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Humanities
- ISSN: 2155-7993
- Journal of Modern Education Review
Thinking in the Japanese Classroom
Reiko Okada
(Tokai University, Japan)
Abstract: The Course of Study by the Ministry of Education in 1998 and 2008 proposed to foster thinking abilities. To assess how often high school students engaged in activities with thinking, I conducted a survey with over 1,300 students in 1999 and 2014. The results in 2014 revealed that more students asked questions, spoke opinions, and wrote opinions than in 1999, while still about half of the students were reluctant to do these activities which requires thinking. Although the Japanese education system has achieved high standards in the world, it has failed to nurture students’ thinking abilities which are essential to work with people from different backgrounds in the globalized society. To meet the demands of a rapidly changing world, it is proposed to make students objectively aware of their own culture and to provide materials to develop new teaching with thinking activities in the classroom.
Key words: thinking, high school classroom, Japan
