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By: Hidetada Shimizu
Initially, the vice principal did most of the talking, trying to take care of the business side of our research and making sure there would be the appropriate types and numbers of students, teachers, and parents to be interviewed. When this conversation was over, the principal, who had not said a word up to that point, said "Let's see. . . ," indicating that there was something bothering him.
He began by saying that LeTendre's research topic, "adolescents' lives" could be easily translated into Japanese, and everyone would understand what it meant. However, the notion of "individual differences" (kojinsa) might be more confusing. He explained in a politely modest manner, "You see, in Japan we are not much concerned with individual differences. You might say that Japanese education as a whole is not set up to accommodate individual differences. What we do here is provide education according to collectively established frames of reference."
While the principal tried to excuse the difficulty by courteously suggesting that the U.S. system of education might have a better way of dealing with individual differences, the vice principal addressed the practical question of how to inform parents about the interview's contents. Since the notion is not a part of everyday discourse in Japanese schools, the vice principal felt that the term for individual differences (kojinsa) simply would not be understood by Japanese parents. In fact, the term would probably give them no idea of what to expect from the interview. Trying to think of a phrase that the Japanese parents would understand, the vice-principal came up with a new title, "On the Subject of Studying in General."
Another stumbling block for the two administrators was the notion of "ability differences." The direct translation, noryokusa, was among the most "politically incorrect" terms in Japan. I had unfortunately used this term when I asked them if students at Arata were divided into groups by ability differences; I immediately saw signs of apprehension in their faces. The principal expressed the concern that some teachers would object to the use of the term noryokusa since this term suggests that individual differences are innate. Such a view is usually taken as a sign of discrimination. The basic premise of Japanese education, the principal explained, is that students are born with equal abilities. Therefore, it would not make much sense to talk about "ability differences;" instead it would be better if we changed the term to shujukudo (difference in mastery levels). This term would imply that individual differences are created as a result of school work and individual effort, rather than naturally given ability; a much more acceptable idea. "If you used the term shujukudo," the principal continued, "nobody would complain." From this experience, I realized that an examination of the Japanese preference for the term shujukudo over noryokusa could give insight into the ways Japanese perceived and handled differences in students' abilities.
In pursuit of information in Naka City on individual differences, interviews were held with 72 persons and observations were made in 17 classrooms. Interviews were held in 2 academic high schools and 1 vocational high school (27 interviews), 3 junior high schools (27 interviews), and 2 elementary schools (18 interviews). In addition, interviews pertaining to this topic were held in Minami City (15 interviews) and Kita City (19 interviews). Printed information obtained from schools, school boards, research institutes, and Monbusho was also integrated into research findings in this chapter.
All introductions to schools were arranged through the National Institute for Educational Research in Japan and cleared with the proper local school boards.
Most of our informants were serious and eager to provide the information we asked for to the best of their ability. Teachers were normally professional in their demeanor and identified strongly with their occupational roles. Some parents appeared awkward in the formal interview settings but became more relaxed as the interviews progressed. Students perhaps showed the greatest degree of difference in responding. Some were timid while others were talkative. Generally speaking, the younger the students, the more open they seemed to be.
There was a good deal of variation among the classrooms we visited, which were primarily math and science classes. Some of the classes were more animated than others. Some were more academically challenging than others. Regardless of the differences in the general atmosphere of the classes, they shared the characteristics of Japanese "whole class instruction."
The typical Japanese view is that people, with the rare exception of Nobel prize-winning geniuses, are born with equal capacities to achieve and to demonstrate excellence. Like diamonds in the rough waiting to be polished, it is up to the individual and various educating agents in their environment (e.g., parents and teachers) to decide how much they would like to refine and strengthen their potential. As one elementary school teacher told us, "As far as inborn ability goes, I can't say that it isn't there, but I say that it doesn't matter. Regardless of whether you have ability, if you persevere, you can get a good outcome." Without being preoccupied by naturally given abilities, the Japanese emphasize the process and the contexts of learning.
The following conversation illustrates the overall Japanese attitude toward innate ability:
Interviewer: Do you think IQ is important?I asked Japanese teachers, parents, and students, "What percentage of a student's ability can be accounted for by innate ability and how much by learning and a good environment, assuming the child is not learning disabled?" Seven out of eight of the respondents said that the experience and environment accounted for more than 70 percent.Teacher: I don't know exactly what IQ is, but I think it is not an innate thing. I think after the birth, one increases the level of his IQ through much stimulation. Excluding a few special people, I think everyone's IQ can be increased. (Shimogawa Junior High School Teacher)
In Hasu Elementary School, I asked 4th-, 5th-, and 6th-grade students whether or not they thought some people were good at math because they were biologically more capable. A fourth-grade girl said she thought people who accumulated knowledge when they were young became smart, and people who did not accumulate knowledge when they were young became unable to understand. Then a 5th-grade boy underscored this opinion by saying, "I don't think there is much difference between people when they are born. As we grow older, we experience and learn many different things. Those who decide to study hard are the ones who are called smart and geniuses today. Those who did not listen well when they were little, and still don't listen now, are getting what they deserve."
Students at Tancho Elementary School also described this simple belief that "if you study, you do well" as follows:
Besides the social class or status ? like whether or not you were born as a member of the royal family or a commoner ? I think we can overcome anything if we work hard. If it is studying, one will be able to do it well by studying at home and listening to his teacher. There is not a person who is innately, biologically smart. If a person does not keep studying, she gets worse and worse at studying. So I believe academic achievement can be changed by studying hard and listening to the teacher.I heard the same overall opinion about the relationships between the innate versus environmental determinants of the ability differences from parents. The following is a typical conversation one can expect with a Japanese parent:
Interviewer: To go back to the topic of "family atmosphere," this (home environment) is not something you would call "innate" to a child at all, is it?As one can see, Japanese students and parents do not completely deny the presence of talented or gifted people. But because they say that such people are so rare, and that one need not have a special talent to do well in school, they believe that innate ability counts little toward overall success in a student's academic career.Mother: No, it's just like a habit: something to which you become habituated from early on which affects what the child does later. If the child acquired the habit to study from early on, he or she would be able to study easily.
Interviewer: How early is "early on"?
Mother: It is the age at which the child recognizes that he or she is being praised with words like "You draw such a beautiful flower."
Interviewer: How old is that?
Mother: I'd say two or three years old.
Interviewer: Does a two-year old really understand that he is being praised?
Mother: Of course. And that's the beginning of all learning.
Interviewer: Now to go back a bit, I mentioned what one considered as inborn differences.
Mother: Inborn differences are almost like the certificate of breeding. Someone who says, "My child is great by birth," must come from a very selected breed of family.
Interviewer: Now, as far as academic ability is concerned, how much of it do you think is innate and/or experientially formed?
Mother: The experience, I'm sure.
Interviewer: How so?
Mother: Seventy or eighty percent is experientially or environmentally caused. The rest is innate. The innate factors shouldn't take up so much.
Interviewer: Why do you feel so?
Mother: (pause and with laugh) I speak from my own experience!
Interviewer: Is that so? Tell me how you were or what you did.
Mother: (She thinks hard) It could be the hardship that I had to endure or the environment that did not allow me to be lazy? For one thing, as long as I was facing my desk, my parents looked happy.
Interviewer: Did you study hard?
Mother: No, I wish I had studied more. I had so many things I wanted to become.
Japanese teachers, on the other hand, would seem to have a more realistic view than students or parents. Generally, teachers are more likely than students and parents to acknowledge the presence of innately given abilities as predictors of school-related academic success. However, when asked to evaluate the relative importance of innate abilities in determining academic outcome, they too put much more emphasis on the effect of experiential and environmental factors than on innate factors.
The opinion given by Mr. Togo of Naka Vocational is one such example. He said an elite athlete can run a 100 meter dash in 11 seconds, whereas he (a man in his forties) could do so in 15 seconds. He said that the practice alone would not make him run as fast as the elite runner. In the same way, some ability such as remembering as many items as possible in a given time period could be innately determined, so that one can improve his or her performance to a certain extent, but there's a limit, because everyone is born with different levels of ability.
Mr. Togo and other Japanese teachers, parents, and students used several words such as saino (talent or giftedness), soshitsu (innate abilities or gifts), hirameki (inborn senses), which correspond with the English words ability and talent. They believe that these abilities help very bright students climb to the top (provided that they make effort), but are unreliable measures of academic success for the rest of the students because innate ability is only a fraction of their total ability. Mr. Togo explained, "You must also remember human ability consists of many different dimensions. Some of them may be innate, but others aren't. If a person's ability consists of many different elements, as I believe, one cannot compare two people and say one is inferior to the other. As a teacher, I see a student having many different combinations of ability."
Another example is as follows:
I realize [individual differences] by looking at ways students respond to my questions in class. Those at the bottom cannot even begin to solve the problem. For example, they would copy a graph and could not go any further from there. They just sit there afterwards. Students at the next level actually start thinking about the problem, but they cannot arrive at the answer. Students at the next level can come up with answers, but only a few of them are correct, and others are incorrect. Students at the highest level can almost always come up with right answers. In fact, there is yet another higher level of students who can answer questions I give in class. Feeling unsatisfied, they would find more difficult questions in an exercise book and try to solve them on their own.Students talk about their differences in a very similar way. They say that there are "those who pay attention in class and those who don't" (Student, Naka Vocational High School). They also see the difference in their attitude toward exams: "some people prepare for exams seriously and some don't " (Student, Naka Vocational High School). There are "those who do math and Japanese drill books fast and those who don't; and there are those who raise their hands in class and those who don't" (Student, Tancho Elementary School). A typical response was as follows:
In English class, a teacher asks each of us a question, and some people answer promptly, but some get stuck, and the teacher has to explain to them. Even after hearing the explanation, some of them do not understand, and in times like those I feel they can't do well. In any class, those who can do well raise their hands to answer questions, and it seems that we have the same people raising hands. (Student, Chuo Junior High School)
When I asked the science teacher at Meiji whether or not he thought there were individual differences, for example, he responded immediately by saying, "In high school, students' ability (noryoku) is judged by exam scores." The response of the 18-year old female student from the same school was more explicit:
In school, our [students'] existence is shown by numbers: grade points on report cards, exam scores, standardized score on mock college exams, and so on. The school routinely posts results of the trial exam on the wall of the main entrance hall for only the top 35 students out of 400. That's how we know the differences.The mindset of seeing individual differences in terms of exam scores is also reflected in the Meiji math teacher's response. When asked how wide he thought the ranges of differences among students might be, he said, "on an exam in which the highest score is 100, I have students scoring from, say 15 to 95 points. That's the way I know how much difference there is among my students."
Thus it is not surprising to see the teachers, students, and parents mention personality (seikaku) as one obvious sign of individual differences. Among the three groups, parents seemed to express this opinion most strongly, because they had first-hand knowledge about personality differences among their own children. Their typical response sounds like, "I could tell from my two children that they were different even at moments of their birth. My first child, my son, took so much time to drink milk, and the second child, my daughter, drank it quickly."
Many parents, teachers, and students say personality differences come from innate factors, and they discuss such differences in terms of concrete, observable personality characteristics that contribute to divergent patterns of learning habits and processes.
For example, a mother at Meiji told me that her son was an accomplished kendo (Japanese fencing) player who competed strongly in national tournaments. She believed that there was similarity between kendo and math, for in order to excel in them, one had to be "strong minded." She described her son's personality as: "If he gets hit twice by his opponent in kendo, he cannot be satisfied until he hits his opponent back three times more than he was hit." She suggested that his personality contributed to his habits in learning. "In math," she continued, "he never lets difficult [math] problems defeat him. He would go attacking them until he is able to solve them." Similarly, the student at Tancho Elementary School acknowledged that people innately had different personality characteristics. She then went on to describe those characteristics in terms of behavior that "some people give up easily, and some have to try everything." As the mother of the kendo player believed that her son's personality affected his study habits, she also said that "differences in personality contributed to the differences in their ability to do math."
Because the Japanese define personality in terms of observable behavior and demonstrated competence, they think they can foster, strengthen, or change innate personality. Emphasizing the effect of environment on personality formation, a high school science teacher argued:
I don't like that word, innate ability. Excluding the disabled, I think the students display their ability in different ways because of personalities: some work diligently, and some look at the surface. Even that (personality) has to do with one's environment?how the child rearing is done at home. Though very small, there may be innate factors in individual differences. A child, for example, may not be good at memorizing, but the child can think and observe well. Or the child may have more ability to do sports than academics. (Teacher, Meiji High School)In summary, the Japanese perceive personality to be the product of both nature and nurture.
[Chapter 3 - Individual Differences and the Japanese Education System (Part 2 of 5)]