MEXT Super Global High School
MEXT Super Global High School
In March 2014, Showa was appointed an Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry (MEXT) Super Global High School - a five-year program which embraces far ranging concepts toallow Japanese schools to further reach out to the global community.
Showa is one of 56 schools chosen to participate in this pioneering educational venture. In particular,
we are proud that Showa is one of the few girls schools that successfully completed the selection
process.
The leaderships skills development program
The high school is collaborating with the university, Japanese companies and leading experts to create an improved model for developing youth leadership skills. The aim of the current project is toidentify the challenges that women encounter when embarking on a career path in Japan. In orderto overcome the challenges they face, we need to encourage decision making and also embraceglobal awareness by encouraging a sense of cooperation and group interaction among peers. The
curriculum is designed to offer the tools and resources to develop leadership skills in tandem withthe established learning outcomes in the Showa curriculum (see page 30).
Our objectives
Showa tries to help students develop a range of global interaction skills in cooperation with higher
learning institutions and prominent Japanese companies. Through multi-faceted program development, the aim is to further develop students innate abilities to become proactive globally aware leaders in the future.
Essentially, the objectives will be realized through encouraging a developed international awareness,
global learning initiatives and a higher sense of humanity nurtured within an enhanced cognitiveframework. These outcomes will be achieved through research questionnaires and interviews, development reports and oral presentations, cultural festivals and school briefings, and an English web sitethat allows wider access to understanding students’ intended outcomes.
The career design development project
The course is helping the students to develop career design skills.
In order to achieve this aim, the students are looking at profiles ofsuccessful women in the workplace and their career paths, giving
them the chance to reflect on their career design preparation andacquire the initiative necessary to be potential global leaders.
Within the above context, the students have been studying thegender gap issue in the Japanese workplace, awareness being thefirst step. This gap has lead some women to seek opportunities
overseas, and we also look at those experiences and see how they
achieved their aims. In addition, the situation for women in emerging economies is linked to their social situation and Showa students visit communities in Thailand and Cambodia to assess what
progress is being made by those women in their communities.

LABO Research Project
Projects1
LABO ONE - Exploring women in the workplace

Charleston, South Carolina

per Global High School (SGH) Labo One group went to the United States and spent eleven dayson campus at Ashley Hall, a private girls’ school in Charleston, South Carolina.
The mornings were taken up with classes, accompanying Ashley Hall students to their lessons orparticipating in research workshops to better develop an understanding of the role of women in
the American workplace. The afternoons were deschool’s Women In Leadership program. Since
the group was rather small, there were more thanenough opportunities for the students to develop
their communication skills.
Since Labo One’s research focus is to look atwomen in the workplace, the students went
to a restaurant that is managed and run by
women, and interviewed the staff about theirwork choices. In addition, there was a tour ofthe Magnolia Plantation, and a prayer meeting at a local church adding further cultural
insight to their visit. The most rewarding event
at Ashley Hall was the panel discussion featuring school alumna, doctors, lawyers andthe school’s vice principal. Naturally, there
was time spent outside of school hours with the Ashley Hall girls sightseeing, canoeing and dolphin watching while getting to know each other better.
There was also a tour of the Boeing
Dreamliner 787 assembly plant inCharleston, and a question and answer session about Boeing’s approachto equal opportunity in the workplace.
Women who work at the facility, andalso the Boeing Research & Technology Center nearby were on hand to offer
large global company. Since Japanesetechnology and craftmanship plays animportant part in Boeing’s manufacturing process, our students could appreciate how important the relationship between The U.S. and Japan is to both countries.
The girls came back to Japan with the realization that the purpose of communication is not perfectlanguage skills, rather to develop the tools required to interact and get the message across in afunctional communicative way.

LABO TWO - Gender equality and education

Helsinki, Finland

Scandinavian countries are models of social welfare, and we are visiting Finland where the genderother Scandinavian countries. We can learn a lot from Finnish social practises, and also their approach to education, where Finland is considered a model country.
If you are visiting Finland, then the middle ofsummer is probably the best time if you want tosee the Finns at their active best. We are visitthe summer holidays begin in early June weschool after a glorious ten week summer break.
Through the Council for Gender Equality’s
TANE program, women and men have to sharethe same employment opportunities. This allows women to participate fully in the workforce, and their children are cared for with thesupport of the state from an early age. Since child care and education is free, there are few hindrances for women to fully participate in the workforce, and indeed they are expected to be equallycontributing members of Finnish society.
We will be developing our research with attention to Finland’s unique neuvola program. Essentially, from the timethe mother falls pregnant, the state has strategies in place
for her, and her husband. Both are actively involved fromthe early stages of pregnancy, and fathers are expected totake an equal role in raising the child. Indeed, when thechild is born, there are three books given to the family toread, one for the mother, one for the father, and one forthe baby - with lots of pictures!
We’re looking forward to developing anexchange relationship with a fellow UNESCO Associated School, the Helsinki
Upper Secondary School of Languages- an international school. Since our research area is gender equality, we’rehoping that we can learn more about thegender approach and develop an understanding of Finnish education from thestudents who come from a variety ofcultures, nations and backgrounds, andshare the challenge to communicate inEnglish - the global language.

LABO THREE - Women taking the initiative in developing countries

Cambodia

After some workshops conducted by Showa
Women’s University’s International Studies
lecturer Ms Yukiko Yonekura, a group of sevenstudents and three teachers left for Cambodia
in mid-August.
During their four day visit, they toured the Japan International Volunteer Center’s Phnom
Penh facility where young Cambodians are
getting on the job experience with car maintenance and repair, among other skills designed
to help them enter the workforce with some of
the necessary hands-on skills.
The main focus of the research trip was to talkto some Japanese who, through developing employment opportunities and industries are working to help Cambodians enter the workforce.
rata, who established a company called Kurata
Pepper. Since visiting Cambodia as a young volunteer in the 1990s, he has made it his mission
to give Cambodian women long-term employment opportunities - in this case reviving theonce world-renown pepper brand.
soon expanded to become a free newspaper called Nyonyum (‘smile’ in the local Khmer language)
since, like most developing countries, modern communication networks are yet to be fully realised.
Also, Ms Yamazaki has opened the Nyonyum Shop, a number of retail outlets that sell handmade
local art, crafts and food, bought directly from sources all over Cambodia.
Affectionately known as Madam
Sachiko, Ms Sachiko Kojima establishedAngkor Cookies as a business to give
Cambodians with only a basic education, a chance to explore employment
opportunities beyond their rural farm2004 and now, over ten years later, itemploys more than ninety local people
in retailing, manufacture and support
services for a wide variety of food anddrink produce; not only cookies. As Ms
Kojima proudly states, “100% made inCambodia”.

LABO FOUR - Women achieving their rightful place in remote communities

Chiang Rai, Thailand

Possibly the closest destination to Japan, the Labo
Four expedition was in reality, the most distantand challenging of all. The group of seven students, accompanied by two teachers, ten university students and Professor Korogi from SWU left
Narita on August 22nd and after changing planes
The locally based Mirror Foundation is an NGO
working to help local people, many of whom arestateless. Chiang Rai Province shares its borderwith communities in Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.
Although local villages lack most facilities we accept as a part of day to day life in Japan, the people
have a quality of life that challenged our students perception of what is important in life. Sleeping inraised huts without bathing facilities, evenings spent quietly chatting with gestures and being awoken at daybreak by roosters greeting the day made fora whole new world for the girls.
A visit to an elementary school was especially fullearn from their visitors from Japan. Our girls enjoyed playing games and sharing an appreciationof varied cultures, while the children rewarded thegirls by being eager learners of Japanese, writing
their names in hiragana and learning about kanji.
Our students found that The Mirror Foundation was expending most of its energy andfunding helping the stateless children, manyof whom are from the Karen groups and often
refugees from the border area in Myanmar.
With almost no developed industries in thearea, unemployment for those not working in
subsistence industries is very high.
Everyone came back to Japan with a conviction to do more for those not so far away fromus, and a sense of gratitude that we have suchvaried opportunities at home and abroad. It
only seems appropriate that the Chiang Rai group committed themselves to their ongoing mission to
make dreams come true. By sharing with the people the belief that we should have a dream, and offer hope in what for many is an almost hopeless situation, our students have laid the groundwork forthe next step - and everyone is looking forward to the next visit to help the Mirror Foundation open