Abstract

Yoshibee Nomura (1896 －1986), an active representative practitioner of the Taisho Liberal Education Movement in Japan, proposed that schools’ education be divided into two frameworks: reading and life environment studies. The former refers to children to acquiring knowledge at school, whereas the latter refers to children learning by experience and practice. Nomura also referred to these frameworks as: “education for reading a book” and “education for making a book”; or “handing down the culture of adulthood” and “creating the culture of childhood,” respectively. However, both frameworks are equally important and can collectively be referred to as “the subject for life.” Given that “education for making a book” is “a subject without a textbook,” Nomura stated: “it goes without saying that it is more difficult to teach without textbooks than to teach with one.” The Period for Integrated Study in the Japanese elementary and junior high school curriculums can be seen as this kind of “education for making a book.” A book can be created because children learn through hands-on experience and practice. Such a mode of learning is not readily available education, but “expansive learning” that means “learning what is not yet there,” as proposed by Yrjö Engeström. In other words, integrated study belongs to the realm of a curriculum where expansion of learning is required. Currently, it is not taught in the above-mentioned manner in Japan. Therefore, this study examined a gap in integrated study from the perspective of the three dimensions of expansion.

References

Dewey, J. (1900). The school and society/being three lectures by John Dewey. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Engeström, Y. (1987/2015). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research (2nd ed). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Engeström, Y. (2016). Studies in expansive learning: Learning what is not yet there. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gifu Municipal Nagara Elementary School (2018). 2018 Nagara no kōiku [2018 Education in Nagara]. Gifu: Gifu Municipal Nagara Elementary School.

Nomura, Y. (1930). Seikatsuka toshiteno tsuzurikata (2): Shizenkansatsu no gensoku to hōhō [Tsuzurikata for life environment studies (2): Principles and methods of observing nature]. Tsuzurikata Seikatsu [Life with Creative Writing Based on Lived Experiences], 2(11), 10－15.

Nomura, Y. (1973). Watashi no ayunda kyōiku no michi [My approach to true education]. Nagoya: Reimei Shobō.

Nomura, Y. (1978). Kikitori 7 Nomura Yoshibee shi ni kiku “Tsuzurikata Seikatsu” to ayunde [Interview 7: Yoshibee Nomura’s reflection on his career with “Tsuzurikata Seikatsu”]. “Tsuzurikata Seikatsu” fukkokuban zen 15 kan geppō No.7 [“Tsuzurikata Seikatsu” (reprinted version), 15 volumes in total, monthly report No.7]，10－13.

Shinran (1224/2012). Shinran’s Kyōgyōshinshō: The collection of passages expounding the true teaching, living, faith, and realizing of the Pure Land. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (2004). Imagination and creativity in childhood. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 42(1), 7－97.