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Gail R. Benjamin reaches beyond predictable images of authoritarian Japanese educators and automaton schoolchildren to show the advantages and disadvantages of a system remarkably different from the American one... --The New York Times Book Review Americans regard the Japanese educational system and the lives of Japanese children with a mixture of awe and indignance. We respect a system that produces higher literacy rates and superior math skills, but we reject the excesses of a system that leaves children with little free time and few outlets for creativity and self-expression. In Japanese Lessons, Gail R. Benjamin recounts her experiences as a American parent with two children in a Japanese elementary school. An anthropologist, Benjamin successfully weds the roles of observer and parent, illuminating the strengths of the Japanese system and suggesting ways in which Americans might learn from it. With an anthropologist's keen eye, Benjamin takes us through a full year in a Japanese public elementary school, bringing us into the classroom with its comforting structure, lively participation, varied teaching styles, and non-authoritarian teachers. We follow the children on class trips and Sports Days and through the rigors of summer vacation homework. We share the experiences of her young son and daughter as they react to Japanese schools, friends, and teachers. Through Benjamin we learn what it means to be a mother in Japan--how minute details, such as the way mothers prepare lunches for children, reflect cultural understandings of family and education. Table of Contents Acknowledgments 1. Getting Started 2. Why Study Japanese Education? 3. Day-to-Day Routines 4. Together at School, Together in Life 5. A Working Vacation and Special Events 6. The Three R's, Japanese Style 7. The Rest of the Day 8. Nagging, Preaching, and Discussions 9. Enlisting Mothers' Efforts 10. Education in Japanese Society 11. Themes and Suggestions 12. Sayonara Appendix. Reading and Writing in Japanese References Index

American students -- Japan. --- Benjamin, Gail. --- Comparative education. --- Education, Elementary -- Japan -- Urawa-shi. --- Elementary schools -- Japan -- Urawa -- Sociological aspects. --- Students, Foreign -- Japan. --- Education, Elementary --- Students, Foreign --- American students --- Elementary schools --- Comparative education --- Education --- Social Sciences --- History of Education --- Sociological aspects --- Sociological aspects. --- Education, Comparative --- Grade schools --- Children --- Elementary education --- Primary education (Great Britain) --- School children --- Education (Elementary) --- Schools --- Middle schools --- Students --- History

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This book considers how adults attempt to socialise young children into the adults it aspires to produce, from a number of diverse perspectives. The evolution of storytelling and its impact upon child development is initially explored, followed by the consideration of how social class, ethnicity, culture, and colonialism impact upon the ways that societies ‘school’ children about what to expect from adulthood. Different perspectives of early years education and growing up within a British/British colonial perspective are discussed and analysed. There is a focus throughout upon the way that children are constructed by the society in question, particularly those who are considered to be of lower status in terms of being poor, orphaned, or from ethnic groups against which the dominant culture discriminates. Topics covered by the chapters include topics covered by this Special Issue: current and historical constructions of childhood; the development of linguistic and ‘storying’ skills in childhood; childhood play and recreation; childhood and ‘folk’ narratives; philosophies of childhood; childhood and industrialisation; childhood and post-industrialisation; childhood education; childhood health; and cultures of childcare.

play --- institutionalisation --- social reproduction --- media --- human evolution --- children --- purposes of nursery schooling --- early-years education history --- school readiness --- poverty --- early childhood education --- abandonment --- colonialism --- racism --- schooling for parental responsibility --- childhood --- early-years education --- apartheid --- foundling hospital --- Africa --- narrative --- under-fives in elementary schools --- urban Lancashire demographic sample 1901 --- storying --- mythology --- open-air nursery --- maternal duties --- Susan Isaacs