Teaching in Japan

Nobuo K. Shimahara

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135696573
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This collection of essays explores teaching in Japan as it relates to contemporary social change in the past two decades. The collection explores day-to-day teaching in Japan from the teacher's erspective relying on first hand accounts by those within the system.

Part One
Teaching and current Issues

Chapter 1
Introduction: The Background

The primary purpose of this volume is to take a fresh look at teaching at the elementary and middle-school levels in Japan. It will address two questions: What sustains teaching? And what is pressing teaching to change? As an educational anthropologist my interest is in examining the relationship between culture and education. This volume presents a cultural perspective on these questions based on ethnographic and other related data that I have gathered over the past ten years in Japan.

The first part of this book considers salient characteristics of contemporary teaching, national reforms aimed at changing the way that teachers are prepared, and professional development. The second part presents an ethnographic account of how Japanese beginning teachers learn to teach. This account mirrors teaching in general and specifically illuminates what novices are expected to learn in order to become teachers and how they are enculturated into teaching. Although this ethnographic analysis is based on a case study of a small number of beginning teachers, it sheds lights on the culture of teaching in Japan: teachers’ shared beliefs, sociocultural knowledge, and time-honored practices. Although this analysis is embedded in the data collected in 1989-1990 and published in 1995 (Shimahara & Sakai), in my view it remains valid and helps explain the Japanese culture of teaching. Since 1990, I conducted two major ethnographic research projects for a total of a year and a half (Shimahara, 1997, 1999)— one year in 1994-1995 and a half-year in 1998— and data from these projects suggest that teaching in Japan has changed very little over the past decade. The government has introduced important reforms to change teacher preparation since the mid-1980s, but whether these reform initiatives will effect important change in classroom practice remains to be seen. Thus far, no study has shown significant change in Japanese teaching practice.

Nevertheless, major social change inevitably affects teaching. Over the past two decades students have been driving Japan’s school reforms, including teacher education overhauls. Education reform initiatives have been a response to problems created largely by teenagers who attend secondary (middle and high) schools and whose behaviors reflect the penetrating influences of social change on their lives.

When a national school reform task force (National Council on Educational Reform, 1988) started a series of restructuring initiatives in the mid-1980s, Amano (1986) a perceptive sociologist, made this observation:

The most immediate reason why reform is necessary now is the troubled relationship between the children who are the main actors in the educational process and the system itself. A reexamination of that relationship, not so much of educational institutions or of education’s role in society, is the key issue__ The strong support for reform derives from the totally new perception of the changes occurring in children, on the one hand, and of the relationship between children and the educational system, on the other, (p. 2-3)

We will explore teaching in Japan against the politically charged backdrop of education reforms over the past two decades. The overall purpose is to provide a fresh analysis of teaching in the context of contemporary social change. We will examine the culture of teaching at the elementary and lower secondary levels. It is a stabilizing, powerful force that provides a collective ethos and a framework for teaching in which the knowledge of teaching is embedded. Our attention is focused on the interface between stabilizing forces and driving forces for change. Our exploration of teaching calls for a critical analysis of the characteristics of teachers’ everyday work, the organizational structure of schooling, and the intensification of teaching as well as an inquiry into how teachers adapt to changing students and changing society. Further, we explore strategies for teacher preparation reforms and professional development, which are crucial factors in providing both continuity in teaching and adaptability to change.

As a brief background to this volume, we will now discuss several relevant strands of events in post-1945 teaching in Japan, followed by a brief analysis of teachers’ opinions about their careers, and then an overview of the volume, including chapter synopses as a guide to the reader.

Strands in Japanese Postwar Education

The first strand in Japanese postwar education is the introduction of an education system, including the preparation of teachers, which completely replaced the prewar nationalistic, authoritarian school system. In early 1946, the United States Mission on Education was invited to Japan to recommend education reforms (see Ministry of Education, 1980). The mission drew on the American education system as a model for formulating its recommendations, which delineated the initial policy and basic structure of postwar education in Japan. The Education Reform Committee, appointed by the Japanese government as a counterpart to the American mission, played a vital role in reviewing the Americans’ recommendations and drafting final recommendations for reforms for legislation.

The Education Reform Committee’s work led to the establishment of a uniform system of coeducation offering six years of elementary, three years of lower secondary (middle school), three years of upper secondary (high school), and four years of college education— the first nine years being compulsory. The American mission of 1946 repudiated the centralized structure of school governance and called for greater community and teacher initiative. It recommended, among other pivotal ideas, that elected boards of education as well as parent and teacher organizations be established. The missions report also recommended a complete revamping of the pre-1945 teacher education system, which provided nationalistic, narrow occupational training deficient in specialized, intellectually rich knowledge. Based on that report, the Education Reform Committee recommended a new organization of teacher education to the government with emphasis on college-level general education. Teacher education was to be incorporated into the university education system and to integrate three principal areas: broad education in the arts and sciences, study in subject fields, and professional study. The committee also recommended an “open system of teacher education,” enabling any college or university to offer a teacher education program without direct control by the Ministry of Education. This system eventually led to the development of certification programs by the vast majority of institutions of higher education in Japan.

In 1947, the legislature enacted a national teacher certification law and the Ministry of Education was granted the authority to oversee its implementation. Meanwhile, each local prefectural board of education gained the authority to certify and appoint public school teachers at all levels.

The education reforms introduced in the late 1940s came under intense fire throughout the 1950s, and consequently many of these reforms were altered by the conservative government. The 1950s was a reactionary decade epitomized by a movement toward reestablishing the standardization and central control of schooling. The government initiated a number of administrative and legislative measures to accomplish the return, which resulted in a series of intense and prolonged confrontations between the government and its opposition, which consisted of the left-wing Japan Teachers Union, academic organizations such as the Japan Pedagogical Association, and other interest groups (Kaigo, 1975). Although the basic structure of formal education remained true to the postwar model, the curriculum and school governance underwent significant transformation in this conservative era. By the end of the 1950s, the government had grasped the reins of the nation’s schools by centralizing the control of schools. It was in this context that the Ministry of Education embarked on reeducation of teachers in the late 1950s.

In 1958, the Ministry of Education announced a sweeping curriculum revision for Japan’s schools, which included introducing moral education at the elementary and lower secondary levels as an independent area of teaching. Overall, this revised curriculum was designed to promote Japan’s industrial development in the 1960s. At the same time, the Ministry of Education issued an administrative measure to make the national course of study binding; it had previously been regarded only as an advisory guideline by textbook writers and schools. With this measure, the Ministry of Education firmly established a national curriculum and tightened control of the textbook authorization process.

In the 1950s, the Ministry of Education began to assume greater control not only of teachers but also of teacher education. As early as 1958, the Central Council of Education (1958), an influential body that made policy recommendations to the minister of education, issued a report on enhancing teacher education. The report sprang from the ministry’s concern with what it feared to be deteriorating teacher education in the nation. The council was unambiguously critical of the postwar liberalization of teacher education, which, in its opinion, had downgraded certification standards. Since the early 1960s, the Central Council of Education and another standing advisory council, the Teacher Education Council, have periodically made policy recommendations on teacher education to the Ministry of Education. These recommendations have addressed the needs for: improving professional studies, especially clinical experience, for preservice students; establishing internships for teachers and professional development programs; and developing colleges whose primary purpose is to prepare teachers. These policy concerns, including revisions of teacher certification, were again addressed during the 1980s, which led to major legislative action to change teacher education and to introduce one-year mandatory internships for beginning public school teachers (see chapter 4).

The second strand is the theme that postwar Japanese education has come full circle. Japanese education has been guided by two contrasting paradigms of development. The first one is the so-called “catch-up” ideology that drove industrial and social development from the dawn of Japan’s modernization in 1868 for nearly one hundred years. The goal of this ideology was to catch up with the West, and it dictated the structure and orientation of schooling. In the postwar era, except its short early phase in the 1940s, the Ministry of Education’s central goal was efficient, uniform education and egalitarianism in elementary and secondary education. This approach, however, has been under attack over the past two decades. The second paradigm of development is the post catch-up ideology, which emerged in the 1970s and 1980s as Japan caught up with the West in terms of economic and industrial development. Its rhetoric is not about efficiency, uniformity, and drivenness; instead it is represented by diversity, individual differences, freedom, and personal motivation and interest. The rhetoric epitomizes the ideological orientation of postwar education around 1950.

Let us look at postwar curriculum changes that reflect the second strand. Japan’s national curriculum has been reviewed and revised every ten years in light of social, technological, and economic changes (see Shimahara, 1992). The first revision took place under the strong influence of American education during the Occupation. The new curriculum emphasized experience-based and student-centered learning and promoted problem-solving methods. The Ministry of Education issued an official course of study as a guide for teachers and local schools to build their curricula. During those years, the Ministry allowed teachers considerable freedom to determine curricula relevant to their local schools. The experience-oriented curriculum was widely criticized, however, with the chief contention being that student performance had deteriorated.

Accordingly, the Ministry reviewed that curriculum in the early 1950s and, in 1958, made a fundamental revision for the elementary and secondary levels that took effect in the early 1960s. Having gained firm control over the nations schools through legislation and administrative measures in the 1950s, the ministry issued a course of study that became binding and established more rigorous standards to ensure that commercial textbooks matched the Ministry’s goals. The primary focus of the revised curriculum was on improving moral education, academic achievement, science and technical education, and vocational education. As a result, a knowledge-centered curriculum displaced the experience-oriented curriculum and simultaneously quashed local adaptations. The 1960s witnessed an industrial and economic expansion unparalleled in Japanese history. Responding to the demands of industry, in 1968 the Ministry of Education announced its third comprehensive revision of the curriculum to improve scientific and technical education and enhance students’ adaptability to a changing society. The revision called specifically for upgrading math and science education. The revised curriculum built on exceedingly high expectations of student performance, however, failed to coincide with the actual abilities and skills of high school students at a time when ninety percent of youth were enrolled in high school (Kinoshita, 1983; Yamaguchi, 1980; Yanagi, 1984).

In response to the perceived rigidity and excessive requirements of the previous curriculum reform, the ministry revised the national curriculum in the late 1970s, this time emphasizing flexibility and diversity to “humanize” student life at school. This revision marked the shift back toward the immediately postwar curriculum policy. Subsequent curriculum reform in the late 1980s accelerated this course, further accommodating students’ needs, individual differences, and choice. The Ministry of Education announced the latest curriculum reform in 1998, which will take effect in the early 2000s. This reform reduces curriculum content by thirty percent, mainly in consideration of students’ abilities to follow the curriculum and the reduction of school time from six to five days a week. It is said to emphasize basic education, student initiative in learning, and freedom in student life at school. It will introduce “comprehensive study” at all levels to encourage students to take initiative in organizing research projects focused on specific issues such as environmental, community, and international topics. Comprehensive study is the rebirth of the experience-based curriculum introduced in the early years of Japan’s postwar education.

The two most recent curriculum reforms underscore problem-solving strategies in teaching and learning, or what is officially referred to as a “new view of academic competence” (see chapter 4). This view gives emphasis to students’ intrinsic motivation and problem-solving approaches in learning. But again, such a view of student competency is not new in Japan, because it was introduced in the early phase of postwar education under the American influence. In short, the second strand, that Japanese education has come full circle, thematically characterizes Japan’s education reform initiatives.

In a third strand of the postwar history of Japanese, the confrontation between the Ministry of Education and the Japan Teachers Union (JTU) takes center stage. The Ministry’s views have invariably represented the conservative government, whereas JTU’s policy position symbolized the left-wing ideology of the Socialist and Communist parties since its formation in 1947 through the 1980s. The largest union in the country, JTU enrolled more than 86 percent of the teaching force late in the 1950s, a decade during which there were intense and even violent confrontations between JTU and its allies on the one hand and the conservative government on the other, as the latter attempted to gain greater control of teachers and introduce a variety of controversial measures, such as moral education and a binding national course of study. Indeed, the history of post-1945 education could be written as a history of disputes and showdowns between the government and the union on every major educational issue for over three decades. These issues included, for example, national testing, teacher evaluation, textbook authorization, a national course of study, school management, the national anthem, the national flag, government-led school reforms, and internships. Hence, the government’s education policy has been restrained as well as constrained and mediated by the opposition marshaled by the union.

For example, union critics of government-sponsored inservice education raised a crucial political question regarding its purpose: What does it serve? Teruhisa Horio (1988), a former intellectual spokesman for JTU and a former professor of education at the University of Tokyo criticized government-led inservice education as early as 1971:

[Government-sponsored inservice training] threatens to make our teachers’ desires for personal advancement directly dependent upon the power of a centralized system of administrative control. Thus, to realize their desire for higher positions within the organization of the school, teachers will increasingly have to perform successfully within government-sponsored programs of in-service training (kenshu). Moreover, as only those teachers who have already been deemed ideologically deserving of such training will be given the opportunity to participate in the necessary in-service programs [organized at the national level], the organization of elites within the school system will increasingly come under the direct control of the Ministry of Education, (p. 247)

A significant change in this pattern of confrontation started to occur in the 1980s, as the union’s influence over teachers and the government started to diminish as a result of declining membership. Moreover, JTU split into two separate organizations over internal ideological conflicts in 1989: a moderate mainstream union, which continues to represent JTU, and a left-wing minority union. That change of power balance in favor of the Ministry of Education enabled the government to pass major legislation in the 1980s without significant opposition, such as a teacher certification reform and long-coveted internships for beginning public school teachers. In the past the union had been vehemently opposed to these government measures as an attempt to control teachers.

As of 1995, only 34 percent of the teaching force belonged to the JTU, ...