In recent years, the globalization of Japanese society has brought about significant changes in the field of education: the number of foreigners living in Japan continues to increase, with the number of foreign residents reaching a record high of 2.96 million by June 2022, and the number of children with foreign connections is also increasing every year.
As contacts between Japan and other countries become closer, JICA is focusing its efforts on supporting “Development Education/International Understanding Education” (Note 1). One of its initiatives is overseas training programs for teachers and staff. We will discuss the significance of overseas training and the future of education through talks by Ms. Chisato Maki, a participant of the program who is currently supporting students with foreign connections, and Mr. Masaharu Sumida, who is promoting the creation of new schools that recognize diverse values.
(Note 1) Education that fosters independence to learn about current situations and issues, from the familiar to the international, think about solutions, and act on one’s own initiative.
JICA’s “Teachers’ Overseas Training Program” for school teachers, administrators, and boards of education throughout Japan resumed in earnest for the first time in three years after the Corona Disaster in FY2023.
Realizing the importance of seeing and feeling with your own eyes
JICA’s Overseas Training Program for Teachers is designed to deepen teachers’ understanding of life and culture in developing countries and their relationship with Japan by allowing them to visit these countries themselves, and to use this understanding to improve their educational practices. To date, a total of more than 3,300 people from all over Japan have participated in the program, visiting approximately 30 countries.
Chisato Maki, a teacher who participated in a training program in Tanzania in 2014, is one such person. She says that a recruitment notice she saw at a special-needs school in Kanagawa Prefecture, where she was enrolled, reminded her of a dream she once had. When I was in high school, I met a Japanese woman who was working to support children in war-torn Sierra Leone, and I knew I wanted to work in a job that would someday bring me into contact with people overseas,” she said. Also, many of the students in my class at the time were interested in foreign countries through the presence of athletes they admired, so I decided to participate in the program in the hope that it would help develop the children’s curiosity.
Dr. Maki teaches at a special needs school in Kanagawa Prefecture.
During their 10-day stay in Tanzania, they visited schools, hospitals, water supply facilities, and other sites where JICA Overseas Cooperation Volunteers are active. They also toured towns and markets and did homestays with ordinary families to get a firsthand look at the living conditions in developing countries. While realizing the importance of international cooperation, Dr. Maki said the trip also gave him an opportunity to think about how he had been caught up in stereotypes.
I had always had an image of Africa as a place of poverty, but seeing so many cars passing by, people with cell phones, and colorful vegetables and fruits lined up in the markets, I realized again the importance of seeing and feeling things with your own eyes,” he says.
A snapshot taken by Dr. Maki in Tanzania. The scene of a woman with a bucket of water on her head walking along a street where many Japanese cars were passing by made him feel the reality of Tanzania.
“You are my family, having shared a meal with you.”
What shocked Dr. Maki even more, in a positive way, was the “richness of heart” of the Tanzanian people. If we greeted each other, they would say more than that, “Your clothes look great on you. You are my family, you ate dinner with me,” and they warmly accepted me into their home, or people who had their traditional cloth cangas tailored for them and wore them stylishly. It was such a stark contrast to the Japanese, for whom even greeting people has become a chore, or eating isolated meals and wearing mass-produced clothing is becoming the norm.
Tailor of the traditional East African cloth “Kanga”.
After returning to Tanzania, she took the opportunity to create opportunities for her students to experience Tanzanian food, experience the weight of fetching water, and participate in a drawing class inspired by the local pop art “Tingatinga. He actively created opportunities for his students to think about the people living in faraway countries through such activities as food tasting and drawing classes inspired by the local pop art Tingatinga.
The children, who at first had not even heard of Tanzania, were surprised and sympathized with the children, saying, “This is different from us,” and “But we have the same things in common,” and became eager to learn more. One of the most gratifying comments came from a student who said, “We eat school lunch together every day, so we are all family. I was especially happy when one student said, “We eat school lunch together every day, and we are like a family.
Dr. Maki getting her hair braided by a local. He realized that braiding hair keeps it cool and is reasonable for Tanzanians who do not have much of a habit of washing their hair.
Sharing individual experiences and giving back to the community
After that, he joined the JICA Overseas Cooperation Volunteers as an in-service teacher to further deepen his learning in Africa, and in 2019, some time after returning from his two-year assignment in Kenya, he learned that the number of disabled children and students with foreign connections in Kanagawa Prefecture had been increasing. He decided to start a group with his friends to think about ways to support these children and students, hoping to give back to the local community as much as possible, rather than simply passing off his experience as an overseas trainee and cooperative worker as a life experience.
The “Group for Supporting Children and Students with Foreign-Linked Neighbors” consists of about 20 members, including teachers and staff who work in Kanagawa Prefecture and former members of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Overseas Cooperation Volunteers. Each member brings a case study to the meeting and discusses it.
For example, a child with ties to a foreign country may accidentally come to school on a public holiday. This is a common occurrence at first glance, but it can be prevented gradually by sharing such incidents instead of keeping them as individual experiences. It may be difficult to change the system all at once, but it can be done one by one.
A scene from the monthly meeting of the Association for Support. While compiling a “casebook” of the cases they have taken up so far, the group is also exploring collaboration with the government, including interpretation and translation support for children and their guardians (photo courtesy of Dr. Maki).
The school and teachers are aware of, respect, and support the different cultural backgrounds and customs of each family ahead of time. Dr. Maki recalls that the hurdle to this awareness was certainly lowered by his own exposure to the outside world and the broadening of his perspective. He says that the experience of being a minority in a foreign country has greatly helped him in his current support activities and the way he deals with each student. The Overseas Training Program for Teachers was full of valuable experiences that have enriched my life as a teacher since then.
I want you to send the teachers out into the outside world.
For teachers and staff, like Mr. Maki, to actively participate in training and activities outside the school, it is necessary to have the understanding of those around them. From this perspective, JICA also offers overseas training programs (educational administration course) for school administrators and school board supervisors.
Mr. Masaharu Sumida, the headmaster of Shonan Gakuen (Fujisawa City, Kanagawa Prefecture), who participated in the educational administration course at the end of 2022, urges “administrators to actively send teachers out into the world. This is because he believes that encountering different values is the foundation for accepting diversity, which is necessary in today’s Japanese educational scene.
Dr. Sumida has been attracting attention for his promotion of energetic schools under the motto, “Don’t manage teachers and staff, leave them to their own devices. In the documentary film “Dreaming Principal: How to Create a Children-First Public School” released this summer, he appears as “the principal who eliminated the principal’s office.
Dr. Sumida fears that if school teachers teach from a narrow perspective, they will eventually create a huge gap for future generations of children who will live in diverse cultures and value systems.
Nowadays, it is unthinkable to live in Japan without being connected to the rest of the world. Some schools may have their hands full just with day-to-day operations, but in the long run it is essential for children’s learning for teachers to be outward-looking. I urge you to look at this training from that perspective. Of course, I hope that the participating teachers will show us their “transformation,” and I expect that this transformation will be transmitted to those around them, thereby revitalizing the school as a whole.
He also says that overseas training is a chance for teachers and staff to upgrade themselves. The school I visited in Egypt, to my surprise, had adopted Japanese-style education, such as cleaning and class meetings,” he said. Japanese traditions and education are not to be discarded. I would like teachers to have confidence in that. However, by coming into contact with different values abroad, you will realize that the Japanese way of doing things is not the only way. Therefore, it is important to broaden one’s perspective to the world and to be proactive in adopting the good aspects of the world. There are many things that I myself have put into practice after returning to my home country.
Noticing that many schools overseas had spaces for staff to chat, he installed a hammock in the principal’s office after returning to Japan. An environment was created where teachers could discuss their opinions in a relaxed atmosphere (photo courtesy of Dr. Sumida).
Dr. Sumida came up with the idea of a circular whiteboard called “Enta-kun. Since there is no top and bottom, it facilitates discussion from a flat position (photo courtesy of Dr. Sumida).
Mr. Sumida also says that the horizontal connections gained through teacher training abroad are also very important. By sharing a common goal as educators and experiencing a new world together, they are able to meet “friends” who can share their problems and encourage each other.
When teachers are able to talk to each other on a level playing field, away from the narrow confines of the school, they naturally become more lively. I would like to use this experience as an opportunity to build ties with parents and community members, and to create an open school where everyone can support the growth of the children together. As a first step toward this goal, I would like many teachers to participate in overseas training programs.
© Source JICA
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