Читать книгу Japanese Lessons - Gail R. Benjamin - Страница 10

Our school, Okubo Higashi Shogakko (Okubo East Elementary School), is unusual in Japan only because it has some foreign students. It is a public school, free, part of the compulsory education system in Japan, run by the city board of education in compliance with guidelines from the national Ministry of Education, and funded by both local and national taxes. Only 1 percent of elementary school children in Japan are in private schools, so this kind of education is what is experienced by virtually all Japanese children.

Okubo Higashi’s students come from the immediate neighborhood. It has students from first grade through sixth grade in twenty-five classes, about one thousand students in all, including the ten or so foreigners. This is a very ordinary size in Japan, where population densities in the cities and towns are such that this many children all live within easy walking distance of the school. There is no special transportation for students, and they are not allowed to ride bicycles to school, though most children have bikes and use them on other occasions. Think of nine hundred or so bicycles converging through narrow lanes on the school and the problem of where to put so many bikes during the school day!

The front of the school lot is the playground and athletic field, mostly open space but with some simple equipment for games and skills training around the sides. Old tires embedded in the ground serve as hurdles; there are some iron bars for simple gymnastics and some bells hung at various heights for children to try to ring by jumping. One end of the playground has elaborate sets of swings, jungle gyms, climbing poles, ladders, and slides—the same complex we saw in schools all over Japan.

Around the main buildings are some small sheds used to house animals and birds, some storage sheds, a few straggly plots for flowers and plants, the swimming pool and dressing rooms, and the gymnasium/assembly room in a separate building.

The buildings of the school follow a standard pattern, three stories of concrete construction looking very institutional if not prison-like. The two classroom buildings, joined by a short hallway section, are both one room and a hallway deep, so that each classroom has a long southern or western wall that is mostly windows, leading to a balcony outside the classroom. Most buildings in Japan are built this way, to capture sunlight and heat.

At the front there is a large staircase to the ceremonial entrance near the school office, the principal’s office and the teachers’ room on the second floor. Children, however, usually use a ground-floor entrance near their classroom, going into a large entry hall where there are shelves and cubbyholes for each person to leave outside shoes during the school day and to store school shoes while one is away from school. There are also sinks for washing hands and gargling outside these entrances. The hallways leading to the classrooms are clean and light, decorated with projects done in class.

In each classroom there is a rack for hanging book bags during the day, and each student has a desk. Shelves under the windows hold classroom supplies. There is an electric organ in each room. The walls are decorated with posters, the school motto, the classroom schedule, and student work. The windows have curtains used to regulate the sunlight, and each classroom has a gas stove for heat. This sits away from the walls near one corner and is used sparingly during the coldest months; the hallways and other areas of the school are not heated at all.

At least at Okubo Higashi, children are encouraged to wear long pants during the winter months. We were told by parents that at other schools in Urawa children who wore long pants instead of skirts or the very short shorts Japanese boys usually wear were subject to ridicule by their teachers. Stoically enduring cold has long been a means of character building in Japan.

The motto found in every classroom, in the hallways, on school publications, over the stage in the auditorium, and which makes its way into many public speeches is

Thinking Children

Bright Children

Strong Children

At first glance this did not seem to be remarkable in any way, except that I particularly noticed the word “Strong.” Interpreting it to mean physically strong as it usually does, I was a little surprised to find this as a goal in school. Only later did I think to ask my friends what the phrase “Bright Children” might mean, to confirm my suspicion that it did not refer to intelligence. They said it meant children who were lively and eager to participate in activities and life, not hanging back out of mistrust or selfishness or idiosyncrasy. These answers sent me back to the booklet about the school prepared for parents of first graders, which we were given as a new family in the school.

The motto is explained in the booklet and turns out to be shorthand for a complicated set of ideals for children. “Thinking Children” is explained as children who can consider well, making correct judgments about actions. “Bright Children” are those who are rich in cooperativeness, full of fresh and lively vitality. “Strong Children” are children who, being healthy in mind and body, are able to make the judgments needed to carry out the responsibilities of their own individual lives.

As the year went on I decided that this motto accurately reflected the goals and practices of the school, more than mottoes sometimes do. It suggests that action, not merely abstract academic learning, is the test of education; it suggests that children are active agents in their own education, not passive recipients; it suggests that education and action are embedded in a world of other people and that individual judgment, cooperativeness, and physical and moral strength are what children should be learning in school. It doesn’t mention math, reading, and science. They seem to be both components and by-products of the larger goal.