English EditionNo. 9July 2013

Two Years of Disaster Restoration:
Revitalized Fukushima University
─ Running in Tandem with Students ─

Hiroki Miura Fukushima University

An educational restoration project called “OECD TohokuSchool”, which is hosted by Fukushima University incooperation with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,Science, and Technology (MEXT) and the Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), isexpanding. It is a huge project for junior high and highschool students aﬀected by the earthquake and tsunami
disaster in three prefectures, Fukushima, Miyagi, and Iwate,
enabling them to experience widely various workshops over
two and a half years to grow up as people who take responsibility for the restoration taking place in the region. The task
given to students by the OECD Bureau of Education was “tohold an event in Paris in August 2014 which makes an appeal
emphasizing the attractiveness of Tohoku to the world.”
The contents of the project to construct the event are thefollowing: “Intensive Workshop”, which consists of ﬁveworkshops held in spring and summer with participation by
all students; “Local School”, which is to formulate plans ofrestoration in the region by local team; and four “ThematicActivities”, “scenario”, “industry‒government‒academiacoalition”, “communication”, and “self-documentary”.
About 100 junior high and high school students weregathered from 12 locales of the three prefectures. The ﬁrst
and the second Intensive Workshop sessions were held in
Iwaki City respectively in March and August last year. The
third Intensive Workshop was held in Kesennuma City in
March of this year. After having returned to their localcommunities, the students are planning regional restoration
projects from their perspective. A team was trying to revivearea fruit production, which was hard hit by harmful rumors,by commercializing fruit jams and preserves in cooperation
with the local JA agricultural board. In May of this year, 30students and adults visited Paris for a preliminary inspection
and secured the cooperation of several concerned organizations in support of the project.
Many students participated, later stating that “I thoughtthat we have had the most painful experience. However,people in other regions had much tougher experiences, andeven so are working so hard. I felt that I must try harder.” It
can be said that such inter-local cooperation is truly producing good results.

Establishing the management oﬃce in Fukushima
University, our graduate and undergraduate students
support the project as staﬀ members. They are playing avery active role: giving guidance to students along with 15
on-site teachers; in some cases listening to studentsʼ
problems which they cannot conﬁde to anyone; and going
to Local Schools to receive guidance. Most of them who areappreciated by on-site teachers and OECD are graduate andundergraduate students aiming at becoming teachers.
The project intends to create an education system that
supports long-lasting restoration, not ending up a meretransient event. For that reason, not only does it depend on
support from the outside; it also establishes industrygovernment-academia coalition for fund raising and toencourage the independence of disaster victims. Education
is not only for the public sector. By cooperating with private
sector entities such as companies and NPOs, innovations
capable of addressing new problems will come about.
Furthermore, that, diﬀerent from conventional industrygovernment-academia cooperative eﬀorts which pourfunds of “government and academia” into “industry”, thecapital ﬂows related to education and welfare must be
more ﬂexible, as they are in Europe. The project is also
positioned as a challenge in terms of importance.
The aﬀected area is widespread. Therefore, the projecttries to share information, hold meetings, and form
teamwork between distant locations with free use ofvarious information tools such as tablet PCs, Skype, andFacebook. Furthermore, in the schools, each participant“creates with running” or “gives lessons with making aclassroom.” In other words, by overcoming trouble on theirown, participants form a ﬂexible ability to handle problems.
To support the diﬃcult and lengthy project of restoration,
21st-century-style qualities are needed, including criticalthinking and imagination, the ability to express oneself, aninternational mode of thinking, and cooperative ability.
Furthermore, industry, government, and academia need towork together to create new education that goes beyond
the restoration education, namely future creation-styleeducation, and to produce a system to support the education.

Internal Visiting Professor of 2013 Has Arrived
I am Fumio Fujiwara, serving as a visiting professor
from this academic year. My regular occupation is asa Researcher at the Department for Elementary andSecondary Education Research, National Institute for
Educational Policy Research (NIER). It has been threeyears since I transferred to this current place ofemployment. Before that, I was working as an Associate Professor in charge of school management at theGraduate School of Education (Professional DegreeProgram), Shizuoka University. I think that three years
after the transfer, I was ﬁnally coming to understandphysically, of course partially, MEXT oﬃcialsʼ thinkingand conduct related to their work, the processes of
education policy formation, and the ways of working
at NIER.
After arriving at my new post at NIER, I haveconducted research and study mainly on the placement, appointment, and training of teaching andother school staﬀ, including teachers. I realized after
moving to NIER that when working at the university
I was unknowingly thinking about the placement,appointment, and training of teaching and otherschool staﬀ from the universityʼs perspective. After I
was transferred to NIER, my thinking was shifting to
the perspective of how universities were positionedwhile securing the university identity in the strategies for the placement, appointment, and training ofteaching and other school staﬀ used by appointers
who have great authority and responsibility in termsof the life-long development of teachers. I havecome to understand the fact very well that appointers are the primary agents training the teachingfaculty and other school staﬀ.
Another thing that I became aware of after transferring to NIER is that more information comes in to
NIER from all over Japan than seems to be the case atuniversities. Regarding training of teaching faculty
and other school staﬀ, numerous practical examples
also come to the attention of NIER staﬀ. In accessing
such information, I realized the depth of the excellent training practices (at the university level, thefaculty level, and at the individual level) of teachingand other school staﬀ in Japan. At the same time, I
realized once again the actual situation by which thesharing of the excellent practices has not progressedamong universities. I feel the necessity to promote
networking among universities and among teachersby, for example, dispatching young teachers touniversities that are developing excellent practices
to provide opportunities to learn in an apprenticeship manner.
NIER also serves as the secretariat of the National
Federation of Educational Policy Research Institutes,of which the members consist of education research
institutes and centers throughout Japan. Consequently I have opportunities to be exposed to many
practical examples of their teaching and otherschool staﬀ training. The staﬀ members of education
research institutes and centers have problems incommon with those of university teachers in many
respects. I feel strongly that they should mutually
mingle.

Meanwhile, I myself am investigating the placement, appointment, and training of teachingfaculty and other school staﬀ in Japan. I desire tothink about how training of teaching faculty andother school staﬀ in Japan under the “career-based”
civil service system in which they are fundamentallyemployed for life and grow up through frequenttransfers, which diﬀers from a “position-based” civil
service system that clariﬁes the duties and functions by position.
I also adhere to the pursuit of my researchsubjects, not teachers but teaching and otherschool staﬀ. Among teachers in charge of teacher
education at universities in Japan, there are apparently a few people who understand the content ofwork of the non-teaching staﬀ such as schooloﬃcers, nutrition staﬀ members, and nutrition
teachers, nurse teachers, and school janitors, andhow their work inﬂuences the improvement ofschool education quality. The more complex theenvironment surrounding schools becomes, themore schools must be required to have diverse
ways of thinking and knowledge inside of them, as
well as having networking with outside experts. Of
course, such necessity of the internal diversiﬁcation
does not directly engender specialization byprofession, but I understand that the diversiﬁcationof professions is progressing globally. Teachers
must have the quality and ability to participate inteam play with other professions inside and outsideof schools, beyond team play with teachers.
Teacher education must also re-orient itself as partof teaching and other school staﬀ training,responding to such change.
Finally, I greatly appreciate being given an opportunity to study at the Curriculum Center for Teachers of Tokyo Gakugei University, which is the centerof a research and practice network for teacher
education.
Fumio Fujiwara
Senior Reseacher
National Institute for Educational Policy ResearchSharing Experiences at the Curriculum Center for Teachers
Wallapha Ariratana, Saowanee Treputtarat, Pennee Narot, and Tanamwan Prasertcharoensuk
Faculty of Education, Khon Kaen University, Thailand

The six members of the Thai team from Khon Kaen
University had a great opportunity to share the meeting with the team from the Curriculum Center forTeachers at Tokyo Gakugei University in April, 2013.
The Khon Kaen University team brieﬂy presented ourpre-service teachersʼ training curriculum structure andthe circumstances associated with education management in local administration. The presentation drew
many questions as we realized how our curriculum
structures diﬀered so greatly. For example, Khon Kaen
University pre-service teachers training lasts for ﬁve
years, whereas Tokyo Gakugei University provides afour-year program. The education management inlocal administration cannot be compared. Furthermore, we had just learned that Japan has implemented
full scale decentralization. In Thailand, we are continuing operations with partial decentralization.
However, the most interesting point we observed
was the administrative structure of the curriculum
center. One senior member of our team observed thata senior professor is the acting director of the centerand the younger instructors carry out important
assignments as the research project director, andeditorial team for the newsletter. This point seems toreﬂect the vision of the leader of the center that we
had not expected to see. Therefore, our senior member
pointed out that the Curriculum Center for Teachers
operates similarly to a modern organization in which
the future leaders are trained and developed graduallyby the present leadership. It is anticipated that thecoaching approach must be extremely intense. The
Khon Kaen team should learn from Tokyo Gakugei
University in this respect.
Terminology of Teacher Education

Normal University
Teacher education institutes were developed in the earlymodern era, and “normal schools” (for elementary teachereducation) and “higher normal schools” (for secondary
teacher education) were established throughout Japan.
The latter had a post-secondary education of standard,
which brought about the issue of being raised to “university” status. However, the westernized university structure,
which made it a principle to conduct specialized
academic research based on academic freedom, and thenormal school which took on the nature of norms andaimed at integrating knowledge, are mutually incompatible in principle. The issue became a large point of contention across Japan. There are many countries other than
Europe where the establishment of “normal universities”
was avoided. In Japan, university literature and science
was established in 1929 based on Tokyo and Hiroshima
Higher Normal Schools. In Thailand, a higher normalschool in Bangkok was reorganized and redesignated asSrinakharinwirot University after the Empress Dowager.
In China, Beijing Normal University was established in
1923 based on Beijing Higher Normal School. Subsequently, numerous normal universities have maintained
their solid position in higher education. Similar “normaluniversities” can be found in Taiwan. With thatbackground, the oriental-style university model based on
the tradition of “Shuyuan academics” is apparent, aiming
at the cultivation of character.
(Yasuyuki Iwata)

As for lessons learned from visiting Tsuzuki Primary
School and Nakagawa-Nishi Junior High School in
Yokohama, the following can be concluded:
1. The Teacher Profession Development should beorganized closely and collaboratively by theteacher education institute and schools. These twoorganizations are expected to share the beneﬁts ofTeachers Profession Development, as shown in theproject between Attached University Schools andTokyo Gakugei University.
2. Community is a key factor contributing to thesuccess and sustainability of educational management. That point is evident in the case of
Nakagawa-Nishi Junior High School. The community participated fully in solving problems andobstacles until the school came to be managed
successfully.
3. The school climate is also a key factor contributing to student motivation. The students are motivated and happy in their learning, which is apparent in an Attached University School and Tsuzuki
Primary School. The teachers take care of students
as if they were their own children. The students areapparently quite satisﬁed in their studies.
In conclusion, I would like to say that our team from
Khon Kaen University learned a great deal from themeeting with Tokyo Gakugei team and from visiting
schools. We hope our continuity as well as relationships
can develop and have a beneﬁcial impact on the development of the teaching profession and research in theﬁeld for years to come.

Sketch of TGU-NENU
Joint Research Visit
In March 2013, I visited Northeast Normal University andobserved a class of teaching English as second language.
In this class, 3 students each gave a lesson for 15 min as ateacher, followed by a 15 min discussion about the performance they did with all students. The English class in China
had a good tempo. It made rapid progress with the cycleof the compact explanation of necessary grammaticalpoints, the checking of examples for writing using thegrammar, and conversation-style practice in pairs. The
simulated class had a good tempo, and the discussion of
all students had a good tempo, too. Without being
encouraged to make remarks by the professor in charge,
students actively raised their hands and talked about good
points of the student giving the lesson and the points thatneeded to be improved. After the performances of three
students and the discussion, the professor in charge gave
general comments, and the class ended. It is often pointed
out that on-site teachers in China are not eager to improveclasses. I wonder if they do such a cooperative development of their lessons as I saw here. Or is it in fact an ideal
model of instruction development at the top university forteacher education? I thought that I wanted to know more
about the climate of training at school sites in China.
(Kenji Maehara)Sites Where Teachers
Are Nurtured
Shingo Fukasawa

Principal, Koma High School (Yamanashi)
Member of the Advisory Board for theCurriculum Center for Teachers

I worked at Yamanashi Prefectural Education
Center, the main task of which is to train teachers,
until the 2012 academic year. Moreover, I havebeen involved in school management at a highschool site as a principal since April 2013. I would
like to share some points from the perspective of“developing teachers”.
During this academic year, the number ofteachers employed at Yamanashi prefectural highschools was only 20 in all. However, the employment situation of teachers is nothing new; it was
19 last year. It is a really straight gate. The averageage of teachers in the school I work for is 47.7
years old. Of 45 teachers, excluding management,teachers in their 20s are four and those in their 30sare only three. Even the population structure in
Japan is not as unbalanced toward the older
generations as this is. The problem arises because
veteran teachers are set to retire virtually en masse
during the next 10 years or so; those who are now
called young teachers will be thrust suddenly tothe center of school management.
With the advent of this situation, the Education
Center held new training, entitled “Mid-career
Teacher Training”, three times last year. It wastraining on school management for teachers whowere designated based solely on their age: 40years old. We thought that there is nothing more
important for teachers belonging to this generation than to recognize the situation and toenhance awareness from early on to address thesituation.
In Japan, people tend to search for the causes ofsocial maladies as rooted in school education. Thistendency becomes a factor in raising the levels
ofvarious demands for school education. In fact, it isa matter of course that schools have awareness of
their missions and the recognition of the situationstrongly and fulﬁll their responsibilities in addressing
bullying, truancy, declining academic performance,
corporal punishment, or whatever the current social
concern might be. Consequently, “the improvementof teacher quality and ability” becomes crucial.
Speaking from my experience, teacher skills are
upgraded primarily during practice on-site. However, this does not mean that oﬀ-site training isunnecessary. It is necessary to ﬁnd the theoreticalgrounds to produce and support good practices.
Nowadays, education centers are increasing
experience-based and participation-based training
and are putting eﬀorts into the acquisition of skills
that can be used immediately on-site.
Still, educational sites are important. Even though
the unbalanced age structure has come to impedethe “handing down of experiences”, there is no otherplace like the sites where teachers develop to a great
degree. The basis of the teachersʼ competency isteaching competency. Our school has a “mutualclass observation week” ﬁve times a year and tries toimprove teaching competency through the mutualreview.
In addition, what teachers must have at school
now is the capability of “cooperating” as a team toaddress problems. To develop that capability, groupsof teachers of the same grade have a “case conference” once a week. Not leaving everything to ateacher in charge alone, multiple teachers, including
both veterans and young teachers, consider how toteach through free communication and handling ofa mountain of diverse and complex problems using“cooperation”. We are thorough in establishing suchpractices.
Practicing “cooperation” − it is a competency thatcannot be developed anywhere other than on-site.
In point of fact, that is the very reason for the sites
themselves.

Events Calendar

Saturday, November 23, 2013Workshop for Practicing Teacher Education
Saturday, December 7, 2013
The 14th Annual Symposium “The future curriculum of school and teacher education”
Staﬀ of Curriculum Center for Teachers
Director

TAKESHI, Kensho(Professor, Music Education)
Center Reseachers[Division of Curriculum Reseach and Development]
MITSUISHI, Hatsuo (Professor, Curriculum Studies)
KANEKO Mariko(Associate Professor, Educational Sociology)[Division of Teacher Preparation Research and Development]
IWATA, Yasuyuki(Professor, Historical Studies of Teacher Education)
UESUGI, Yoshimi(Associate Professor,Media Education)[Division of Research and Development for In-service Teachers]
MAEHARA, Kenji(Associate Professor, Educational Administration)

The CCT is produced by the Curriculum Center for Teachers,
Tokyo Gakugei University.
Editor: Yoshimi Uesugi
Designer: Tsukasa Aoyama and Emi Oura
(Aoyama Lab., Calligraphy and Arts, Tokyo Gakugei University)
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Email: currict@u-gakugei.ac.jp
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