Does the Japanese educational system recognize its gifted and talented students? Does it provide for intellectual giftedness, creative vigor, or talent in the arts? Are students of ability encouraged to stand out and actualize their gifts? These questions were answered in part as 200 American teachers and I visited Japan this past October as part of the Fulbright Memorial Fund (FMF) Teacher Program.
In this column, I present my brief reflection that captures Japan's philosophical attitude toward its gifted and talented students.
Sponsored by the Japanese government, the FMF three-week program will eventually send 3,000 American teachers to Japan over a period of five years as a thank-you to the American people for hosting over 8,000 Japanese Fulbright scholars since World War II. The intent is to increase understanding of Japan's people, culture, and educational system and to expand professional development opportunities for American primary and secondary educators.
Observations of the Japanese Schools My FMF group consisted of 19 teachers who traveled about 100 miles from Tokyo to the state of Shizuoka Prefecture. We visited five schools ranging from elementary to college level. At each, I questioned school officials about how gifted and talented students were identified and accommodated. At the elementary and junior high school levels, the response to my question on identification was met with the same negative answer. There is no concept of a student being recognized as intellectually gifted or talented in the Japanese school system. In general, judgments of children are avoided. When members of the FMF group asked which student was most respected or popular, the response was that the question does not apply because the Japanese do not judge who is most respected or popular. Furthermore, government educational policy and the people of Japan do not support the concept of giftedness. Instead, Japan's school system operates as egalitarian wherein effort to achieve is stressed over innate ability (Stevenson, Lee, & Chen, 1994).
To ensure egalitarian treatment, students are heterogeneously grouped through junior high school. The emphasis from both administrative and student points of view is not on the individual but on the team. The Japanese educational system strives for a high average achievement rate for all, rather than excellence for a few (Kerr, 1996). Although there are tests to enter the "better" high schools and universities, in Japan there are no achievement tests as such. In this respect, the contrast is sharp between Japan and U.S. school systems that encourage individual academic achievement by frequent testing.
Standing out as a high ability learner is discouraged in the Japanese educational system. The "good student" is the one who does the work and does not ask too many questions. The uncooperative student solicits attention by overly questioning or behaving differently. Brighter students are asked to help the less able students with their work, and no one is retained. Learning is cooperative. One example deals with answering questions. Given a question, students discuss the answer before responding as a group. The group takes precedence over the individual, and the recognition of innate differences is avoided. As a result, bright students do not outperform others and probably do not perform to their capacity.
Art and Music Programs Japanese schools have more art and music than the typical American school. Two hours per week are spent each on art and music. In the elementary school I visited, the music programs produced an outstanding orchestra performance by a group of fifth- and sixth-graders. The children played at a senior high school level. At the high school, the FMF group observed students composing and rehearsing original musical pieces.
Art was not given a similarly strong emphasis. The bulletin boards did not reflect a high level of art instruction, and there was no art room at the elementary school my group visited. When asked about those talented in art and music, officials responded that if a student is talented, parents take the child to after-school programs to develop his or her abilities. This adds to the already very long day that runs approximately 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Junior High, Senior High, and College Levels Japanese education is compulsory through junior high school where students continue to be heterogeneously grouped with no distinction made for intellectually gifted children. Junior high school students often went to "juku," which are cram schools after school hours, to prepare for entrance examinations to get into the most prestigious high schools (Garland, 1998).
At the senior high school level, intellectually gifted students can complete the three-year program in two years and go on to college. Tracking of students into slow, average, or fast classes has been introduced in some high schools in urban areas such as Tokyo and Osaka, but most Japanese educators still object to this practice as elitist (Stevenson, Lee, & Chen, 1994). High schools are ranked as to their quality, and attending a certain high school often guarantees admission into a sister university.
When the FMF group visited the robotics department at Numazu Technical College, I was told that the junior high schools are searched for the very best students in physics and math to be funneled to this special robotics program. This program seems to have done a good job of identifying gifted students who display strong math and science abilities and who also have the intellectual gift for inventing.
The robotics program consisted of 40 males and 2 females. Two of the students who had won national robotics competitions were available for interviews, and I asked them about special programming. Because my research is in the area of creative thinking processes of inventors, I began by questioning the two young men about their thinking processes: How did they invent their original robots? I discovered that they use processes similar to that of inventors: an abstract imagery system of thought as well as concrete hands-on building. Further discussion made it clear that, just as in the U.S., these gifted students had found their way to special programs that would capitalize on their non-verbal intellectual gifts even though their gifts had not been systematically identified or developed by the educational system.
Programming: Teaching for Higher Level Thinking Skills Throughout my contact with Japanese educators from the elementary schools to college professors, I asked whether or not higher level thinking skills were taught to the students. The answer was that there are no separate programs at the elementary level, but lessons in reasoning skills are embedded in the regular curriculum. I was also told that the development of creativity is often lacking in the Japanese educational system.
One Japanese educator of science education and a writer of science textbooks, said he was investigating the nature of creativity within the scientist so that better methods could be used to develop creativity in science education. He felt that divergent questioning techniques were still not in wide use in Japanese education, and that a dialogdiscovery process emphasizing not just "hands-on" but "minds-on" processes were needed.
From this brief visit to Japan's schools, it is difficult to draw generalizations about whether or not creative or critical thinking skills are being taught or whether or not gifted students have opportunities to develop their gifts. The Japanese recognize their worldwide superiority in physics and math, and they are rightfully noted for their high degree of creativity in elaborating on ideas brought in from outside Japan. Yet, in contrast to these achievements, the Japanese are also well aware and will say that they have fewer Nobel Prize winners and hold less patents than other countries in the world.
To correct this gap in originality, senior high schools are introducing debate sessions and problem solving activities. Japanese educators have observed and borrowed programs from American and other nations' school systems in their attempt to produce more creative thinkers. But, it must be noted that beginning such programs at the high school level is considered late by American educators' standards.
Potential to Exceed Other Nations in Creative Output In one way, I feel the Japanese are ahead of us in their potential to produce original thinkers. The FMF group attended numerous lectures on the Japanese educational system informing us that its foundation is based on calligraphy and the abacus. A brief analysis of how grounding in calligraphy and the abacus influences thinking suggests that the Japanese are providing young children opportunities to think in a highly sophisticated manner. That is, the mastery of calligraphy requires several mental skills including hands-on manipulation of a brush to produce large scale characters, astute visual memory of over 1,800 patterns, and a synthesis of abstract concepts and meanings into single spatial characters. The manipulation of the abacus also requires the skills of tactile learning through hands-on manipulation, astute visual memory for number patterns, as well as grasping abstract mathematical calculations. In short, learning calligraphy and the use of the abacus requires students to use the entire hand-eye-body system to acquire basic knowledge while reasoning from concrete to abstract thought processes. Based on my research in the thinking processes of inventors, original thinking requires the visual mind to dance in such a manner that hands learn and minds imagine together (Cooper, 1994).
It might be suggested that the Japanese actively incorporate good divergent thinking regimes, ones that encourage complex analytical/creative thinking of the three-dimensional sort, and emphasize risk-taking as an affective skill to support originality. Activities that include divergent production need to be implemented in the primary grades in order to capitalize on the already excellent foundation they are providing to their students.
Conclusions From readings and my observations, I found that the concept of giftedness is not overtly accepted within the Japanese educational system. More intelligent or creative students are not recognized or given special provisions because of an ingrained philosophy of education that gifted programs are undemocratic (Fortner, 1989; Stevenson, Lee, & Chen, 1994). The Japanese culture carefully avoids judgment. Age-old cultural norms embracing equality at their core hold capable individuals in check for the benefit of the whole. Only a few instances defy these attitudes--including the search for junior high school students excelling in math and science and the tracking and acceleration provisions made in some urban senior high schools.
Although gifted students are not identified in Japan, the fact remains that the Japanese are thirsty to produce highly original thinkers. With this desire, the Japanese face a dilemma. The nature of original creative expression requires that the individual be taught to accept his or her special gifts and to act on a high degree of curiosity, risk-taking, challenge, and intuition. Creativity requires the full intellectual and affective development of the individual. It is a lifestyle, a personality trait, a way of perceiving the world, and of living and growing. In this area, the Japanese appear to fail their gifted students by not allowing talented individuals to be identified and educated for excellence earlier. To do so would mean reexamining core cultural attitudes persistent on producing the high average.
Major cultural changes are not without precedence in Japan. Both in 1868 and 1945, the Japanese language underwent dramatic changes, making it difficult for present day Japanese to read prewar historical prose and almost impossible to read anything before 1868 (Kerr, 1996). An attitudinal change of openness in which Japan recognizes its gifted and talented individuals would be in keeping with Japan's educational goals of teaching children to be mentally and physically strong and to be considerate to all.
I predict that if the Japanese chose to identify and provide services for their gifted, the world economy would be inundated with Japanese ingenuity and originality because of the essential handson foundation provided by working with the abacus and calligraphy. Furthermore, if the Japanese culture kept its strong group dynamic while simultaneously nurturing exceptional, creative individual thinkers, this paradoxical balance of team and individual effort would allow them to compete with other nations in both knowledge and wisdom.
References Cooper, E. E. (1994). Spatial-temporal intelligence: A phenomenological analysis of gifted inventors. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Saybrook Institute, San Francisco.
Fortner, M. J. (1989). Educational programs and practices for academically able students in United States, Japan and Germany. Roeper Review, 2, 185-89.
Garland, V. E. (1998). Educating middle level students in two cultures: Comparing Japanese and American perspectives. The Journal of the New England League of Middle Schools, 9(1), 19-23.
Kerr, A. (1996). Lost Japan. Hawthorn, Australia: Lonely Planet Publications.
Stevenson, H. W., Lee, S-Y., & Chen, C. (1994). Education of gifted and talented students in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Japan. Journal for the Education of the Gifted. 17, 104-130.
~~~~~~~~By Eileen Cooper, Ph.D.
This is an excellent reminder on the influence of culture on the conception, policy and practice concerning giftedness, especially with regards to formal education.
Japan is one of these modern economies where historical, social and spiritual aspects of everyday task take precedence over individual cognition. I'm often astonished by my Japanese friends' refusal to verbalise judgment on the person's intelligence. Instead, they place emphasis on the importance of effort in the conception and evaluation of giftedness. For them, the lack of intelligence is manifested in failure, which is due to absence of hard work, that is shared by parents, teachers and relevant people.
Dr. Rolade Berthier, author 'Intelligence, Giftedness: Pre-cradle to Post-grave'