UPDATED! This post has been updated with links to the reaction in the blogosphere and NYT letters to the editor.
Original post, from Jan. 2, 2008...
Below the fold on the front page of today's New York Times, Martin Fackler writes about how the Japanese, who are getting increasingly insecure about their schools, are looking for lessons from India, the country which he says is considered as the world's ascendant education superpower.
The story features a kindergarten school founded by an Indian woman, where 2-year-olds count to 20, three-year-olds use computers and five-year-olds writes essays in English.
Bookstores are filled with titles like “Extreme Indian Arithmetic Drills” and “The Unknown Secrets of the Indians.” Newspapers carry reports of Indian children memorizing multiplication tables far beyond nine times nine, the standard for young elementary students in Japan.
And Japan’s few Indian international schools are reporting a surge in applications from Japanese families.
At the Little Angels English Academy & International Kindergarten, the textbooks are from India, most of the teachers are South Asian, and classroom posters depict animals out of Indian tales. The kindergarten students even color maps of India in the green and saffron of its flag.
It is quite an interesting that the Japanese learn to color an Indian flag given that most of the students in this school are Japanese. Only one out of 45 is an Indian.
Fackler puts it in a rather humorous way when he writes that grudgingly, Japan is starting to respect its neighbors.
“Until now, Japanese saw China and India as backwards and poor,” said Yoshinori Murai, a professor of Asian cultures at Sophia University in Tokyo. “As Japan loses confidence in itself, its attitudes toward Asia are changing. It has started seeing India and China as nations with something to offer.”
Little Angels School in Japan was started by Jeevarani Angelina, a former Chennai-based oil company executive, after she moved to Japan in 1990.
The article ends with a Japanese parent praising the Indian education system.
“My son’s level is higher than those of other Japanese children the same age,” said Eiko Kikutake, whose son Hayato, 5, attends Little Angels. “Indian education is really amazing! This wouldn’t have been possible at a Japanese kindergarten.”
What do your think? Please post some of your thoughts below.
UPDATE: Over at SepiaMutiny, Professor Amardeep Singh is dubious about this trend:
There’s a long tradition of “Dubious Trend Line” (DBL) stories in the New York Times, and today’s article on how Japanese parents have suddenly become interested in the Indian educational system seems to more or less fit the patter.
<snip>
If a Dubious Trend Line journalist goes to broad geopolitical generalizations when trying to explain a much more specific cultural event, they’re likely grasping at straws.In general, I don’t disagree that a focus on the fundamentals might be useful in the early years (and I have my doubts about the Montessori method), but there’s nothing especially “Indian” about that, is there? Isn’t the memorization simply a hold-over from the old British educational model? Overall, the article does little to convince me that this is anything other than a mini-fad — if that.
Read 70+ comments as well.UPDATE: Two letters to the NYT were published on Sunday, Jan. 6, 2008.
One is a letter from Harvard education professor Howard Gardner:
I was fascinated to read that Japan is now imitating education in India but dismayed to learn what is being imitated: memorization, cramming and attempting to teach anything and everything at ever earlier ages (“Losing an Edge, Japanese Envy India’s Schools,” front page, Jan. 2).
What Japan should be pondering are India’s lessons from the period of being a British colony and from the struggle against British hegemony.
These include surviving, sometimes thriving, in a pluralistic world; genuine democracy (warts and all); heated debate; a liberal arts education; the importance of play and irreverence; posing tough questions; the individual’s willingness to struggle against mentors; and the nation’s capacity to rebel against an overly powerful national model elsewhere, be it British or American.
Here is the second letter, from a woman named Susan L. Schwartz:
Having spent six weeks last summer on a Fulbright investigating what United States educators can learn from the Indian system, I find it ironic that some Japanese want to emulate the Indian system, which favors rote learning.
Similarities exist in both countries: an emphasis on passing exams as the requirement to enter universities; the hours of homework students must complete; the respect given teachers; and the support provided by parents.
But there is now a recognition in India that curriculums must include more application, not just memorization, and that all students, not just those who can afford it and have no special needs, must be educated.
In fact, some Indian educators point to the American system as a model, because it fosters creativity, educates all children regardless of background and enables everyone who wants to to attend college.
Post your comments below.
