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(★)(Education is under pressure throughout the world as globalization and technological revolution create a new Learning Society in which citizens can never stop learning new skills in work and life. In this volume, the journalist Reiko Kinoshita examines how a Japanese learning program, the Kumon Method, has quietly spread worldwide in response to this changed environment. What is the secret of the Kumon Method, now in use by over four-million students in forty-five different countries? It developed out of the math worksheets that a teacher, Toru Kumon, made for his own son, but Kinoshita sees its roots in the self-study methods used in the ´terakoya´, temple schools in Japan in the Edo Period [1600-1868], in which the children of commoners learned reading, writing, and arithmetic. Kumon students work at their own pace, learning new skills but also learning new attitudes of self-confidence and autonomy. But perhaps the real secret to the worldwide success of the Kumon Method can be found in the belief of Toru Kumon that there are no borders in learning, that we continue to grow by striving to be better. ◆Reiko Kinoshita : Since the 1990s, the journalist Reiko Kinoshita has been conducting research and reporting under the theme of ´powers Japan lacks,´ bearing fruit in the publication of four books : ´Infuruensharu [Influential, 1991]´,´Puraizu [The Prize, 1993]´,´Ohbei Kurabu Shakai [The Club, 1996]´ and ´Amerikan Baburu [American Bubble, 2001]´ (→all published by Shinchosha in Japanese). As Visiting Fellow of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, she focused her research on the reconstruction of U.S.-Japan relations. At the International Women´s Media Foundation (IWMF), she played a unique role from 1995 to 2005 as the sole Board member representing the Asia/Pacific region, working on the development of a network of women journalists active in that region, Africa, the Americas and Europe. Her other publications include ´Faasuto Chimu [The First Team ; in Japanese, 1993]´ and ´Terakoya Gurobarizeshon --The Kumon Way [Terakoya Globalization --The Kumon Way ; in Japanese, 2006]´.) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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