Customer Reviews

Educating Hearts and Minds: Reflections on Japanese Preschool and Elementary Education

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

the author is an American anthropologist, and a Mom. She sent two kids to a Japanese public school, and sat back to watch what happened. I admired the book, and learned from it, because the author seems to have no axe to grind. She also demonstrates that a lot of stereotypes about Japanese schools are wrong. For example, she finds disciplinary rules considerably looser than in American schools, with kids given much more responsibility at earlier ages than in the U.S. Her experience tracks closely with what happened to 2 of my kids in a Japanese public school.

I'm a non-Japanese jr. & sr. high school teacher in Tokyo. As such, I have a reasonable idea of what goes on in secondary schools here but little knowledge of pre- and elementary schooling. Educating Hearts and Minds gave me a lot of the background knowledge that the Japanese teachers and students take for granted, but it also gave me a new way of looking at discipline and understanding where students and teachers are coming from.

While I found myself feeling skeptical about some of Lewis' observations, in general I found her evidence compelling. Other books dealing with Japanese education (and what it means for America) focus mostly on subject matter teaching, but this books deals more with how teachers order the classroom and maintain discipline. It goes more into teachers' thinking about how to build strong relationships with and between students; mainly by giving much of the responsibility to students and by regularly engaging in group reflection on the day's activities.

Lewis focuses on preschool and early elementary (grades 1 and 2) education. Though little of what she describes will be directly transferable to older students, much of the thinking behind it may.

For anyone teaching in Japan who has not gone through the elementary system this book is a must read.

In response to the other review: Actually, the author is an American social psychologist, and she didn't just "sit back and watch" her kids in Japanese public schools. She did in-depth research of the school systems, which involved multiple trips to Japan (her kids were not primarily schooled in Japanese) and a huge amount of observation, study, and interviewing. I would have given this book 5 stars except that I didn't want to appear to be biased in my aunt's favor!