Sayonara, Rev. Paperboy. Make maximum use of improved textbooks : Editorial : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri).

Still, the problem remains finding ways for teachers to make really good use of the beefed up textbooks.

After all, if they try to teach everything, the amount of material may overwhelm the children’s capacity to absorb it all, consequently returning to the much-criticized “cramming” style of education.

Yet teachers are expected to have the competence to proceed with lessons after sorting out what part of the textbooks are to be taught, while accurately gauging the level of their students’ comprehension.

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Official support key

Next month, the education ministry will move into full gear its discussion on drastic revisions of teachers’ education, recruitment and training programs. Reexamining the current programs, we would like the ministry to thoroughly study what changes should be made.

Also, it is important for the ministry and boards of education to set a proper environment for using the textbooks. When the new curriculum guidelines are fully enforced, class hours will increase and lessons will be more tightly scheduled than at present.

Regular primary schools will stick to a five-day week in principle. In exceptional cases, the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education will approve Saturday classes if the classes are open for observation by parents and nearby residents, among other conditions.

All in all, we hope the government’s education administration will adopt policy measures to support schools so that they can smoothly carry out classes with the improved textbooks.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun,March 31, 2010)

(Mar. 31, 2010)