Relación estabilidad dentaria y tratamiento

Previous research in teacher socialisation has indicated that the culture

of teaching deeply reflects its contexts (Lortie, 1975). This section explores the teaching culture in Japan at the junior-high-school level, paying particular

attention to two areas deeply ingrained in its culture: holistic teaching and teaching as craft. This section also argues that goals in teacher development

in Japan have been set and defined only vaguely, which has caused confusion among teachers and student teachers.

As previously mentioned in this chapter, in spite of the economic imperative to raise students’ English language abilities in order to stay

competitive in a global market, the primary educational goal for students to achieve in primary and secondary education in Japan is to foster “zest for living” (MEXT, 2003a) (see section 1.3 in this chapter). Or, to go into a little

more depth, in order to live in a rapidly changing society, students in Japan

are expected to enhance the following three qualities in a balanced way19_:

solid academic abilities (to acquire basic knowledge and skills, to utilize them

19 _{This is based on the website of MEXT titled “Fundamental philosophy of new Course}

of Study” at http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/new-cs/idea/index.htm, retrieved on 9th November, 2012.

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and think, judge and express, to deal with and solve various problems); well-rounded character (self-discipline, collaboration with others,

consideration for others); and health and physical strength. The second quality particularly belongs to personal and social education, as Robson,

Cohen & McGuiness (1999) argue. Thus, it is clear that a high emphasis is placed on social, personal and affective domains of education, not only the

cognitive domain, in the culture of teaching in Japan. The dilemma between the emphasis on personal and social aspects of education, along with the

need to raise the level of English language abilities due to economic imperatives, results in the two characteristics of the culture of teaching in

Japan: holistic teaching and teaching as craft.

1.3.4.1 Emphasis on holistic teaching

In response to the educational goals above, particularly that of fostering a well-rounded character, one of the major characteristics of teaching in Japan

is its holistic nature. This is more salient especially at the primary-education and lower-secondary-education levels in Japan (Shimahara, 2002;

Shimahara & Sakai, 1992). Unlike in the case of primary-school teachers, junior high school teachers specialise in academic subjects, such as English

as in this study; however, they are responsible for holistic teaching at the same time, and in fact, it is often more dominant in teachers’ lives in Japan.

As we shall see in later in Chapter 2 (section 2.2.2), among the seven categories of the knowledge base for teaching classified by Shulman (1987),

the knowledge base that enables holistic teaching can be referred to as “general pedagogical knowledge”, which means “principles and strategies of

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classroom management” (p.8). More specifically, as Shimahara (2002) and Ito

(2011) argue (see footnote 18 as well), holistic teaching in Japan includes

giving educational guidance such as placing students in high schools20 _as

well as offering seito shido (literally translated as “student guidance”) to

students. So-called student guidance in the context of Japan can be defined as educational activities in and beyond the curriculum (Inagaki & Inuzuka,

2000). It concerns every aspect of student life in school, ranging from counselling students on behavioural and emotional problems, which belongs

to a domain of specialised counsellors in the US (Shimahara, 2002), to supervision of extracurricular club activities, student government, school

cleaning, school lunch, or homeroom activities. It also includes planning for relevant activities out of school, such as school picnics and trips, sports

festivals, chorus contests, or patrolling after school and on weekends. In this manner, junior-high-school teachers in Japan are expected to be involved in

all aspects of student life and development, which is believed to, in turn, enhance their classroom management skills. As a supervising teacher of a student teacher in Shimahara’s study suggests, “classroom management is

key to teaching effectively. Its purpose is to develop shudan [a group] and an environment where children can express their problems openly,” (2002, p.

118). This resonates with the beliefs of the supervising teachers of some participants’ in this study, which will be elaborated in Chapter 4 (sections 4.4.1

and 4.4.2). Furthermore, all the efforts to become a holistic teacher are

20

According to Shimahara (2002), placing students in high schools would involve consultation with students and parents, performance assessment based on school records and tests, selection of high schools, preparation and filing of applications, among others.

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geared toward achieving the objective set by MEXT (1981)21 _{that claims that}

each individual student’s personality should be respected and developed

while becoming empowered in order to foster “a zest for living”, already mentioned earlier in this section.

Although holistic teaching is a significant quality for student teachers in any teaching context to acquire in the process of learning to teach, there is

obscurity as well. The process of how student teachers can acquire this quality is not clearly explained in the literature and placing more emphasis on

holistic teaching may overshadow the process of becoming a good subject teacher. In fact, two of the supervising teachers of the participants’ of this

study put holistic teaching before cognitive domain teaching, which largely affected how they interacted with the student teachers. This point will be

further elaborated later in Chapter 4 (section 4.4).

1.3.4.2 Teaching as craft

In the teaching culture in Japan, another salient characteristic is the view of teaching as craft. As will be discussed in Chapter 2, in response to the

criticism against the view of a good teacher as a rational-autonomous professional (Elliott, 1993), a new perspective emerged. The newer view

based on behaviourist principles assumes that a good teacher is a competent practitioner (Furlong et al., 2000), equipped with observable competences

and skills, and teaching is considered as craft knowledge that can be learned and transmitted from one teacher to another.

21

MEXT. (1981). Seikatsu shido no tebiki (kaitei ban) [A handbook for student guidance (revised edition)].

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The competency-based view of a good teacher has been also criticised, however, mainly for two reasons: the implicit and mere acquisition of a set of

behaviours will not necessarily lead to creative teacher development (Moore, 2000; Pring, 1995), nor will mere behaviour emulation enable novice teachers

to cope with new situations and future contexts later in their careers (Furlong et al., 2000). In other words, implicit and mere acquisition of craft may not

contribute much to teacher creativity and autonomy.

Despite the criticism toward the view of teaching as craft, the view has

been traditionally more positively accepted in the culture of teaching in Japan. As Shimahara (2002) points out, teachers in Japan are likely to believe that

classroom teaching is a craft that teachers learn through experiences. Shimahara (2002) further argues that in-service teachers in Japan do not

consider craft knowledge in teaching equal to mere habitual practice. Rather, through reflective practice that should be discussed later on (see section 2.2.5

in Chapter 2), craft knowledge is not only learned and transmitted as it is, but reformulated so as to add new meanings to their practice.

As will be discussed in Chapter 2 (section 2.3.6), the view of teaching as craft is often observed not only in the process of teacher socialisation but also

in various other forms of training in Japan. For instance, in thetraditional art of noh22_{, one learns by observing the way one’s superiors perform; training is} considered as a recursive process based on practical experiences. It is

thought getting the outward form correct can eventually lead to deeper cognitive understanding, which Hare describes as a “transcendent freedom”

(1996). This implies that once one masters a set of forms, then one could be

22 _{Noh is a form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the}

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creative and add his or her own meanings to the forms. Lewis (1992) also agrees with this point by saying that learning by repeated practice as well as

by mastery of set forms are major features of education in many traditional Japanese arts and trades23_.

Shimahara’s argument that teachers in Japan observe, transmit and

regenerate craft knowledge is similar to what many other scholars and

practitioners in education in Japan have advocated (San, 1999; K. Sato & Kleinsasser, 2004); Sato and Kleinsasser (2004) affirm that in-service high

school English teachers in Japan typically learn craft knowledge through observing peer teachers’ craft. Teachers observe and emulate techniques of a

good model and regenerate forms so as to apply to their own teaching in a particular teaching context.

As discussed so far, an idea that recursive practice and mastery of craft will eventually add a new perspective to teaching should be considered as

one salient characteristic of the culture of teaching in Japan (see section 2.3.6 in Chapter 2 for further discussion). However, how a new perspective is

added has not been fully examined in the previous literature. This point will be further elaborated in section 5.3 in Chapter 5 by referring to the more specific

data of the participants of this study.