Education in Japan

Did you know that, according to the

newest study, children from Japan lead
the world in numeracy and literacy
skills? So, what makes the approach of
Japanese school system so unique and
different from the rest of the world,
and more importantly, what can we
learn fromit?

Heres an example of a regular math class in

Japan:

The class starts with the customary

aisatsu (greetings) to the teacher and
is followed by his question if students
know how to solve a problem he had
previously put up on the board. That
day his class is supposed to learn how
to solve equations with multiple
fractions and he instructs his fifthgraders how to approach these
mathproblems.
The first student to finish shots a hand up. The teacher
walks over, glances at the problem and circles it to signal it was
correct. The student then gets up and away from his seat.
Another hand shots up. But, this time the first student takes the
role of the teacher, or thecorrector.

The Japanese say

thatif you teach what
you learn, you will
remember about 90
percent.If teachers
stand at the board
and just lecture,
through mere
listening, the students
will retain far less.

As for Language, by the time they leave primary school,

Japanese children will have already known 1,006 kanji
characters. At the age of 15, when they end their compulsory
education, they will know additional1,130.
In addition to kanji, Japanese havetwo sets of phonetic
scripts,hiragana and katakana.Each set has 46 characters
which behave as syllables.
Hiragana is used together with kanji to write ordinary
Japanese words.
Katakana is used to write words introduced from other
languages, names of foreign people and places, sounds, and
animal cries.