A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Chapter 5 - Teachers and the Teaching
Profession in Japan
(Part 6 of 7)

Teaching

Elementary School Teaching

Although the extensive committee assignments and detailing of responsibilities led to a complex organizational structure within each school, teachers had considerable flexibility. At the elementary school level there were schedules for classroom activities and other activities, but the teachers seemed comfortable with changing schedules based on students' needs. Teachers were encouraged to modify schedules depending on the weather, children's moods and behavior, and other factors. For example, one vice principal, during a morning teachers' meeting, called upon the teachers to reflect upon (hansei suru) Saturday because it had been such nice weather; he would have liked to have seen more classes playing outside. Although this might also be viewed as administrative interference in the running of classes, it was meant as an encouragement to drop the planned schedule and take advantage of a sunny day in the midst of the rainy season. The principal at Tancho Elementary School proudly pointed out that there were no chimes between third and fourth and between fifth and sixth periods so that teachers could use those two hours without a break as a two-hour block if they wished. He told me, "It is up to the teachers to decide freely. They can watch the students' condition and decide if what they are doing should be continued or stopped."

Recognition that children need to be active. The schedule (Figure 8) translated from Hasu Elementary School's guidebook exemplifies the emphasis on student interaction, physical activity, and learning about things like cleaning and preparing meals. 45 minutes a day are devoted to preparing, eating together, and cleaning up from lunch, and an additional 20 minutes are spent cleaning the school. Students clean almost every area of the school daily including the restrooms, outdoor sidewalks and gardens, floors, and emptying trash and recyclables. All of the times listed as "free time" can be used to go outdoors to the play area (weather permitting), play in the classroom, or play in the gymnasium or library. In addition, students are encouraged to arrive a little early and play outdoors or in the gymnasium.

On Monday there is an all-school morning meeting when students line up with their classes either outdoors or in the gymnasium, and the principal and teachers make announcements. Then they all do a routine set of exercises to music. On Wednesdays, students stay outdoors or in the gymnasium in their classroom groups and are encouraged to be very active physically—for example, the fourth-graders were divided among the monkey bars, jungle gym, and parallel bars on the playground, and the teachers circulated to make sure all children were participating actively and using lots of energy. The principal told me this was time for "preparing their minds (kokoro no junbi no jikan). It is very important." The "Hasu time," "open time," and "child time" on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday likewise usually involved either physical activity together or group discussions or games in the classrooms. At Tancho Elementary School these various morning activities were called "play time" (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday), "Tancho child time" (Wednesday), and "togetherness time" (Friday). In addition, all students leave by 2:30p.m. on Mondays and Thursdays and first- through third-graders leave earlier on most days. Teachers told me that this is necessary, because young children cannot sit still for such long days.

Figure 8 — Weekly schedule For Hasu Elementary School

Source: Hasu Elementary School Guidebook, 1995.

I observed several instances where a teacher stopped a class or delayed beginning a lesson in order to discuss issues related to student relationships. In one classroom with a new Korean student, the teacher led three full-class discussions about respect and getting along with each other in response to the new student's tears. In some classes, 10 or 20 minutes at the end of each day are used to discuss the good and bad events of the day with a focus on self-reflection.

Giving attention and plenty of time to students' moods and the interactions between students seemed to deter serious discipline problems. One boisterous fourth-grade girl soundly slapped a boy on the back over a dispute about lunch portions. The teacher, after spraying the boy's back with a cooling first aid spray, quickly asked the class how the dispute could have been handled. A brief discussion followed and the girl apologized in tears to the boy and to the class, but then seemed to dry her tears and happily rejoined her friends in a game.

In another classroom, one active boy rushed up to refill his bowl at lunch and caused another boy to trip and drop his entire lunch tray. Rather than lecturing the class or scolding the boy, the teacher looked up and asked, "How will we clean up the mess?" The surrounding classmates immediately grabbed cleaning equipment and, when the floor was clean, students shared small amounts of their portions with the boy whose meal had been lost. At the end of the day, the boy who had caused the accident apologized to the class and the other boy thanked the class for helping him. The potential for an emotionally charged exchange became instead a chance to practice formal apologies and thank yous. The disciplinary techniques observed all seemed to focus on asking the students to work together to solve a problem rather than assigning blame to any one student.

Science and arithmetic teaching. In all three elementary schools there were similarities in the use of props and the way in which teachers used a variety of teaching methods during science and arithmetic lessons. For example, fourth-graders were all doing a unit on weights and working with scales they had made of milk cartons. The teachers were adept at changing activities every 5 or 10 minutes in order to keep children's attention and each seemed to have a vast repertoire of teaching strategies.

All the elementary school teachers told me that there were no staff assistants who prepare class materials for them, although some schools had an office assistant who helped with making photocopies and other routine tasks. Teachers commented that they worked together with other teachers to prepare and share materials. At Hasu Elementary School, as described above, the sixth-grade teachers were observed planning together and sharing materials for the experiment in a science lesson and then discussing how their own class had responded to the lesson. In addition, all schools were experimenting with "team-teaching," which usually meant combining classes for a lesson. Recently, according to several respondents, team-teaching also is encouraged by the provision of an extra part-time teacher, although this was not the case in any elementary school classes I observed.

The most unusual and seemingly chaotic math class I observed was one in which the students were finishing a lesson from the previous days' "team-taught" class. In that class the three teachers had stationed themselves around the gymnasium and students had worked independently or in small groups. They had gone to one of the teachers, depending on their progress, to have their work checked or have some part explained. In the class I observed, most students had not finished the handouts and thus were attempting to complete them in class, so the teacher had students who were finished act as "helpers" in charge of checking other students' work. It was a geometry lesson where students were expected to recreate certain shapes in different sizes using protractors, rulers, and compasses. The teacher sat at his desk checking final products and giving permission to go on to the next section. The room was noisy and seemed somewhat disorganized. After class the teacher explained that the class was markedly different from his regular lessons in which mainly he teaches and students listen.

An individualized arithmetic class. Classes are typically teacher-directed, but individualized classes also occurred frequently. There is growing discussion in Japanese elementary schools on individualized instruction and allowing students to work at their own pace. The students in the classroom described at length below seemed to enjoy the freedom and chance to move around, and only one boy seemed to fall behind and he may have been behind with any type of instruction. The relationship of this particular teacher to his students and his ability to calm them down quickly were factors that kept this classroom from becoming unmanageable. I've described this classroom in detail in order to convey some of the noise and variety of activities.

One Matsu Elementary School arithmetic class began at 8:51 a.m. when the teacher rang a bell and called out, "All right, arithmetic." Many students immediately rushed up to the teacher's desk to have their work checked and several said, "teacher! seals!" asking him to put stickers on their finished work. He replied to this request by saying slowly, "I know!" At any time about half the class was working relatively quietly on work at their desks. While checking individual students' work, he loudly said "no good" several times and finally stopped to write a problem quickly on the board. He told the class "those who miss this don't get a sticker!" Students picked up their own stickers after having their work checked.

After about 15 minutes of checking individual work, the teacher again rang his little bell and told the students still in line at his desk to sit down. He then lectured briefly, while writing the problems clearly on the chalkboard, that although setting the problem 48 + 173 + 27 equal to (173 + 27) + 48 is not really wrong, and this is what one boy he names does a lot, it is altogether wrong in the following example: 15 + 4 x 3 = 4 x 3 = 12 =15 + 12 = 27. He repeated that this is totally wrong and crossed it out with red chalk. The lesson continued briefly as he explained that although you can change the order with addition, you can't with other operations, so it is best not to change the order of the numbers for addition either so you do not form bad habits. The emphasis was on understanding how incorrect answers are produced and on how to avoid faulty problem-solving.

The students again immediately lined up at his desk as soon as he finished talking. After a couple more minutes he rang the bell again to point out another technique for a problem. He called out, "hey, look this way! This isn't just Nakada-san's way of doing it." He wrote on the board: 53 x 4 - 27 x 4 = (53 - 27) x 4. Then he asked who else solved it this way, and about half the students raised their hands. He returned to marking papers and remarked loudly that he was going to mark them quickly. One student asked, "why" and the teacher exclaimed, "because I'm worn out!" (Throughout the period he joked around with students in this manner.) Students mostly worked independently at their desks, but some in line compared their work to see if it was correct. The line stretched out into the hallway and was rather noisy. Two boys raced each other to the line noisily. Mr. N. sometimes muttered "Uh-oh," as if he had come across a wrong answer, even if it was correct, to tease the students. He asked one girl who was done if she could explain the problem to a boy sitting beside her. She sat down to help him. He instructed another girl to check on the boy's work behind her. After a few minutes, he asked her if the boy was understanding the problem and she said "yes."

Forty minutes into the class, after much energetic behavior and running around on the part of the students, the teacher worked his way slowly to the back of the room to help a boy who was still struggling with the problems. On his way, he stopped to help other students and never reached the confused pupil's desk before the chimes rang and class ended. Except for this one student, all seemed to be involved and learning.

A teacher-directed arithmetic class. At the same school, again in the fourth grade, another teacher conducted quite a different type of classroom instruction. This class was a more typical class period and included a combination of teacher-directed learning, student response, time to work independently with teacher assistance, and a quick game at the end to keep up enthusiasm. There seemed to be little chance of boredom, given the rapid pace of instruction and the need to raise one's hand or stand-up in response to continual teacher questions about whether or not the material is being understood and to give answers to various problems. Again, I'll describe this class in great detail to provide a sense of the contrast with the previously described math lesson.

This teacher began by instructing the students to get out their notebooks for arithmetic and briefly allowed some confusion as one boy walked up to the front to receive a stamp on pages he had finished. One particularly excitable boy in the back asked about a game they had just finished, and the teacher told the class, "we're not doing that anymore, now we are doing arithmetic. Once you are finished getting out your notebook, please look at my face. Let's do problem number two that you did yesterday."

Although we could hear the students in the classroom next door loudly chanting something, the room got quiet as students settled with their books on their desks and directed their attention toward the front chalkboard. The lesson was on estimation and rounding. The teacher wrote four problems from their textbooks neatly on the board: a. 20 x 58 b. 31 x 62 c. 28 x 53 d. 58 x 43 She began by demonstrating that the answer to (a.) would be between 20 x 50 and 30 x 60 and showed them that since the lower number is exactly 20, they should use only 20. She concluded, writing on the chalkboard, that their small estimate should have been 20 x 50 and their large estimate 20 x 60. The teacher then asked the class to raise their hands if they understand. About two-thirds of the students raised their hands and when she requested, "If you don't understand some parts of it, raise your hands," about eight hands went up.

She then said they would try a simple problem and wrote 2 x 3 and 2 x 5 on the chalkboard and asked where the product of 2 x 4 would fit. All but about five students raised their hands when she asked them if they understood this simpler problem. She continued doing problems by calling on students who volunteered to describe each step of the solutions. Whenever the teacher asked a question, the students who knew the answer immediately raised their hands. Similarly, when asked whether or not they understood the problem, students all raised their hands quickly in response. Although there were 36 students in the room, it was obvious which students were able to follow along and which students were lost.

The teacher then assigned a set of example problems from their textbook to be worked out in their notebooks and she walked around the classroom. She encouraged students by saying "try struggling with this. This is difficult." After about 5 minutes of individual work, she had them help her work out the example problems on the chalkboard. She illustrated the usefulness of the estimation technique by giving the example of having 720 yen and needing to divide it among either three or four people. "Who would be richer?" she asked. Students excitedly called out that they are either richer than or not as rich than if they had a different amount. It seemed that all students were paying attention to the lesson. At this point one boy called out that the boy across from him wasn't doing his work. The teacher kindly responded, "OK, but yesterday he did it the best," and said to the boy in question, "Look into your heart and decide for yourself." The class continued with another short lecture about the general rule for estimation: the larger the number by which you divide, the smaller the number will be in the answer. Then students were assigned more individual work for about 5 minutes.

At 9:30a.m. she ended this section of the lesson and asked the students to move their desks into groups of six. Each group chose a "player" (all groups choose boys) and she gave them the problem 82 + 16. Two boys answered correctly at exactly the same moment, and the teacher had the other four "players" sit down and these two boys do "rock, paper, scissors" to decide the winner. The children cheered loudly for the winner. The teacher stated that class is now over and the student who was in charge for the day called out the traditional commands of "stand up" (kiritsu), "attention" (kiotsuke), and "bow" (rei) and class ended.

One teacher used an even greater variety of such methods and his sixth-grade students almost never had a moment without needing to respond; he had them do individual problems in their notebooks but these became group activities as he variously asked them to stand-up, close their books, turn their desks around (which meant switching to the back chalkboard for awhile), raise their hands, or check their partner's work when finished. Meanwhile, he would quickly gather together the students who were struggling, coach them and explain the problem, and send them back to try the next problem. Although the class used group-based instruction and all students were proceeding at the same pace, each student seemed to get individual attention and any lack of understanding or lack of participation was quickly noted and corrected. The noise level would rise and fall dramatically after the problem was assigned and as students moved their desks or bodies or discussed the problem with a partner, but all seemed to be enjoying basic arithmetic practice. In his classroom, students even had various code phrases for how to solve problems and how to talk about various issues. This was their second year as a class with the same teacher, and they seemed totally accustomed to his rapid instructions and comfortable indicating their level of understanding.

A science class in the laboratory room. Similarly, science classes seem to range from fairly individualized work to more teacher-directed interactions, although all the science periods I observed in these three elementary schools included hands-on work with materials. This teacher skillfully used diverse teaching strategies to vary the level of activity in the room and maintain student interest. She carefully went over new concepts repeatedly—new words were first explained, then read by a few students individually, then practiced as a group; students first read silently and then listened as one student read the same section; the use of the scale was first demonstrated by the teacher and then students immediately tried the same actions in their small groups. The small groups were decided ahead of time and used for various activities, not just for science, and students were familiar with the equipment they needed and with traveling to the laboratory room. Little time was required for preparations and clean up and all except one student was fully prepared with texts, model scales made during previous class periods, notebooks, and writing supplies. The fourth-grade teachers were sharing the laboratory room scales, and had agreed among themselves about how and where they would be stored, so this equipment, too, was easily accessible and clean up was straightforward.

The fourth-grade teacher at Hasu Elementary School began by instructing the students to move to the science laboratory room, and students gathered together their scales made of milk-cartons, texts, notebooks, and pencil cases and slowly filed down two flights of stairs. Most were seated and settled before the chimes rang. After a brief lecture reviewing the previous lesson when students had weighed erasers to compare weights, the teacher wrote new vocabulary words related to scales on the chalkboard. She asked individual students to take turns reading the words to the class and then asked the entire class to read the words aloud together. Students chanted the words and played with the intonation as they repeated them, and the teacher allowed the noise. Students were asked to read a textbook page silently while the teacher disappeared into the next-door preparation room to look for an extra textbook for one boy who had forgotten his. When she returned she asked one student to read the assigned page aloud to the class. The teacher next instructed the "mother" (okaasan) of each group to get the scales for their groups (within their groups they are divided into "father," "mother," "brother," and "sister," titles which emphasize the family-like nature of these groups.) She then gathered all the students around the table in the front of the room and demonstrated the parts of a balancing scale and how to hold weights using a large model scale. She told students to return to their groups and practice on their group's scale. Students worked in their groups, more or less diligently, depending on the group, while the teacher again disappeared into the preparation room for about three minutes.

On her return the teacher asked one little boy who was crying quietly what was wrong. He stood and said in a tearful voice that someone in his group was angry at him. She took time to listen carefully to the group's explanation of what they said to the boy. She told him it was not something to cry about and he should sit down and she would check with their group later.

The class proceeded with individual reading and then group reading of the next page and another demonstration using weights on the large model scale at the front of the room. The last 10 minutes of class were used to try to weigh various small objects in student groups. Some groups were more successful than others, and the teacher finally got to the last group just as the chimes ring. She corrected their approach briefly and then announced that class was ending and told the students to carry their things up to the classroom first and get outside quickly for their 20-minute break. All left quickly except for one group who had put the box for their scale on a shelf under the table where it got stuck. After allowing them to try to get it out for a few minutes, the teacher went back to help and they quickly put things away and left the room.

[Chapter 5 - Teachers and the Teaching Profession in Japan (Part 5 of 7)]

[Chapter 5 - Teachers and the Teaching Profession in Japan (7 of 7)]