Math and Art Meetings

Friday was spent in meetings of choice today. I choose math, because you know I love math and art, because the other one didn’t interest me.
Eizo Nagasaki, Curriculum Director of the National Institute for Educational Policy Research shared much information regarding math instruction and curriculum in Japan.
Students in public schools now attend their school from Monday to Friday. Most elementary students attend six hours per day from Monday to Friday. Most secondary students attend seven hours per day from Monday to Friday. School days include approximately two hours for lunch, assemblies and other activities.
Standard total class periods per week are 23-27 periods for elementary schools, 28 periods for lower secondary schools, and 30 periods for upper secondary schools. A unit class period is 45 minutes long for elementary schools, and 50 minutes long for secondary schools.
In 2005, the average class sizes were 26.1 students in elementary school and 30.7 students in lower secondary schools. There are no statistics for upper secondary level, but the maximum class size for public schools is regulated at 40 students by law. What was very interesting was their private school class size ranges from 35-45 students.
I will share more information later, but the highlight of this session to me was:
Textbooks are very thin, and teachers take 1-2 months to teach a concept. These textbooks are published by publishing companies only after much input from teachers has been given, and then the books need to be approved before printing begins. Basically the
teachers dictate the curriculum, not the other way.
Teachers in Japan, are encouraged to make math enjoyable. Their hope is to encourage more students to be drawn to this area.
I am bringing the two fourth grade math books to share with all!

The afternoon session was spent hearing about art in Japan schools. Our speaker, Chihiro Tada is the Director of the Art Education Institute, and Toy Museum. His concern is that children spend over 2,000 hours a week in front of video games, television, and cartoons. Children are not developing social skills and lack communication. When polled, students said they would rather go to a pool than the seaside. They don’t like the feel of sand and the lack of water slides. He fears that children are moving too far away from interacting with nature. Then… he had us make some toys, which were both over 300 years old each. The thought of cutting and pasting did raise my anxiety level, and after one slight mistake, I recovered and actually had fun. I can’t wait to share these two ancient toys with my class!