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Another way in which children have similar educational environments up to the age of 15 is that within their schools, they are not separated into different classes or groups according to their ability – just like in Finland. The same class will contain the student who has their sights set on Japan’s most prestigious university, and the student who struggles with maths and squeezes in their homework around baseball practice. I asked the head teacher of a junior high I visited why this was, given my own experience of the setting of students by ability in England, and he said, ‘In Japan, we have very strong ideas about providing equal education to everyone. It is the tradition.’ But it is not just the case that they believe children should have equal access to educational opportunities despite inherent differences between them; Japanese educators are less likely to believe that there are inherent differences in the first place.79 And I think this belief makes a difference, over and above the policies that are put in place.
Japan’s education system is based on the assumption that everyone is intellectually equal, at least at first, and it is the environment and individuals’ work ethic that lead to eventual distinctions in academic ability. This doesn’t mean that the Japanese don’t have the conception of some children being smarter than others. Juliet used to give lifts to her daughters’ friends, and would hear them talking about their classmates as being atama ii or atama warui – literally ‘good head’ and ‘bad head’. But there is a perception that these differences come about as a result of studying hard or not. Lily explained to me that if you fail a test, it’s not because you’re stupid – the tests are such that if you’ve studied, you can definitely pass, even if you don’t get top marks.
This belief is conveyed to the students in the way that Japanese teachers relate to the class. As we saw, at the primary level, students do much of their work in groups (han), and this work is therefore evaluated as a group effort, playing down any early differences in ability between students. Praise is also reserved for the group, rather than individual students. Adam recounted, ‘What I was surprised by, coming from an American or Western mind set, was the way the other teachers responded to me praising individual kids who had done well. A lot of teachers were like, “no, don’t do that. Because now all of the other students will be mad. That they sucked, they didn’t do good.” So I’ve slowly stopped doing that.’ When teachers take pains not to emphasise the differences between students, they perpetuate this idea that all students have equal potential.
I said earlier that I think this belief alone makes a difference to student outcomes, over and above the particular policies of comprehensive education or mixed-ability classes, and here is why: teacher expectations make a difference. Research suggests that if teachers believe that students have great potential, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the students are more likely to succeed as expected. This is called the Pygmalion effect, after the mythical King of Cyprus who fell in love with a woman he had carved out of stone, and whose dreams came true when the goddess Aphrodite took pity on him and turned the statue into a real woman. The psychologist Robert Rosenthal was the first to use this term in an educational context in 1968, to describe the results of an experiment he carried out with school principal Lenore Jacobson.80
Rosenthal and Jacobson gave the children at Jacobson’s school an IQ test at the beginning of the school year. They told teachers that this was a measure of student potential and ‘blooming’, suggesting that it could tell which students would perform well that year – in fact it could do no such thing. Teachers were told that certain students in their classes had come in the top 20 per cent of this test, whereas actually they were randomly selected from the class list. At the end of the year, the children took IQ tests again to estimate any change, and the students the teachers had expected to do well based on the invented test results had actually improved their IQ scores, relative to the other children. The only explanatory factor was the teachers’ expectations of them.81 On a less positive note, the same thing happens in reverse (the Gollum effect), and when teachers have low expectations of children, it effects their scores in the expected direction too.82
So when Japanese teachers believe that all children have equal potential, and are equally capable of succeeding at school (as opposed to some children lacking the innate ability), this actually makes it more likely that they will succeed at school. Sociologist Gail Benjamin writes: ‘Japanese educators do not feel that they can be effective only with certain kinds of children or with children from only certain kinds of home backgrounds. All children can learn, all should learn, the same basic lessons, and the same sets of teaching techniques can be effective with all children.’83 Japan is one of only 10 countries of all those that take part in PISA in which the impact of socio-economic status on maths scores is below the international average, while at the same time keeping those scores above the international average. Perhaps these attitudes have something to do with it.
Even in Japan though, a student’s family background significantly relates to the grades she is likely to get. While in many ways, Japan’s social and economic environment has been conducive to educationally supportive home backgrounds for many years, with low unemployment, low income inequality and a large middle class (over 90 per cent of Japanese considered themselves to be middle class in 1995), there are still disparities in parental approaches based on social strata.
Yoko Yamamoto at Brown University carried out a series of in-depth interviews with 16 Japanese mothers of different classes about their children’s education, and found that though both middle-class and working-class mothers wanted their children to do well at school, it was only the middle-class mothers who considered it their responsibility to engage their young children in learning outside of school. Where working-class mums were sometimes worried about the academic achievement of their children, they didn’t have the confidence or the know-how to address these issues.84 Perhaps for related reasons, children from poorer backgrounds are also likely to spend less time studying outside of school.85 And more so than in many other countries, mothers in Japan are expected to play a significant role in their children’s education.
Mum Says I Have to Study
Students work hard in Japan, but not only because they believe that they can succeed through hard work; nationally education is believed to be of supreme importance. As we have seen, this was not always the case, and when compulsory education was first introduced, many people did not see the point of school. At the time, the government took it upon itself to educate the population about the importance of education, alongside establishing the education system. More recently, the education minister raised teachers’ pay above that of other civil servants, so that it would continue to reflect the importance of the job. And now, this education focus can be seen in the manner of the ceremonies that are held for all children on their entering and graduating from school at each stage of their education.
I was privileged to be invited to attend Maya’s graduation from junior high school. The school hall was full of parents, dressed mainly in dark, smart suits, but with a few who had made an even greater effort and donned colourful kimono. At the front, by the stage, were 20 or so important-looking people separate from the rest of the audience. I whispered my query to Juliet on my left, and she explained that they were local dignitaries, and that they attended all entry and graduation ceremonies, even those of the six-year-olds starting school for the first time. The hall went from hushed to silent and the graduating students filed in from the back in pairs, some with tears already sliding silently down their cheeks.
The ceremony was a long one, and I got pins and needles in one bum cheek. The principal made a speech, the students came across the stage one by one to receive their graduation certificates, and each of the dignitaries stood up in turn and gave their congratulations to the graduating class. Then all the students came on stage in neat lines, boys on one side and girls on the other, and sang the school song in harmony. Those children
were singing their hearts out, the melodies soared to the rafters of the hall, and several children were singing despite the occasional sobs and sniffles that conveyed the depth of their sadness at leaving their classmates and teachers after three intense years together. I looked around, and saw a couple of mums dabbing at their eyes with white handkerchiefs too.
Parents, particularly mothers, are expected to be heavily involved in the education of children in Japan, and they take this role seriously. In England, if a child were staying up all night to study for their exams, their mum might pop their head in the door and remind them to get a good night’s sleep. In Japan, their mum is more likely to stay up late with them, and bring them snacks. Some mums have been known to give up something dear to them during the lead-up to the child’s exams – their favourite food for example – in solidarity with their child and the sacrifices they are having to make. Consequently, the children feel the weight of their parents’ expectations, which motivates them further to succeed at school. Failure does not only have a personal cost; it reflects badly on the family.
This intense involvement in the child’s education is expected by society and by the schools. It is bound to have a positive effect on exam results, but significantly impacts on women’s career opportunities. For example, a survey of 3,500 25–44-year-old women by Japan’s Labour Ministry found that 47 per cent reported being told at work that they were ‘causing trouble’ or that they ‘should retire’ when they fell pregnant.86 It’s culturally expected that as a mother you wouldn’t do anything which would interfere with your ability to supervise your children’s homework, or make their packed lunches for the school trip. Schools send home a list of responsibilities that parents are supposed to take on, such as marking their child’s homework. They are told what time students should go to bed, and how much time they should have for playing with friends during the holidays.
Gail Benjamin sent her children to Japanese public school for a year, so received all of the communications that parents get from schools. She writes, ‘The constant reinforcement of these values in school communications and the somewhat admonitory tone of the writing probably is in the long term an effective way of enlisting pressure from home on children to enhance the school’s attempts to teach proper behaviours and attitudes. Another way of looking at it is that these communications are ways of reminding mothers that their role as kyōiku mama, ‘education moms,’ is one the school system counts on, not one that is optional for them.’87
Chapter 7: ‘Relaxed Education’, Lesson Study and the Japanese Approach to Problem-Solving
Even a thief takes ten years to learn his trade.
(Japanese proverb)
Let me take you inside a Japanese junior high school classroom as it is now, and has been for decades. The desks are organised in rows, with space between each one allowing you to walk along the aisles, and see the students’ work. Try not to trip over the bulky backpacks as you go. The students wear navy uniforms, which look like sailors’ outfits with a white trim; skirts for girls and trousers for boys. All the students wear white plimsolls, and some wear surgical type masks over their noses and mouths to stop their germs from spreading.
It’s quiet when we enter. The boy at the back nudges his friend, who looks over at us with raised eyebrows, but both turn back and get on with taking notes. The teacher is at the front, lecturing on the properties of parallelograms. He writes on the blackboard, which is dark green, and stretches across the entire wall at the front of the classroom. He adds each step of his working next to the last on the board, so that were you to come in at the end of the lesson, you’d be able to follow the whole lesson’s teaching based on the board work alone. The students are scribbling away, making notes in their exercise books. One girl flicks the hair of the girl in front with a pencil, and borrows a rubber.
When he’s finished explaining, the teacher asks the students to repeat the three properties of parallelograms, first to themselves, then as a class. This goes on for 15 minutes. He then instructs the students to move the desks so that each group of four students sit in a huddle, each with two boys and two girls. They do so without a fuss. Each group is given a different, challenging problem to solve, and the classroom is filled with a murmuring as the students chat about how to solve it. The teacher patrols, checking their progress, and shares a joke with one student (sadly, due to my lack of Japanese, I don’t get it). As each group finishes, one of their member comes to the front of the classroom, and writes up their solution on the board. I see some groups play ‘rock-paper-scissors’ to decide whose task that is.
The teacher gets a student from each group to talk through their solutions, which, of course, require an understanding of the properties of parallelograms, and addresses some questions to the class, such as ‘is there another method to solve this?’ Sometimes we see a hand-up. More often than not, no one volunteers, and the teacher chooses someone to stand up and answer. With the end of the lesson approaching, the teacher assigns the students some practice questions from their workbooks for homework, then invites the students to stand. They bow, he bows, he leaves.
You’ll have noticed that this looks quite different from the more raucous primary school atmosphere I described above. The behaviour and volume levels aren’t the only changes that take place between elementary and junior high schools either. At a primary level, the lessons are more obviously active. I went in and danced to an English song with a class of eight-year-olds, and we learnt how to ask for someone’s telephone number in English using a cardboard cut-out phone. There is more group work at primary, and the teachers use a variety of props in the classrooms to demonstrate concepts – building blocks, colanders, balloons.
At junior high and high school, the lessons look far more traditional, with more teacher explanation at the front of the class and less movement. In one class, I even saw a couple of boys sleeping at the back of the room. According to Sophia, who has worked in both elementary schools and junior high schools, the frequency of group work declines partly because students get less outgoing as they get older. ‘In elementary school they’re better at it, and all keen to get involved, but in junior high school everyone gets shy, and girls won’t talk to boys, so they’ll sometimes just allocate a leader and let them do all the work.’ The teachers’ awareness of the hugely important high school entrance exams at the end of junior high is bound to play a part too.
Despite these obvious differences, the psychologists James Stigler and James Hiebert were able to identify some similarities in approach at both levels of Japanese schooling, based on some video-based comparative research they carried out in the 1990s in Japan, America and Germany.88 They noted that Japanese teachers took great pains to begin teaching mathematical concepts by introducing a real-world problem. They contrasted this with the American approach, which more typically saw teachers introducing the mathematical concepts straight-up, and teaching students the correct procedure to solve the problems. In Japan, the students were reportedly encouraged to solve the problem presented to them through a very carefully planned lesson sequence, during which the students were asked guiding questions at each stage to ensure they came to understand the topic at hand.
In an earlier book, Stigler and his esteemed colleague Harold Stevenson89 give an example of one Japanese elementary maths lesson, which began with the teacher bringing in a variety of containers – teapots, vases, a beer bottle – and asking the students which they thought held the most water. The students had different ideas about the answer, so they were asked how they might investigate the question. The teacher guided them towards the suggestion that they could fill each one using a cup, and count how many cups of water it holds. They went off and did this, and as students reported their findings to the teacher, she put the information into a bar chart, representing the number of cups per container. At the end of the lesson she asked the students again – how can we tell which has the most water? The students explained what they’d done to discover this
, and how the graph represented the answer. They had developed an understanding of what bar charts were and how they are used and useful.
When Stigler and Heibert analysed lessons at Grade 8 level, they found the same structured problem-solving approach used. Recall the lesson on parallelograms, described above. Here the teacher has given the students mathematical problems that he has not told them how to solve. However, he has not left them completely in the dark during this attempt – he has started the lesson by teaching them the relevant content knowledge they will need to solve the problems, even though he hasn’t given them an exact ‘how to’. The problem-solving is both structured and, as educators say, scaffolded. Just as scaffolding on a building helps you to reach the top through a series of platforms, but doesn’t lift you straight to the top with no effort like an elevator, so the teacher gives them a series of prompts and information to help them solve difficult problems, but doesn’t give them all the answers.
There seems to be a careful balance that is struck here between giving the students enough information and guidance to allow them to solve the problem, and giving them the space to attempt the problem-solving on their own. If students don’t have the prior knowledge necessary to solve the problem, they will become dispirited, and the whole exercise will be a waste of time – hence the teacher lecturing to them first (or in the elementary example, the teacher introducing the structure of a bar chart on the board, rather than getting them to design their own graph). In fact, what Japanese elementary and secondary schools have in common is that students are required to commit a lot to memory, whether that’s number facts up to 100 in Grade 1, the times tables in Grade 2 or the three properties of parallelograms in Grade 8 (unrelated but fun fact: one Japanese man has memorised the numerical value of pi up to 111,700 digits). This memorisation is not restricted to mathematics either: Japanese children are expected to know 1,006 kanji (the adopted Chinese characters used in the Japanese writing system) by the time they leave primary school, and a further 1,130 by the time they leave junior high school. Having this knowledge in their long-term memory helps them enormously with other academic tasks, such as comprehension and mathematical problem-solving, for reasons based on the architecture of the brain, and explained in Box 3.