Japanese Education Myths
07 28 2008I just read an interesting three-part post about the Japanese public education system.
- http://schoolcrossing.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-do-you-know-about-japanese.html
- http://schoolcrossing.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-do-you-know-about-japanese_26.html
- http://schoolcrossing.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-do-you-know-about-japanese.html
I’m not a huge fan of the American public education system, but I don’t believe it’s the huge failure many people claim. Given a choice between sending my daughter to a random US school or a random Japanese school, I would choose a US school without hesitation.
Thank you for highlighting some of my posts about Japanese education. I can well understand your concern about a choice between “random” US or Japanese schools. It is better to avoid “either-or” propositions. There are US schools I would never send my children to, and there are Japanese schools I would never send my children to as well. Also, there are schools in both system I would send my children to without hesitation.
The point of learning about Japanese education is to see if there are any useful take-aways. The point of writing about Japanese education is to help Americans identify those possible take-away. Most assuredly, I am not promoting wholesale adoption of the Japanese system. Few people know better than I about its warts.
I write regularly about Japanese education as one of the few Americans who knows the system from the inside. If you would like to subscribe, to my blog, there is a subscribe button.
I also have a course for substitute teacher training coming out, and a survey of calculator usage research. I will not be posting either the course or the survey to the blog because both are too lengthy. If you are interested in either, or if you would like to be updated on future courses or reports, please send me an email and I will be most happy to put you on the list.
Thanks again.
Sclgoya