Though there has been much discussion on the academic aspects of Japanese education abroad (e.g., high scores on international tests, lesson study), there has been little information on the non-academic aspects of Japanese schooling. This non-academic aspect is called Tokkatsu (tokubetsu katsudo).
Unlike math and reading, Tokkatsu is not confined to a certain period, but extends throughout the school day and even after-school activities — such as school excursions. It includes classroom activities such as classroom discussions, morning and afternoon meetings that take place daily, cleaning and serving lunch, school events such as sports day, school excursions, student councils, and club activities. Such activities occur every single day, throughout one's school years, from elementary school (actually, even kindergarten) to high school. They are, however, bound together by the common goals of the Tokkatsu framework.
This book is the foremost attempt to address a gap in English literature on Tokkatsu.
Sample Chapter(s)
Preface
Chapter 1 - The Tokkatsu Framework: The Japanese Model of Holistic Education
Contents:
- The Framework:
- The Tokkatsu Framework: The Japanese Model of Holistic Education (Ryoko Tsuneyoshi)
- The Essentials of Tokkatsu (Hiroshi Sugita)
- Tokkatsu for Cultivating Pupils/Students' Talents and Abilities Necessary to Live in a Future Society (Shino Takatsu)
- Examples of Tokkatsu Practices:
- Safety and Disaster Prevention Education as Education for Life (Ryoko Tsuneyoshi)
- Safety Education in a Global Age: The Case of a Public Night Junior High School in Japan (Maiko Sumino)
- Tokkatsu as the Core of Career Education (Ryoko Tsuneyoshi)
- Classroom Activities on Cleaning and Lunch: Tokkatsu Series DVD (Fumiko Takahashi and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi)
- Tokkatsu-Like Activities in Japanese Corporations (Shino Takatsu)
- Implications of Comparing School Cleaning Across Educational Contexts: Interpretation and Practice in Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore (Kanako N Kusanagi, Fumiko Takahashi, Chun-Yi Tan and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi)
- Tokkatsu Group Stayovers as Education for Life (Kazuhiko Nambu, Wataru Ino, Shino Takatsu and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi)
- Seitokai: Student Committee of Secondary Schools in Japan (Yutaka Ochi)
- Japanese Essay Writing for Life Education: The Case of C Secondary School (Yutaka Ochi and Ryoko Tsuneyoshi)
- Teacher Learning and the Kenkyukai: The Japanese Model of Collaborative Teacher Research (Kazuhiko Nambu)
- "Group-Making" Matsubara Style (Kokichi Shimizu)
- Tokkatsu Reform: Learning Better Together (Kazuaki Iwabuchi, Aiko Komoto and Hiromi Shimizu)
- Rebuilding the Community Through Education: The Case of Futaba Future School in Fukushima (Maiko Sumino)
- The Japanese Model of Schooling as an International Model:
- Tokkatsu Plus in Egypt: Extending the Tokkatsu Concept (Shinichiro Tanaka)
- Lesson Study in Singapore (Edmund Lim)
- Transformation of Lesson Study in Indonesia: From Government-Assisted Projects to Professional Learning Communities (Kanako N Kusanagi)
- Education Reforms in the National Institute of Technology (KOSEN) (Hidenori Isami)
- Interview With Professor Hideyuki Horii Human-Centered Innovation at i.school Is the Key to Educate Students for Creating New Values in New Ways (Shino Takatsu)
- Concluding Remarks (Ryoko Tsuneyoshi)
Readership: Teachers, policymakers, and scholars who are interested in what could be learned from the Japanese model of schooling more generally.
Ryoko Tsuneyoshi is a professor comparative education at the Graduate School of Education, The University of Tokyo. PhD sociology, Princeton University. She is the former Director for the Center for Excellence in School Education (2015–2016), Graduate School of Education, the head of the Attached Secondary School to the University of Tokyo (2016–2017), a former member of the executive committee for the Science Council of Japan, the executive member for the Intercultural Education Society of Japan, Japan Educational Research Association, and a former assistant to the president (socho hosa). She does comparative studies of school education, cross-national fieldwork, and her publications in English include: The Japanese Model of Schooling (2000, Routledge), Minorities and Education in Multicultual Japan (edited with K Okano and S Boocock, 2011, Routledge).
Hiroshi Sugita is the former Ministry of Education director on Tokkatsu. He travels widely around Japan, consulting schools on how to instruct Tokkatsu. He is also the main figure in implementing Tokkatsu into Egypt and Mongolia, and works with JICA. He heads Tokkatsu organizations for teachers, Tokubetsu Katsudo Kibounokai (http://kibounokai.net/), and is influential and various teachers' associations of Tokkatsu, consistently serving as the keynote speaker.
Kanako N Kusanagi is a Project Researcher at Center for Excellence in School Education, Graduate School of Education, University of Tokyo. She worked as an educational consultant for the projects funded by JICA and local NGOs. Her research focuses on education transfer and professional development of teachers in Japan and abroad especially in developing countries. Currently, she is analyzing the influence of sociocultural contexts on the implementation of lesson study in Indonesia.
Fumiko Takahashi is a research associate at the Center for School Excellence in Education (name to be changed in April 2017), Graduate School of Education, University of Tokyo. DPhil. in Sociology, University of Oxford. She studies ethnicity and nationalism from a perspective of education for immigrants and refugees.