Starting with Self, Sharing Academic Success, Co-creating the World

Abstract

Accepting our whole selves, sharing academic successes, and co-creating values are the three essential components in building a democratic education and supporting young people to thrive in Japan.

Education in Japan is at a crossroads, caught in the transformation from living by traditional values to democratic values in a fast-changing, global society. Japan is a rapidly aging country, with the entire population shrinking by roughly 640,000 people per year, and the percentage of the young generation under fifteen composing around twelve percent of the population, the lowest ratio since the national statistics began (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan, 2021). The low percentage of children in the population makes it difficult for young voices to be heard and represented, but there are other challenges in realizing a democratic school environment where children can thrive as their true selves. Drawing on my professional experiences with schools in Japan and visits and interviews with schools in the US, I will focus on three barriers that are most prevalent in Japan and present three visions of a democratic school that support children acquire necessary mindsets and skills for the world today.

The first barrier is the high-context culture which runs not by explicit rules and decision-making bodies but by implicit norms based on shame (恥: haji) within the community. Dutch sociologist Geert Hofstede (2001) labels Japan a “collectivist” country and explains that “shaming, invoking the group’s honor, is an effective way of correcting offenders” (p. 235). When students are expected to “read the atmosphere” (空気を読む: kuki-wo-yomu) in schools and cannot express their identity and needs, severe consequences surface in two ways. Firstly, bullying is common in schools in Japan with 615,351 incidents reported in 2021, as the culture promotes students to police over each other for those who do not “fit in” to the implicit norms. The number of suicides from elementary to high schools is also rising, the number being highest with 415 incidents in 2020. Secondly, the number of students who refuse to attend elementary and middle school is the highest with 244,940 students in 2021 which has risen to 2.6 percent of the whole population of enrolled students (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, Japan, 2022). These numbers clearly show not the number of students not fitting into the school, but the number of cases where the school fails to provide a safe, loving space for the students.

The second barrier is the Confucian tradition of respecting elders. Historically, Japan has incorporated historical values from Confucianism such as “respect toward parents” (孝: ko) and “respect toward masters” (忠: chu) to strengthen the authority of the family and the broader community. Although these values are not prominently taught as part of the curriculum or textbooks, they remain powerful in the everyday norms of the education system. In their relationship with parents, a student’s choice of a career path is influenced deeply by what their parents believe is “stable” or “promising”, as they are the ones who will be supporting the students emotionally as well as financially. Within the school space, students are still mandated to bow toward their teachers at the beginning and the end of their one-sided lectures. Many out-of-date school rules remain in the control of adults with an absence of a review process or incorporation of students’ voices. Even in extracurricular activities, it is extremely common for junior students to prioritize and use honorific language toward senior students and coaches. When a person’s voice is valued more than the other because of age, it is institutionally difficult for younger generations to discuss on an equal footing with their elders.

The third barrier is the overemphasis on measuring individual academic mastery using numerical indicators. Currently, the Ministry of Education specifies the goals and scopes of learning in the Government Curriculum Guidelines (学習指導要領: gakushu-shido-yoryo) and designates schools to submit public records on student grades in the Cumulative Guidance Report (指導要録: shido-yoroku), but sets transcripts as optional and encourages diverse forms of evaluations. However, it is common for schools to follow the tradition of administering written tests and distributing numerical grades to families which put academic pressure on students. In addition, educational institutions from middle school to university are often ranked by a deviation score, which is the main indicator by which parents, teachers, and companies use to identify students’ capabilities. Other important competencies such as self-agency, critical thinking, or contribution to the community are often not taken into account in school classes or university entrance examinations.

The reason I have come to observe high-context culture, the Confucian value of respecting elders, and the overemphasis on measuring academic mastery in Japanese education as barriers to realizing democratic education derives from my experience learning at an American school in The Netherlands when I was eight to thirteen years old. My friends and I still recall memories of this school as a fun learning experience close to twenty years later: when we learned about medieval Europe by enacting as a peasant in a wax museum, when we learned about the digestive, respiratory, and circular systems by writing a fiction story traveling inside our bodies, or when we would give speeches to convince the whole elementary school about an issue that concerned each student the most.

When I returned to Japan, I was shocked to discover that most classes were one-sided lectures by teachers, and learning was not regarded as something fun or thought-provoking but as a tool for competition to enter the best universities for a stable future job. As a high school student, I faced rote learning for more than twelve hours every day, but now that I have graduated from university and experienced being on the job market, I fail to see how this learning serves us to live as our whole selves and helps create a democratic society. Because of the high-context culture, we never learn to voice and share our life aspirations with others, causing us to lack motivation or even have mental issues at work. Because of the Confucian tradition of respecting elders, young people are being too compliant with the elder population in both spheres of business and politics and not learning to exercise agency in how we would like to envision our society. Because of the overemphasis on measuring numerical mastery, we have less chance to develop other competencies necessary for transitioning from school to career, such as communicating effectively, thinking critically, learning how to learn, and working collaboratively. If this tendency continues in education, Japan will be a society that is aging not just in population but also in the vibrancy of its people where new innovations no longer emerge in a democratic way.

In an attempt to break this loop, I teamed up with a group of university students to run “Exploring University Studies Workshops” in collaboration with private middle and high schools in the Greater Tokyo Area. The goal of these workshops is for middle and high school students to experience authentic learning by creating or solving problems that university students confront in their major and potential future careers. Middle and high school students can choose to attend the topic of their interest during their long holidays, as several university students prepare the workshop with their specific topic. The workshop generally runs for about two hours and the schedule includes check-ins, pair work or project work, presentation, and reflections on real-life problems they are likely to experience in their major. For example, a student studying medicine will include a mock medical examination and a student studying psychology will introduce a variety of theories psychiatrists use toward their patients. Besides the host university student, additional university students are supporting the group work; a ratio of one university student to five to six middle and high school students. At the end of the workshop, middle and high school students reflect on what they have learned in group shares and individual survey responses.

This workshop is the first model for realizing my vision of democratic schools in Japan. The vision includes these three pillars (Image 11.1):

• 1. Students, parents, and educators accept each other as whole-self human beings and start by understanding each other’s personal narratives, curiosity, and needs.

• 2. Students, parents, and educators are committed to everybody’s shared academic success through interdisciplinary, everyday challenges.

• 3. Students, parents, and educators take action to co-create the values and culture of the school, local community, and global society, by being mindful of the social impact of each action or inaction.

Image 11.1

Three pillars for the vision of a democratic school in Japan. (Designed by the author)

Students, parents, and educators accept each other as whole-self human beings and start by understanding each other’s personal narratives, curiosity, and needs.

Democratic societies are composed of individuals, and many phenomena occur in reaction to the emotions and needs of individuals. Connecting learning and action can only be achieved if students, parents, and educators feel accepted to bring personal experiences and thoughts into education. To make self-expression a practice in everyday life, all activities will always include check-ins to get in touch with everybody’s conditions and individual or group reflections to take time to connect the learning activity to a personal experience. School design will also play an essential role in realizing these values, such as having multiple seating options that enable students to discuss in circles or displaying student work and other symbols that represent the diversity of students. Students can express their authentic, vulnerable selves only when parents and educators also stand in the space as whole-self beings, supported by quality communication and reflection. Beginning with the school leader realizing their dominant characteristics and being emotionally present in meetings with teachers and students, the whole organization will learn to listen actively and be curious about each other as individuals. Parents and educators must also have room to grow. Coaching will be provided to help them understand their visions and shadows so that they can respect and support children’s unconventional way of thinking and acting. When these mentalities are in place, schools will also be able to enact bigger systemic changes such as multi-age classrooms and continuous relationships with the community to make the learning space more diverse.

The “Exploring University Studies Workshops” were carefully designed to enable students to be their authentic, whole selves as much as possible within their usual setting of school classrooms. Many students are in fear of voicing their opinions and ideas because they worry about what their classmates, with whom their relationships are fixed for three to six years, will think of them. Therefore, the small groups are intentionally pre-arranged to have a mix of grades, so that students can experience working with other people who are not their ordinary classmates. To assure psychological safety, the university student mentor leads the introduction and check-in time, making sure that all members of the small group have the opportunity to participate. There are ground rules preset to the group work, such as “respect ideas first and then give feedback” or “take care so that all members in the team have the opportunity to speak about the same number of times”. At the end of the workshop, reflection time is secured so that each member can provide feedback to others on how they contributed to the group. This workshop is a great opportunity to reflect upon the students’ identities not just for middle and high school students, but for university students as well. By putting together a workshop on what they have learned in university, the university students also build mindsets and skills on how to make use of their expertise outside of the university.

Students, parents, and educators are committed to everybody’s shared academic success through interdisciplinary, everyday challenges.

“We are interdisciplinary but we believe in disciplines”. The words of Joshua Abrams, a former high-school math teacher and currently the school head of Meridian Academy, an independent school in Massachusetts, describe best how academic mastery should be incorporated in democratic schools (J. Abrams, personal communication, November 18, 2022). Focusing on shared academic success can be compatible with students gaining individual mastery. If the school is a place not for preparing students for life but is life itself, learning needs to be connected to solving everyday challenges. The main three pillars of learning that connect to everyday life would be growing life (science, math, health), creating a product (math, science, art), and communicating with people from diverse backgrounds (language, social studies). In everyday life, these skills take the form of not paper tests but growing or creating something by building relationships with other people. Therefore, instead of using individual test scores and report cards to measure learning, students can celebrate their work by having the opportunity to showcase their masterpieces to parents, educators, and other people such as professionals or users related to their work (Image 11.2).

Image 11.2

Three pillars of interdisciplinary learning. (Designed by the author)

In the “Exploring University Studies Workshops”, students are never given grades but are mandated to work on a final product that can only be achieved in collaboration with others. The final product will be presented to everybody attending the workshop, which is a motivation for students to work in their multi-age groups and with their university student mentors. For example, with the topic of architecture, middle and high school students will measure their classroom and create a model of an inclusive learning space. With the topic of agriculture, middle and high school students decide on a crop, create a presentation about how to advertise that crop to a specific target audience, and collaborate with the vendor at the school to sell their product. When working on final products, students learn when each school subject is necessary for real life, such as language arts and design for creating advertisements or mathematics and physics for measuring their school buildings.

Students, parents, and educators take action to co-create the values and culture of the school, local community, and global society, by being mindful of the social impact of each action or inaction.

A common fear in Japanese society is putting one’s ideas into action. Even when people have amazing thoughts, as the saying goes, “the stake that sticks out gets hammered down” (出る杭は打たれる: deru-kui-wa-utareru). With the respect toward individuals’ whole selves and shared academic success, a democratic school can be a hopeful place where students, educators, and parents practice action and experience that their co-creation matters to others. Firstly, through the main three pillars of learning, students can contribute to the design of the school space with their products. As educator Ron Berger writes in his book, displaying beautiful student work “showcases more than anything a school ethic and culture that compels students to achieve more than they think possible” (Berger, 2003). Secondly, students and educators should discuss and review school norms periodically. By gathering together and casting one vote per person for each discussion topic, students learn how democratic societies work and how they can experience how they can make a difference. Lastly, students will learn to problem-solve in more authentic ways by working on the community’s problems. When students come in contact with the community, this is the phase where students and adults outside of school must take on the challenge together to infiltrate democratic values on an equal footing.

All “Exploring University Studies Workshops” are aimed at working on a real-life problem university students face in their majors, connecting school subjects, the university major, and real-life situations. During the final presentation, middle and high school students explain their thought processes and their group action. Furthermore, students will also write down their takeaways and future challenges in the individual reflection. By recording and sharing future actions, middle and high school students will be able to understand interests and support each other in achieving them when they return to their ordinary school life.

“Exploring University Studies Workshops” embodies all three pillars of democratic education necessary in Japan, but this is only the first step. The visions can be strengthened further in different ways. For the whole self, the workshop can take place outside of the classroom settings to decrease peer tension, for example, in an environment filled with nature. For shared academic success, the ultimate outcome would attain greater authenticity through continuous integration of learning across the semester, employing multiple review stages. For action and co-creation, the workshop’s design can foster increased collaboration among students, educators, parents, and local community members, allowing everyone to collectively celebrate the journey of learning together. When the cycle of accepting whole selves, sharing academic success, and taking action for co-creation runs in the school, students will flourish with self-agency as naturally curious and creative beings.