for the improvement of
academic attainment’ (gakuryoku kōjō furontia-kō) by means of ‘teaching
adapted to the individual’ (Asahi Shinbun, 2002). By 2003, a Ministry survey
found that 63 per cent of public primary schools were implementing ‘small-
group teaching according to degree of learning mastery’, though this was
very largely confined to the subject of maths (Monbukagakushō, 2003).
In contrast to sōgō gakushū, small-group teaching was implemented with
little or no lead time. However, whereas sōgō gakushū was mandatory for all
The next stage – 2002 and all that 197
schools, small-group teaching was not. Even by 2003, 37 per cent of primary
schools had not introduced small-group teaching in any subject, and overall,
the approach remained confined to a small minority of schools (11 per cent
or less) in all subjects except maths, for which it was being used by about
40 per cent of schools from the third year of primary school onwards
(Monbukagakushō, 2003).
Notes
1 Sōgō-teki na gakushū no jikan is not a ‘subject’ (kyōka); it is a separate area of the
curriculum, as are moral education and special activities.
2 Tsuneyoshi (Tsuneyoshi, 2001: 114–15) describes experiential activities conducted
by a Tokyo primary school during the five years leading up to 2001, which have
similarities to some of the sōgō gakushū activities at Morikawa and other schools in
Sakura.
3 Sato (1998: 229–34) has described activities designed to promote fureai at a primary
school in northern Japan during the mid-1990s, showing that such initiatives are
widely spread in Japan and have been going on for some years. Leng Leng Thang
(Thang, 2001) also describes a facility that provides both an old people’s home
212 The next stage – 2002 and all that
and a preschool, organizing fureai between the old people and children with the
aim of benefiting both. Jennifer Robertson (1991: 186–7) notes that fureai is a key
quality emphasized by local authorities and others aiming to create a ‘hometown’
feeling in modern suburbs (furusato-zukuri).
4 A rice-growing project in a mini-paddy was central to an episode of the primary
school television drama Minikui Ahiru no Ko in 1995, suggesting that such projects
predated the introduction of sōgō gakushū by some years.
5 Cited in a Chūkyōshin report (Chūō Kyōiku Shingikai, 1998: 97), this survey
included the findings that between 1984 and 1995 the proportion of children
who had ever picked and eaten wild berries, grasses or mushrooms dropped from
49 per cent to 32 per cent, the proportion who had ever gone fishing dropped from
36 per cent to 21 per cent, and the number who had ever caught a butterfly or
dragonfly dropped from 15 per cent to 4 per cent. Of the 11 experiences of nature
surveyed, only skiing increased.
6 Common sense suggests that the Japanese term ‘pure-tesuto’ derives from the
English, ‘placement test’, but teachers at Morikawa did not know what ‘pure’ was
short for.
Conclusion
ability grouping 26, 194, 196; see also ceremonies 69, 175–92, 199: and gender
academic performance grouping 157, 170, 172–3
academic attainment 207; basic chiiki 15–16, 18, 74–5, 195–8, 200–5, 210
attainment (kiso gakuryoku) 22, 29, 50; childhood: changing 204–6; end of 192
disparities in 20, 211; international children: cognitive development of 44
tests of 20, 49–50, 111, 220; national children in Japan: adults’ desires for 202,
tests of 21; new view of 210; antisocial behaviour of 15; body
(shingakuryokukan) 17; in postwar adornment among 82–4; changing
Japan 21; seen as falling in Japan lifestyle of 15, 18, 74, 205;
19–21, 23, 196 development of 16, 32, 100, 199, 205;
academic performance grouping 21, 28, ideal of, in kokugo textbooks 89, 103;
194, 207–9, 211 pressures on 14–15; social interaction
achievement tests: in Japan 21, 25 15, 198, 205; socialization of 18, 30, 40,
action research 142, 196; groups 53, 85; 195–6; study habits 20, 24; views of
journals 9, 53, 85, 96, 220 personal development 62–3, 71
Ad Hoc Committee on Education see choice 82–3; and gender 158–61, 171; of
Rinkyōshin clubs 35; of kakari katsudō; of schools
Ame nimo makezu 77–9, 182–3 25, 50; of school subjects 18–19, 29; of
anthropology: and education 220–2 small group 208–9; of way of studying
art and craft 166–7, 177–8, 181, 217 97–8, 102, 114, 143
assessment 160, 202 Chūkyōshin 14, 18, 28, 195
autonomy 22, 26, 28, 31, 33, 36, 42–3, 51, class group see gakkyū
54, 79–81, 83, 88, 94, 180, 183, 195, class size 29, 59
204, 209–11, 216–17; and gender 158, classroom organization 34, 65–6; seating
171, 195; lack of 98, 190; and 157–8; see also small groups
pedagogical practice 96–8, 100, cleaning 34–5, 52, 66, 184–5, 189, 197, 203
102, 106–7, 111–12, 143; see also cliques 67, 80–1, 169
subject clubs: age-roles in 76, 188; and gender
173–4; at junior high and high school
Benedict, Ruth 31, 40–1, 93, 218 35, 176
Béteille, André 40, 51 companies in Japan 18, 40: and gender
Boaler, Jo 113, 144–6, 148, 150 153; reluctance to hire permanent staff
Buddhism: emphasis on interdependence 37; training programmes of 76–7, 176;
40, 90; understanding of the self 40 welfare systems of 40
bullying 14–16, 35, 83 competition 41–2, 51; in education 16,
burakumin 82–3 18, 30, 54
composition: kansōbun 96–7; non-fiction
Central Council for Education see 103; lack of imaginative 103
Chūkyōshin conflict 35, 82–4, 170
240 Index
consumer culture 41, 179, 190 and formation of cultural schemas 63;
cooperation 18, 30, 43, 50, 65, 71–3, 80, and language 64; and ritual 191–2; and
105, 176, 183, 190 singing 69–70, 73; desire 41; emotional
cosmology 40, 73, 90 development in Japan 32; feeling in
creativity 14–15, 18–19, 27, 176, 195–6 kokugo 97, 102–3; feeling in nakama
crime 21, 23 62–4; ninjō 41
curriculum 176, 184: and gender 156; empathy 43, 89, 204; see also omoiyari
conflict between curricular aims 102; English (school subject): 21, 195–6, 203
standard curriculum hours 109, 195; enquiry see inquiry
national curriculum of Japan see enrichment activities 15, 74, 205
gakushū shidō yōryō environment: interaction with 195,
200–1, 203–5; study of 107, 195, 197
Davies, Bronwyn 154–6, 164, 168, 171 equality in Japanese education 15, 21, 54,
debate 104–6 69, 100, 190, 196, 209: under threat 20,
democracy: and education 26, 29 29
dependence 32, 40, 184 eugenics 25
deviance 82–4 examinations 18, 40, 42; emphasis on
diaries 86, 169 14–15
discipline 177: and body adornment exchange see gift-giving, reciprocity
82–4; lack of 15, 23–4; outside family experience: of children 18, 62;
33; teachers’ avoidance of overt 34; see articulation as social reality 63;
also self-discipline involving action and discourse 64, 70,
discrimination 82–3, 170, 209 176
discussion: in class meetings 66–7, 80, 82; experiential educational activities 17,
in lessons 98–102, 112, 114–49 176, 195, 197–205, 211
Doi, Takeo 32 expression 102–7
dōtoku (morals) 170
family: age-roles in 76; children affected
economy of Japan 21: changing needs of by problems in 83; educational role of
18; stagnation of 23, 37 15–16, 18; and gender 152–3;
education: ‘progressive’ 21, 24, 53, 146 maihōmu-shugi 36; as primary group
education in Japan: business leaders’ 61; role in self formation 32;
views of 14–15; dissatisfaction with traditional 6
14–15, 23; egalitarianism in 15, 21, 54, Foucault, Michel 51
69, 100, 190, 196, 209; history of 25; Fujita, Hidenori 14, 17, 21, 24–5, 49–50,
left-wing views of 14, 24, 28–30; 217–18
uniformity in 14, 20, 22, 26 fureai 197–200, 211–12
educational reform in Japan; and furikaeri see reflection
Fundamental Law of Education 50; furusato 205, 212
and teaching 98–102, 104–7, 111; futōkō (school non-attendance) 14–16,
attitudes of primary teachers 54–5; 35, 82–3
debates about 19–24; five-day school
week 19, 23, 29, 49, 194; in 1960s– gakkō gyōji 35, 52, 63, 68–9, 80–1, 176–7
1970s 28; in 1980s 17; in 1990s 18; gakkyū 26, 29, 34, 55–74, 209, 215; class
kyōiku kaikaku kokumin kaigi events 68; class goals 35; class
(National Commission on Education meetings 66–8, 80–2; class newsletters
Reform) 50; programme 16; resourcing (ichimai bunshū) 68; class problems 67,
20–1, 29 80–2; class projects 35, 62, 65; as
education system in Japan 4; community 47, 52, 100–1, 145–6, 171,
standardization 9 219; ethos 100–1, 114, 145, 165,
effort 36, 41, 62–3, 72–3, 76, 93–5, 216 219–20; farewell parties 179; gakkyū
elective subjects 19, 29 keiei (class management) 56, 69, 100,
elite: elite education 24–5, 29, 50 220; history of 55–7
emotion 180: and embodied activity 64; gakkyū hōkai 15, 23
Index 241
gakuryoku see academic attainment perseverance 76–7; understandings of
gakushū shidō yōryō: cuts in content of 25–6, 42; in Western society 38–9
19, 23; nature of 19, 21; 1989 revision individualism 27, 36, 38–9, 51
17, 98; 1998 revision 19, 194–5; 2003 individuality 16–17, 21–30, 35–7, 42–3,
revision 21 54, 88, 166, 176–8, 180, 194, 204,
gender 32, 81, 152–74, 218; children’s 210–11, 217; debated meaning of
agency in 154, 156, 158–68, 171; 24–30, 82–4; and deviance 82–4; and
discontent about, in Japan 153–4; and imaginative writing 104; and
division of labour 152–3, 157, 172; pedagogical practice 96, 105, 143, 146
girls’ clique-making 67, 80–1, 169; inequality 20–1, 37
identity formation 154–5, 161, 164; inochi 90–3, 182
and individual variation 161–8; and inquiry 219: community of 47, 89, 100–1,
material culture 157, 166–8, 171; in 142, 145–6, 219; dialogic 89; as
school 153–4, 156–72; and school learning model 114
senior management 156, 172; integrity 41–2
stereotyping 152–4, 156–7; and interdependence 28, 30–5, 40, 42–3, 47,
teachers 155, 157–61, 168–70; voice 50, 54, 62, 69, 71–3, 75–6, 88, 90–102,
158–61; in workplace 152–3, 161, 175–6, 181, 190, 195, 198, 204, 210,
172 215–16
gift-giving 40, 180–1, 198 interdisciplinary study 18–19, 53, 195
graduation 71: graduation album 62–3, Integrated Studies see sōgō-teki na
73, 170, 178, 186; graduation gakushū
ceremony 69, 175, 177, 184–91;
graduation show (sotsugyō happyōkai) Japanese language and literature see
69, 79, 177, 181–4; and individuals kokugo
190–1; planning for 177, 180–1; Jaworski, Barbara 114, 144–6, 148, 150
rokunensei o okuru kai 177, 180–1; jibunrashisa see individuality
sain-chō 179–80 juku 40, 42, 57
gratitude 181, 183–4, 188 junior high school 4, 35, 151, 192
greetings 66, 197
group 34, 42; orientation 51; see also Kageyama, Hideo 23
gakkyū, nakama, shūdan seikatsu, kakari katsudō 65, 68–9, 163
small groups Kariya, Takehiko 20–3
kejime 32–3, 35
han see small groups kenkyū jugyō 10, 53, 85, 97, 102, 115, 196
hardship: instrumental in forming knowledge: construction of 101; in
emotional bonds 63; as means to Japanese education 14–15, 17, 22, 98;
growth 71–3, 93–4 ‘principled’ versus ‘procedural’
high-growth period 28 113–14, 146–8; rapidly outdated 18;
high school 35, 192 transfer 46, 113
hikikomori 15 kokugo 68, 71, 79, 88–110, 207, 209;
Hiroshima atomic bomb 182 curricular aims 89; curricular hours
history: local 198, 201 109; and gakkyū keiei 100; and gender
home economics 162–3, 179, 182 156; imaginative writing 103–4, 209;
homework 135 and personal development 100;
human nature see person textbooks 89–96
human rights 83 kosei see individuality: koseika 16–17, 21;
kosei jūshi 17
identity 47, 94–6, 190: and learning 46, kōnai bōryoku 14–15
101; formation 101; group 35 kyōyō: kyōtsū kyōyō 29, 50
ikiru chikara 18, 22
individual: counselling of 67, 81–2; in language: connected to selfhood 33, 40,
education 28, 104–7, 160, 182–3, 191, 86; and gender 157; integral to
207, 209, 211; in Japan 31, 34–7; experiential understanding 64
242 Index
Lave, Jean 45–7, 51, 113–14, 146, 219, 171, 218; and lessons 101; deviations
221–2 from 80–1, 191
learning: by rote (cramming) 14, 18; nationalism 26–7
controlled by students 114, 143; of nature: educational role 18, 195, 200,
culture 72; independent 17, 22, 26, 204–5; humans as part of 91–3;
54, 102, 105, 111, 114, 143, 146, 148, sensitivity to 89; study of 197
195; individual 97, 102, 128–30, 134, neighbourhood see chiiki
136, 139–41, 145; through experience neo-Confucianism 40, 90
46, 53, 114, 146; through hardship neo-liberalism 24, 29, 50
63, 71–3, 93–4; through interaction non-academic activities 34, 52
with others 26, 44, 46–7, 89, 97, 100,
105–7, 111, 114, 145–6, 198, 207, obligation 29–33, 36, 40–1, 95–6
219 Occupation of Japan 27
Lebra, Takie S. 31–2, 35, 41, 218 ōen gassen 176, 188
left-wing 205: and interdependence o-keikogoto see enrichment activities
discourse 40; views of education 14, omoiyari 18, 181
24, 28–30
life see inochi parents 201, 209: and children’s identity
local community see chiiki 94–6; children’s indebtedness to 92–3,
lunch (school) 34–5, 52, 65 83; and graduation events 181–4, 187
patrols 193
Makarenko, Anton S. 30, 56 pedagogical practice 9–10, 215–16;
‘marathon’ 76–7 history of, in Japan 55–6, 108; in
marketization 25 kokugo 96–108; in mathematics
Maruyama, Masao 51 111–49; variation in 11, 106, 112,
mathematics 43, 46, 111–49: academic 141–2
performance grouping in 21, 196–7, pedagogical theory: discovery models
207–8, 211; approaches to teaching 114, 140; in mathematics 111–14, 140;
141–9; international tests in 20, 49–50, sociocultural learning 43–7, 100–1,
111; at junior high school 151; 114, 142–50, 218–20; transmission
proportion 115–41 models 114
matomaru 81 person: concept of 27–8, 31–43
maturity 94 personal relationships 36, 62, 67, 80–2
media 37: coverage of educational personnel: transfers 53–4, 85
problems 15, 220 physical education 162, 184
Meiji period 25, 56, 152, 170 Piaget, Jean 44, 113
memories 103, 176, 178, 180, 182; social play 18, 75, 199; and gender 162–5; in
memory 103, 179, 181, 188, 192 neighbourhood 74–5, 200–1; as whole
Mercer, Neil 45, 101, 113, 143–5 class 68, 163
Ministry of Education (Japan) 16, 26–7, popular culture 167–8, 178–9, 190:
53, 152, 196, 207 school dramas 57–9; superhero
Miyazawa, Kenji 77–9, 182 dramas 50
mixed-ability groups 34 preschools 32–4, 47, 64–5, 74, 76, 193,
mixed-age activities 74–6, 103, 180, 182, 197–200; and gender 156, 168
195, 199–200 presentation 106–7
Monbukagakushō see Ministry of principal (of school) 83, 156
Education (Japan) problem-solving 18, 50, 112, 146–9,
Monbushō see Ministry of Education 195–6
(Japan)
music: in schools 69–74, 177, 180–1, 184; reciprocity 31, 40, 180
lessons 69 reflection 71, 86, 122, 128–9, 139, 145,
198
nakama 52, 60–4, 69, 73, 80, 101, 163, research lessons see kenkyū jugyō
180, 182–3, 207, 215; and gender 158, research methods 8
Index 243
research site 5–8, 52–5, 59 assessment of 202; problems with 201;
rice-growing 203–4, 212 revision in aims of 21
right-wing 205: and interdependence solidarity 176: in class group 80; in
discourse 40; views of education 14, nakama 60; social 27–8, 36
50 songs see singing
Rinkyōshin 14, 16–17, 24, 28 Sōseki, Natsume 42
rites of passage 175, 189–90 sport 40; high school baseball
ritual 33, 175–7, 184–92; secular 175 championships 95
role 34, 94, 183; age-roles 75–6, 175–6, sports day (undōkai) 63–5, 68, 80, 103,
180–1, 188, 200; see also social role 176, 178, 182–3, 188, 193
routines 33, 35 staffroom 59
state 26, 43
Satō, Manabu 10, 15, 17, 24–5, 28, 50, student guidance see seito shidō
211, 220 subject (agentive) 26, 114
school events see gakkō gyōji symbolic action 175, 184, 186, 189
school refusal see futōkō
school trips: shūgaku ryokō 63, 80, 103, Taishō jiyū kyōiku (Taisho free
176, 182; gasshuku 63 education) 25–6
school violence see kōnai bōryoku Taisho period 25–6
science (school subject) 17, 43, 207–8: Tanikawa, Shuntarō 90–1
international tests in 20 tatewari katsudō see mixed-age activities
seikatsu-ka 17, 53 teachers: action research 9–10, 53;
seishin 40–2, 72, 76–7, 93–4, 96, 216; and attitudes to reform 54–5; classroom
resistance 51 discourse of 143–5; freedom of 19, 106,
seito shidō 82–4, 193 112; and gender 155, 157–62; ideal
selection 24, 29 image of 57–9; as individuals 11, 59,
self-discipline 30–1, 40, 42, 51, 76–7, 88, 106, 141–2; as initiators of change 108;
94, 96 pedagogical role of 96–101, 142–5; role
selfhood 211: Japanese discourses of 26, of 56, 193; teacher’s dilemma 114, 143,
30–43, 215–18; in kokugo textbooks 148; in television dramas 57–9
90–6; mature 94; and pedagogy 150; teachers’ unions 8; reports advocating
and personal identity 94–6, 190; and reform 28–9; views of education
power 43; and self-exploration 37; self- 14–16, 28–9; views of union
formation 79–80; and self-realization representative 82–3, 191
36, 40; self-reliance 31, 43 teaching: accepting of variation 136,
shiren 71, 93, 95 138–9, 146; individualized 23, 207;
shūdan seikatsu 33, 35 ‘scaffolding’ 45, 101; speaking out by
shutaisei see autonomy children 159–61; whole-class 96–101,
singing: in class 69–74; for graduation 115–42, 145–6; see also pedagogical
events 180, 182, 188; as a means of practice
learning culture 72 television: school dramas 57–9, 189, 212;
small groups 34, 65, 77, 80, 102, 104–5, Shomu-ni (drama) 37
114, 118–35, 158, 195, 198–9, 217; textbooks: and gender 156; kokugo
small-group teaching (shōninzū shidō) 89–96, 102–6; in maths 121, 135, 139,
195–7, 207–11 148; teachers’ departures from 104–6;
social control 31, 35 units (tangen) 9, 112, 207
social role 31, 94, 210 thinking: analytical 89, 105;
social withdrawal see hikikomori independent/individual 18–19, 22, 54,
socialization 33, 154–5; see also children 81, 104–5, 195, 199; principled 113,
in Japan 146–7
society (Japan): increasing diversity in Thorne, Barrie 154–5, 158, 161, 164, 168
30, 36; conflict in 35; social Tokugawa period 41, 56, 77
organization in 40; variation in 35, 218 Tokyo: education in 3–4, 84, 211
sōgō-teki na gakushū 19, 23, 29, 194–211; Tsuboi, Sakae 93
244 Index
uchi 32, 60–1 ura 32–3
uniform 157, 172, 187
United Kingdom: children in 205–6; volunteer activities 37; and schools 75,
education in 21, 44, 47, 54, 103, 109; 195, 197, 203
gender at schools in 158, 165, 169; Vygotsky, Lev S. 44–5
maths education in 113–14, 144–6,
148, 150 welfare 195, 203
United States: education in 20–1, 44, Wells, Gordon 47, 89, 100–1, 104, 219
47; gender at schools in 158, 169;
maths education in 114, 146; yutori kyōiku 21–3
superheroes 50; view of children in
89, 205 zone of proximal development 44–5, 101