Japanese alternative learning center
Covert
Hi all,
Following is a notice about an upcoming book release -- and more
importantly, about an alternative learning center in Kyoto, Japan.
Let me stress that I am not in the habit of reproducing press releases (I
abhor them, generally speaking). But I felt this one warranted an
exception since it does provide some useful background to the alternative
learning scene in Japan. This includes the homelearning and community
learning movements, and the Kyoto school mentioned here appears to be
supportive of such citizen-led movements in Japan.
I am a Japan-based homelearning parent and have no affiliation at all
with the Kyoto center. My only motivation in reposting this message here
(with permission of the author) is the hope that people in and outside
Japan will more fully understand that home-based learning and other means
of alternative learning are nowadays *slowly* becoming practical and
workable options to the mainstream school system here in Japan.
I have recently met face to face with Dayle Bethel, originator of this
release, in Kyoto and found him to be an individual with decades of work
in the field of holistic learning in the US and Japan. As I understand
it, he has been here in Japan for many, many years as head of the Kyoto
center. He came here at a time when there were far fewer foreigners in
Japan than there are now, let alone foreigners promoting the "crazy"
concept of alternative learning methods. But times are changing, and now
the Japanese public seems to be taking heed of the need for just such
alternatives to conventional schooling.
Anyway, the news media in Japan will reportedly be receiving this same
information about the book and Kyoto center later in the summer, so we
are getting a bit of a jump on them by sharing it here.
I understand that Mr. Bethel has recently transferred to the TIUJ's
sister center in Hawaii, so anyone wanting to get in touch with the Kyoto
learning center directly can do so through Mr. Motoshi Suzuki at the
e-mail address noted at the bottom of this release.
Brian Covert
in Osaka, Japan
-------------------------------
-------------------------------
PRESS RELEASE
Dayle M. Bethel <dmb19@...-inet.or.jp>
Japanese University Included in New Book on
World's Most Innovative Educational Institutions
KYOTO -- Creating Learning Communities, just off the press of Solomon
Publishing Company (New York, USA), was written, on-line, by an
international coalition of professional educators and lay persons. The
book, which has been hailed by some pre-publication reviewers as possibly
the most revolutionary volume on education of the 20th century, proposes
a totally new way of thinking about and conducting education, from
kindergarten to the university. In the words of editor Ron Miller in an
introduction entitled, "From Schools to Learning Communities," the book
reflects "a new way of thinking about teaching and learning, about
curriculum and testing, indeed about the whole institution of schooling,
that during the last few years has begun to make a great deal of sense to
thousands of parents and educators, and to a growing number of social
critics and futurists."
The International University Japan (TIUJ) in Kyoto is one of the
educational institutions featured in "Creating Learning Communities."
TIUJ is this year celebrating the 25th anniversary of its founding in
1975. Little noticed in Japan, it has quietly gone about its
self-appointed task of creating a model of a restructured university
system. That system, according to Motoshi Suzuki, TIUJ co-director, has
three unique features that set it apart from traditional universities:
1. The student, rather than teachers and administrators, is responsible
for learning. Teachers serve as mentors and advisors who support,
encourage, and share in creating an environment in which the student,
motivated by the joy, challenge and excitement of gaining new insights,
can pursue a program of learning jointly planned and agreed upon.
2. The purpose of educational institutions, according to TIUJ's
educational philosophy, is to introduce students to and enable their
direct involvement in the life, history, and planning for the future of
their local community and bio-region and, at the university level, the
planet as a whole. The community is the learning environment. Educational
institutions and organizations, whether they are called schools, centers,
libraries, or learning support groups, serve as learning resources which
students, of any age, and at any time, can utilize. The community, then,
is the primary source of the curriculum, while books and other
second-hand information, though important, are for the support of the
student's own observations, study, and research.
3. Each student pursues an individualized learning program within a
human-scale educational structure, a semi-autonomous sub-unit of the
university, consisting of a maximum of 25 students, a program
advisor-facilitator, and mentors who are specialists in the areas or
fields of learning in which the students are studying.
While university education in Japan has changed little during the past 25
years, community learning at the elementary and secondary levels has
mushroomed, spurred by the rise of community parent and student support
groups and experimentation in a few public schools. The Family and
Community Learning Network in Nagoya [Japan] is an example of the former.
Ojiya Elementary School in Niigata Prefecture -- known as the School
with Forest and Meadow -- is an example of a learning community within a
public school framework.
There is now a growing body of research findings which suggest that
graduates of alternative, community based learning centers are generally
more alert, more creative, more highly motivated, more responsible, and
more socially conscious than most graduates of traditional schools.
According to Suzuki, it is now possible for students to learn in this
kind of alternative, community learning environment from kindergarten
through the university. Mr. Suzuki welcomes observations and questions
from persons interested in finding out more about study in learning
communities. His email address is: motoshi@...-inet.or.jp.
[END]
Following is a notice about an upcoming book release -- and more
importantly, about an alternative learning center in Kyoto, Japan.
Let me stress that I am not in the habit of reproducing press releases (I
abhor them, generally speaking). But I felt this one warranted an
exception since it does provide some useful background to the alternative
learning scene in Japan. This includes the homelearning and community
learning movements, and the Kyoto school mentioned here appears to be
supportive of such citizen-led movements in Japan.
I am a Japan-based homelearning parent and have no affiliation at all
with the Kyoto center. My only motivation in reposting this message here
(with permission of the author) is the hope that people in and outside
Japan will more fully understand that home-based learning and other means
of alternative learning are nowadays *slowly* becoming practical and
workable options to the mainstream school system here in Japan.
I have recently met face to face with Dayle Bethel, originator of this
release, in Kyoto and found him to be an individual with decades of work
in the field of holistic learning in the US and Japan. As I understand
it, he has been here in Japan for many, many years as head of the Kyoto
center. He came here at a time when there were far fewer foreigners in
Japan than there are now, let alone foreigners promoting the "crazy"
concept of alternative learning methods. But times are changing, and now
the Japanese public seems to be taking heed of the need for just such
alternatives to conventional schooling.
Anyway, the news media in Japan will reportedly be receiving this same
information about the book and Kyoto center later in the summer, so we
are getting a bit of a jump on them by sharing it here.
I understand that Mr. Bethel has recently transferred to the TIUJ's
sister center in Hawaii, so anyone wanting to get in touch with the Kyoto
learning center directly can do so through Mr. Motoshi Suzuki at the
e-mail address noted at the bottom of this release.
Brian Covert
in Osaka, Japan
-------------------------------
-------------------------------
PRESS RELEASE
Dayle M. Bethel <dmb19@...-inet.or.jp>
Japanese University Included in New Book on
World's Most Innovative Educational Institutions
KYOTO -- Creating Learning Communities, just off the press of Solomon
Publishing Company (New York, USA), was written, on-line, by an
international coalition of professional educators and lay persons. The
book, which has been hailed by some pre-publication reviewers as possibly
the most revolutionary volume on education of the 20th century, proposes
a totally new way of thinking about and conducting education, from
kindergarten to the university. In the words of editor Ron Miller in an
introduction entitled, "From Schools to Learning Communities," the book
reflects "a new way of thinking about teaching and learning, about
curriculum and testing, indeed about the whole institution of schooling,
that during the last few years has begun to make a great deal of sense to
thousands of parents and educators, and to a growing number of social
critics and futurists."
The International University Japan (TIUJ) in Kyoto is one of the
educational institutions featured in "Creating Learning Communities."
TIUJ is this year celebrating the 25th anniversary of its founding in
1975. Little noticed in Japan, it has quietly gone about its
self-appointed task of creating a model of a restructured university
system. That system, according to Motoshi Suzuki, TIUJ co-director, has
three unique features that set it apart from traditional universities:
1. The student, rather than teachers and administrators, is responsible
for learning. Teachers serve as mentors and advisors who support,
encourage, and share in creating an environment in which the student,
motivated by the joy, challenge and excitement of gaining new insights,
can pursue a program of learning jointly planned and agreed upon.
2. The purpose of educational institutions, according to TIUJ's
educational philosophy, is to introduce students to and enable their
direct involvement in the life, history, and planning for the future of
their local community and bio-region and, at the university level, the
planet as a whole. The community is the learning environment. Educational
institutions and organizations, whether they are called schools, centers,
libraries, or learning support groups, serve as learning resources which
students, of any age, and at any time, can utilize. The community, then,
is the primary source of the curriculum, while books and other
second-hand information, though important, are for the support of the
student's own observations, study, and research.
3. Each student pursues an individualized learning program within a
human-scale educational structure, a semi-autonomous sub-unit of the
university, consisting of a maximum of 25 students, a program
advisor-facilitator, and mentors who are specialists in the areas or
fields of learning in which the students are studying.
While university education in Japan has changed little during the past 25
years, community learning at the elementary and secondary levels has
mushroomed, spurred by the rise of community parent and student support
groups and experimentation in a few public schools. The Family and
Community Learning Network in Nagoya [Japan] is an example of the former.
Ojiya Elementary School in Niigata Prefecture -- known as the School
with Forest and Meadow -- is an example of a learning community within a
public school framework.
There is now a growing body of research findings which suggest that
graduates of alternative, community based learning centers are generally
more alert, more creative, more highly motivated, more responsible, and
more socially conscious than most graduates of traditional schools.
According to Suzuki, it is now possible for students to learn in this
kind of alternative, community learning environment from kindergarten
through the university. Mr. Suzuki welcomes observations and questions
from persons interested in finding out more about study in learning
communities. His email address is: motoshi@...-inet.or.jp.
[END]