In Before It's Too Late: A Report to the Nation from the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century (2000) in the US, the authors quote from James Stigler's conclusions from various videotape research studies of mathematics teaching: “The key to long-term improvement [in teaching] is to figure out how to generate, accumulate, and share professional knowledge”. Japanese Lesson Study has proved to be one successful means.This book supports the growing movement of lesson study to improve the quality of mathematics education from the original viewpoints of Japanese educators who have been engaging in lesson study in mathematics for professional development and curriculum implementation. This book also illustrates several projects related to lesson study in other countries.

This comprehensive study of the Japanese education system follows the Japanese child from the kindergarten, through the progressively more arduous and competitive environments of the elementary, middle and high schools, to the relative relaxation, even hedonism, of university life. Drawing on numerous surveys and on the author's personal experience, it provides a wealth of information on teaching methodologies, discipline, class sizes, the school day, assessment and the national curriculum. It also examines the role of the central Ministry of Education and the local boards in administering education throughout the country, and outlines and assesses the government's recent programs of educational reform. The behavior, attitudes and expectations of pupils and parents are discussed in detail, and placed within their political, social and historical context, revealing the complex cultural assumptions determining learning and socialization in Japan. This study thus contributes to the efforts of educators and sociologists to understand and evaluate different approaches to education in diverse cultures, increasingly important in the global information age. It shows how the American and Japanese education systems are based on fundamentally different concepts of society: democratic individualism and hierarchic collectivism respectively. While discussing the positive and negative effects of each extreme, it suggests that American educators might learn from a system in which truancy, insolence, violence and drug abuse are comparatively rare. However, the study shows how the traditional ideals of Japanese education - unquestioning acceptance, self-sacrifice, and respect for superiors - face serious challenges in a time of globalization, and moral, social and cultural change.

This open access edited volume is a comparative effort to discern the short-term educational impact of the covid-19 pandemic on students, teachers and systems in Brazil, Chile, Finland, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. One of the first academic comparative studies of the educational impact of the pandemic, the book explains how the interruption of in person instruction and the variable efficacy of alternative forms of education caused learning loss and disengagement with learning, especially for disadvantaged students. Other direct and indirect impacts of the pandemic diminished the ability of families to support children and youth in their education. For students, as well as for teachers and school staff, these included the economic shocks experienced by families, in some cases leading to food insecurity and in many more causing stress and anxiety and impacting mental health. Opportunity to learn was also diminished by the shocks and trauma experienced by those with a close relative infected by the virus, and by the constrains on learning resulting from students having to learn at home, where the demands of schoolwork had to be negotiated with other family necessities, often sharing limited space. Furthermore, the prolonged stress caused by the uncertainty over the resolution of the pandemic and resulting from the knowledge that anyone could be infected and potentially lose their lives, created a traumatic context for many that undermined the necessary focus and dedication to schoolwork. These individual effects were reinforced by community effects, particularly for students and teachers living in communities where the multifaceted negative impacts resulting from the pandemic were pervasive. This is an open access book.

Globalization and information technology have caused many health problems: mental health issues like depression, and lifestyle-related disease like diabetes and obesity. To cope with these health issues, health promotion and education are desperately needed. Convincing policy decision makers to invest in health promotion and education programs, it is needed to show its effectiveness. Health promotion and education professionals are expected to construct evidence of health promotion and education. Most of such evidence has been produced in the US and European countries. Because socio-economic conditions differ between the Asia and Western countries, we cannot depend on such evidence to implement adequate health promotion and education in our region. We must produce and accumulate our own evidence based on Asian perspectives.

The realisation that most mental disorders have their onset before the age of twenty-five has focused psychiatric research towards adolescent mental health. This book provides vivid examples of school mental health innovations from eighteen countries, addressing mental health promotion and interventions. These initiatives and innovations enable readers from different regions and disciplines to apply strategies to help students achieve and maintain mental health, enhance their learning outcomes and access services, worldwide. Through case studies of existing programs, such as the integrated system of care approach in the USA, the school-based pathway to care framework in Canada, the therapeutic school consultation approach in Turkey and the REACH model in Singapore, it highlights challenges and solutions to building initiatives, even when resources are scarce. This will be essential reading for educators, health providers, policy makers, researchers and other stakeholders engaged in helping students achieve mental health and enhance their learning outcomes.

Explores the implications of a national US curriculum through the study of Japanese education. It suggests that the US educational system lacks certain organizational mechanisms that support student achievement and would facilitate teacher involvement in the educational reform process.