Aiko Komoto
October, 2015
Abstract
In Japan, curriculum activities called tokkatsu (tokubetsu katsudo, or special activities) have long been practiced universally as part of the official curriculum. This type of curriculum helps support children’s holistic development and builds school communities of learning.
This working paper offers an example of the Japanese model through the case of a junior high school in Ehime Prefecture. The distinctive feature of schools in Ehime Prefecture is that lesson study in tokkatsu has been traditionally delivered as a collaborative effort between elementary and junior high schools (shochu renkei). This paper, therefore, introduces how the tokkatsu is used to build interpersonal skills and emotional maturity across school levels. The latter half of this paper, compares the teaching plans (jugyo keikaku an) of classroom meetings (gakkyukai) for 6th and 7th graders and illustrates the similarity between the classroom meetings.
