Читать книгу Japanese Lessons - Gail R. Benjamin - Страница 17

To most foreign observers a striking aspect of classroom organization and class time activities in Japan is the division of the class into han groups. Han means a platoon, a squad, a working group. It has implications of being the smallest operational group in a joint endeavor and of being a group that operates with little or no hierarchy. In Japanese classrooms each han includes five to eight children, depending on the size of the class, and in order to be an efficient teaching and social environment, each class should have six to eight of these groups. Both social and academic activities are carried out with han groups as the basic work unit.

Teachers decide on the grouping of children into han, and usually they change the groupings at the beginning of each term of the school year. Teachers have several goals in mind when forming groups. The foremost goal is to make each group heterogeneous in terms of personalities, abilities, previous friendship patterns, and previous han groupings. Ideally, the result will be groups that can all operate on the same level in many different activities. Life after school will not be spent in homogeneous groups, so it is important to learn to cooperate and draw the best from each member.

Japanese teachers use a number of different methods to decide on the composition of han. One fourth-grade teacher, talking to Catherine Lewis (1995:92), said that at the beginning of the year, when she didn’t know the children well, she simply used the seating order, based on height, to form groups. For the next term she chose leaders who had not yet had a chance to be han leaders and let the children themselves decide who would be in the groups led by these students, subject only to the constraint that there be three boys and two girls in each group. She was available to help resolve difficulties if they arose. At another reorganization she choose leaders who were kind, who took care of others, and who were fairly good at mathematics. She had decided to emphasize math in the coming months, the subject in which there were the greatest differences in achievement among her students. In groups led by students who were good at math, slower students would have a chance to learn from the leaders, a process they would probably find “more fun” than learning from her. Other teachers told me they sometimes put all the leaders together in one han so they could learn how to manage among themselves and so less dominant children would have a chance to become leaders in their groups.

Han groups are used as units for many activities, and teachers often address the groups rather than addressing individuals by name. The same small groups are used for music, physical education, lunchtime preparation, and cleaning, as well as for math, social studies, and other academic subjects. In both academic and social activities students are responsible as a group for accomplishing their goals. In cleaning, for example, if the han that has the responsibility for dusting in the classroom does not do a good job, the whole han will be criticized when doing chores is the subject of a class meeting. When a han is given an arithmetic problem to solve, the solution is treated as a joint product. When a social studies question has been discussed and the issues presented to the whole class, it is the han group that is credited with the ideas expressed by the reporter.

Americans invariably ask about freeloading in such a situation. What keeps members of such groups from simply letting others do their work? When there are no sanctions that apply to individuals, why don’t some people do their best to get out of the work? Why don’t some people take advantage of the efforts of others and get “credit” for work they have not done?

Japanese also recognize that such problems can arise, but they nonetheless often treat these questions as puzzling, the sort of thing foreigners ask about—reasonable questions, but not ones they themselves worry about much. I got the same reaction to this question that I got when I asked why children compete so wholeheartedly in Sports Day, when there are no prizes. The underlying feeling was that it is natural and fun to join in the activities of han groups, that it is obviously self-defeating behavior to “get out of” those activities.

Sam and Ellen, too, said that freeloading was not a problem in han activities in school in Japan, though it happened sometimes, and both think such behavior is a noticeable aspect of group activities in the United States. As observers, we are left with the problem of analyzing why participation seems natural in the Japanese context, and freeloading seems natural in the United States.

The most general answer to this question lies in the role of socialization agents—teachers, parents, and other adults. Absolute conviction is very convincing. When children spend most of their time with adults who have firmly internalized the notion that participation in group activities is natural and rewarding, they become convinced of the same thing. After all, an appetite for social interaction at some level of intensity is a part of the nature of humans as a species, and everyone is susceptible to having that part of their nature nurtured and emphasized. At a less general level, however, we must look at specific social mechanisms that encourage this view of social life rather than the equally natural one that leads to freeloading and the suspicion that others will freeload.

How do Japanese children learn in school that the best course of action to adopt is the one of cooperative participation? How do they learn not to exploit others and not to be exploited themselves? These are not lessons learned only in school, but school is one of the places where they are taught. Lois Peak, in Learning to Go to School in Japan (1991), has written the most extensive study of how teachers impart these attitudes to students. One part of the technique involves making few demands on young children. That is, a large part of their time at preschool is spent without much teacher supervision or intervention in free play. The initiative of free play should come from children themselves, and it is important that teachers not dampen the enthusiasm and zest with which children engage in play they have chosen for themselves. Thus, teachers make no attempt to control the number of children using sets of equipment during free play, or to ration the time that is spent on a single activity, or to determine the kinds of play children engage in. Teachers know that playtime is successful if it is very noisy and lively, filled with exuberance and physical activity. Teachers intervene most often to help individuals negotiate entry into a play group or to encourage solitary children to be more sociable. Most of the time that children spend in the preschool group is time that is fun, that is self-generated activity, not regulated by teachers and not solitary.

Fighting and arguing during these periods is seen as inevitable, an immature but valuable social interaction between children. As children learn to understand, they will become more skillful at social interactions and abandon these inappropriate activities. This will take years of effort, but isolating children from interaction is not seen as a way of effectively teaching interaction techniques. It is important that children accept some constraints on their behavior because they want to, because it leads to more fun, more pleasure. All children want to play with other children, and Japanese preschools and schools are organized to make that play as rewarding as possible. Japanese educational philosophy explicitly recognizes this as a ploy for socialization.

Peak tells how she was taught to take this approach at a school she was observing. One of the four-year-old boys developed a pattern of approaching her during outdoor playtime and hitting her, then running away. This soon escalated to kicks strong enough to leave bruises. She tried to ignore these attacks, waiting for the teacher to intervene. Finally, one day the teacher made an opportunity to talk about the play styles of different children. Some, like a charming little girl whose invitations to “come to my house for tea” Peak always accepted, were verbal and sophisticated in their approach to social interaction. Others, like the boy bothering Peak, were equally friendly but less skilled, instead acting like puppies, wanting to be chased and using direct action as an invitation to play. The next day, acting on the insight of the teacher, who felt that Peak’s unresponsiveness was the problem at issue, Peak chased after this boy making monster noises, to his delight (Peak 1991:163–64).

The reason children may sometimes seem to pull back from participation or to act in ways that could be interpreted as aggressive or selfish, according to the Japanese, is that they “do not yet understand” why such behavior is inappropriate. It is not because they are selfish or aggressive; they are simply not skillful enough or mature enough to act otherwise. Actions that teachers should take in these cases are those that explain how children should behave and those that teach social skills, not punishments or reprimands.

At the same time children are allowed long periods of great freedom, they are also asked to learn to participate in shorter periods of very controlled, ritualized group activities. These are the periods in preschool that require children to carry out certain activities as a unified group: the morning greeting period and the protocols of eating lunch or snacks and of saying goodbye at the end of the day. These activities must be done by the group in unison. It is not sufficient that each child individually carry out the right behaviors; all must simultaneously perform a reasonable approximation of the right behavior. As children get older, they are capable of longer periods of controlled group behavior, so by the time they reach elementary school, the time devoted to controlled activities is much longer than the time spent in free, unritualized play, although some periods of (alarmingly) free play remain available to children all through elementary school.

Not infrequently, especially at the beginning of their school life, individual children show that they “do not understand” group activities and rituals. Teachers extravagantly praise those who do cooperate, and they wait patiently for the others to comply, not scolding, but explaining over and over that it is necessary to be part of the group. Otherwise, the next set of activities, playing or going home, for instance, simply cannot take place. The teacher waits for other children to tell the laggards to participate and then seconds their calls, often more politely. Other students bring pressure to bear on those who are reluctant, because they do not want to be constrained any longer than necessary in these formal situations. Peak reports incidents in which the frustration of waiting for reluctant classmates leads to “letting off steam” behaviors such as loud, inarticulate screaming, carried out by the whole group. Teachers interpret this as evidence that unanimous group action is intrinsically rewarding to children, evidence that they can be led to appropriate unanimous behavior “naturally.” Though it may take a while, all eventually conform, and it is either because their peers persuade them or because they all want to move on to other things, not because teachers eventually resort to force to resolve an issue. Children are persuaded to cooperation and participation, not forced into it. (I must say that the relentless efforts at persuasion sometimes seem to me more underhanded and nastier than an outright imposition of power and authority. I also think this is a very American reaction on my part.) A lot of time is spent in this way, especially at the beginning of school, but it is not time wasted; it is the curriculum of preschool.

Preschools also start the practice of rotating leadership roles among the members of the class. Each child is routinely, not as a reward or a punishment, given a turn to be the leader. Children seem to like this, because it increases their individual interaction with the teacher by a small amount, because they get a chance to tell other children what to do, and because they become the center of attention for several important rituals during the day. As teachers often point out, being a leader is a good way to learn how to be a follower. The difficulties children have in getting each other to follow directions and prescribed behavior patterns are meant to teach them the importance of compliance when they are not the leaders. Teachers articulate this lesson over and over and cite it as one of the important things children learn at preschool.

There are also some activities at preschool that seem to fall between the unrestrained and chaotic free play in groups, which occupies most of the time, and the ritualized, required group performances. An example is the time at the end of the day when the group is assembled for leave-taking. Teachers call children individually to get an attendance sticker placed in their book, then run through the class list again to hand out the communication books and notices to be taken home. At this time teachers do not enforce strict silence and patient waiting; they allow some quiet play and talk as the routine is accomplished.

Preschool group activities, then, are predominately unorganized, child-initiated free play for the greater portion of the day, interspersed with other group activities that are either relaxed or very ritualized. But everything is done together. No distinction is made between doing what you want individually and having to do what the group requires when in a group. All the time is spent in a group, and most of it is fun. The predisposition to find group activities desirable is fostered by making sure they are desirable most of the time, and children learn to expect time in a group to be rewarding.

By the time they reach elementary school, most children are well on the way to sharing the conviction of fully socialized Japanese people that group activities are good and that participation is both desirable in itself and what one freely chooses. Elementary school patterns continue to emphasize this message; it is regarded as something still incompletely learned that needs to be reinforced by enjoyable group activities, in order that children internalize fully the group-oriented understanding of the nature of a truly human life. Japanese children do like most activities at school, many of which are undertaken simply because they are fun.

At still another level, we need to look at the rewards and sanctions for participation and for freeloading. In the school context, the reward for participating in the han activities is intrinsic, not external. There are no awards in terms of higher grades or overtly marked status, except for fairly frequent applause from classmates. If these activities will help you learn, and you know learning is important in the long run, and you have a good chance of gaining applause and recognition for yourself and your group by cooperating, and if the activities are “fun” in the short term—and why not, since they are done with your classmates—what do you have to lose by participating? What can you gain by freeloading except isolation and boredom? These seem to be effective motivators for participation; more authoritarian punishments do not seem to be necessary.

In contrast, group activities in the United States often result in individual grades. Sam reports that in U.S. groups some students want to get A’s, whereas others are happy with C’s. There is conflict and resentment about the amount and quality of effort contributed. When group activities are instituted for learning purposes, not grading ones, a different dynamic comes into play.

For many non-Japanese it is difficult to visualize how social groups can be used for truly academic learning activities, since learning is something that takes place in each individual’s head. American observers have reported numerous ways this takes place. Catherine Lewis (1995:77) describes a Japanese first-grade science class that was meant to teach conservation of material and concepts of measuring. Class began with each of the children individually showing a plastic bottle brought from home, explaining what it had held, and at the teacher’s encouragement, making comments about the bottles. “This one is a vinegar bottle. I love vinegar, just like my Dad.” The teacher announced that they would try to decide which bottles held the most. But first, he displayed two glasses of water on the front table, one tall and narrow, the other short and wide. Which one of these, he wondered, held the most water? Many children called out answers, and he then asked each han to consult with each other and prepare to report to the whole class their conclusions or their thoughts about how to determine which held more water. As they worked, he strolled through the class, commenting on which groups seemed to be talking well together. “It’s all right to have more than one answer. It’s also all right to say you can’t think of an answer.”

At the end of the discussion period, one person from each han gave the group’s ideas. Some reported that their members thought you could tell by looking which glass held more, others proposed measuring the water in identical containers, and one group suggested weighing the glasses. The teacher formulated the basic dispute between those who were in favor of looking and those who proposed measuring. “Let’s give Group Four a hand; they were the only ones who thought of weighing the glasses.”