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EDUCATIONAL demographer Harold Hodgkinson returned from his first visit to Japan in the summer of 1997, bringing with him a number of observations and an editorial from the 9 June 1997 edition of The Daily Yomiuri, an Englishlanguage daily. The editorial was fairly harsh in its criticism of Japan's schools:
The Japanese educational system has already become obsolete and useless for the development of society. Primary and middle school education must be changed into a decentralized system with more options. High school education must have more freedom and must be more competitive.
Among the system's many failings are these:
First, the current educational system fails to enhance the student's spirit of independence. Few young people head for a foreign country and compete with top-level people there.... Individuals must have an independent mind to choose, participate, and act on their own, without being constrained by the government or companies, and take responsibility for what they have done.
Second, the educational system is ineffective in developing students' ability to think for themselves. If there is the need for innovation in economy, science, technology, culture, and other fields, creativity holds the key to Japan's future. In the current system, which focuses on the "average" student, it is diffcult to encourage originality, creativity, and an adventurous spirit.
Third, the educational system does not promote social awareness. A decentralized society, in which members decide everything by themselves and act freely, must have a keen social awareness as its cultural base.
Fourth, the educational system is ineffective in developing cultural and artistic sensibility.
Fifth, the educational system does not promote an international viewpoint. Our homogeneity prevents us from understanding foreign countries.
Now, given what the media in the U.S. say about our schools, we would be wise to take this report from Japan with a grain of salt. Still, given that all the U.S. media and most reformers ever talk about is education for jobs, jobs, jobs, the focus on originality, creativity, independence, social awareness, and the development of culture and society is rather refreshing. Incidentally, in connection with education, business, and jobs, a welcome tide of critiques seems to be rising about business involvement with and corporate agendas for schools. First, there was Alex Molnar's Giving Kids the Business: The...