Diverse talents should be nurtured. Life is like a decathlon.
Life is not a profession.
It is better to be able to do a full range of things.
Compulsory education in Japan aims to nurture 13 major categories, because life requires comprehensive skills.
- Language・・・Ability to read and write
- Social・・・Social situation, understanding your country and town
- Arithmetic・・・Four arithmetic operations, income and expenditure calculation
- Science:・・・Laws of nature, science
- Life・・・・Skills necessary for daily life
- Music・・・ Emotional enrichment through music
- Arts and Crafts・・・Fostering creativity through modeling
- Home・・・ Knowledge of food, clothing, and shelter
- Sports・・・Maintenance and promotion of good health
- Morality・・・Moral feelings, judgment, and practice
- Foreign Languages:・・・Foreign languages and cultures, communication skills
- Integrated Studies・・・Independent study, spirit of inquiry, presentation
- Special study・・・Club activities, group activities, field trips, group lodging
These are the guidelines for elementary school students to acquire the “zest for life” as defined by the JAPANESE MECSST.
(MECSST is Ministry of Education,Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.)
The content and balance are excellent and perfect.
However, somewhere along the way, the gears went haywire and comprehensive education to acquire the “zest for life” was replaced before long by biased education to get into famous schools.
In fact, subjects such as music, arts and crafts, home economics, and physical education have been removed from some educational institutions.
This is a serious problem, as the situation is far from the ideals set forth by the MECSST.
Why have the MECSST’s excellent teaching guidelines been changed in this way?
This is probably due to the fact that “comprehensive education,” which was originally designed to develop the “ability to live,” has shifted to an emphasis on “higher education,” which is designed to develop the “ability to pass entrance examinations” so that students can get by as long as they can get into a company.
This may have been fine during the period of high economic growth when companies were healthy.
Today, the average life span of a company is shorter, and Japan’s unique system of lifetime employment is reaching its limits.
In other words, the era of “just join a company and you’ll get by” is over.
Despite this, the field of education has been slow to respond.
We must update our education system to “Ikiryoku 2.0 Education,” and there is not a moment to lose. Moreover, we cannot rely on the government, schools, cram schools, etc. for this, so we must find and implement it ourselves.
The truth is that parents are responsible for this, but crucially, even they, and their parents, have only known education that emphasizes higher education, and as a result, they have become parents who cannot teach the power of life.
Even hawks and penguins teach their children the power of survival.
What we have been doing for more than half a century, brainwashed by compulsory education, without even thinking about what it is,
is to say,
“Go to school properly.”
“Do your homework.”
“Go to cram school.”
“If you don’t go to college, you’ll have a hard time.”
the reality is that the only thing they did was to participate in education with their mouths and their money.
Indeed, no one could have imagined that the ways of life and work would become so diverse.
So, from now on, it is an impossible game to try to educate a large number of people at once in a large organization.
The change was too rapid. In that sense, it could be said that we had no choice.
However, we cannot start by shifting the responsibility to someone else.
From now on, We think it is important for everyone to see life as a place to nurture diverse talents and to recognize the importance of continuing to learn not only through school education but also throughout life.
In a sense, we are now in an era of true “study until our die.”
