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Lerner-centered education (child-centered education) has been a recurrent theme in many developing countries and has been endorsed by international donor community. However, it is reported that the history of the implementation of learner-centered education in developing countries is riddled with stories of failures grand and small. Why do such matters occur repeatedly? This article considers a cause of the problem by using as a clue of Japanese experiences in child-centered education. In 1872, Ministry of Education set up the Tokyo Normal School in which teachers were trained in the new contents and methods of teaching under an American educator, M.M. Scott. He introduced for the first time a “frontal instruction” into Japan. Throughout the Meiji era, Japanese educators put forth a steady effort to develop modern and effective teaching methods modeling at first on the Americanized Pestalozzian teaching theory, and then on the German Herbartian teaching method. No later than the end of the 19th century, a formalized and standardized teaching method so called the five-step teaching method was established and shared widely among Japanese teachers. Early in the 20th century as a result of the influences of the world-wide liberal movement, many ideas and practices of “new education” were introduced and adopted by Japanese educators. Some progressive educators advocated a new education doctrine such as child-centered or activity-centered education. Though this new education movement brought a breath of fresh air to Japanese education, its influence was rather limited to a group of private schools and some affiliated schools in the normal school. In other words, the majority of Japanese schools were left untouched by this movement. Then in the 1930s, when the movement was directed toward militarism and ultra-nationalism, this liberal movement in education was suppressed and disappeared from the scene. In the postwar Japanese education world, influences were felt from the U.S. Education Mission to Japan and from GHQ/CIE staffs who promoted American progressive education thought in Japan. For a period of time, “the post-war new education” prevailed. The core curriculum Movement, centered on child-centered teaching methods, community school planning, which aimed to incorporate the realities and problems of the local communities into study programs, and focused learning aimed at solving everyday living problems, developed. However, it was no easy task to implement the ideal of new education in the confused conditions of post-war Japan. In response to criticism that the academic ability of children had fallen off, teaching methods based on empiricism declined in public favor and a more systematic form of study was incorporated into the curriculum. In the 1950s and 1960s, enthusiasm for “lesson study” assumed greater prominence among Japanese educators. These movement essentially seemed to intend to display a teachers’ initiative in organizing education process. Viewing from Japanese experience, unfortunately, a majority of the teaching forces in developing countries are working in disadvantaged circumstances and would be unprepared to use freely learner-centered education. |
