The “Best Practice” Project

The Center for Excellence in School Education, for the school years 2014 and 2015, is collecting “best practices” from schools around Japan in the following target areas:

1)   “Best Practices” for Educating Global Leaders

2)   “Best Practices” for the Education of the Whole/Total Person

The “best practices” in the first category applies to a wide range of practices including those that encourage the development of global citizenship, multicultural awareness, international understanding, and consciousness of global issues. Those that try to collaborate with organizations outside of the school, such as NGOs, schools abroad, or universities, are also included in this category.

Next, the “best practices” in the second category includes those practices which focus on developing the whole or total child. Educational reform on developing 21^st century skills or competencies around the world have emphasized the importance of developing the total child. The development of all aspects of the child, including the emotional, interpersonal, and social, not just academic, is now recognized in many societies as an important educational goal in the 21^st century. This category includes schools which focus on a special period in the Japanese curriculum for building interpersonal relationships called “tokubetsu katsudo” (tokkatsu), those which adopt a total person approach to encourage at-risk or vulnerable children (e.g., children in poverty, foreign children, etc.) to achieve, and other practices which try to overcome a narrow focus on the role of education in the life of the child.

The Center will select “best practices” in target areas, and will make the information available to the international audience. The hope is that this will promote the international exchange of ideas between Japanese educators, scholars, and their counterparts abroad.

• Ryoko Tsuneyoshi

Director, Center for Excellence in School Education

• Yuto Kitamura

Deputy Director, Center

• Hideki Ito

Research Associate, Center

• Fumiko Takahashi

Research Fellow