The importance placed on children’s moral development by Japanese educators is explored in research by a De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) academic.
Sam Bamkin, senior lecturer in Education at DMU, was awarded a 2015 Churchill Travelling Fellowship to fund field work in Japan.
This allowed him to study at the National Education Library, undertake placement at three Boards of Education, visit 21 elementary and junior high schools and discuss moral education with over 90 teachers, principals, civil servants and other educationalists in six cities across Japan.
Last month Mr Bamkin was one of 129 Fellows presented with a Winston Churchill Medallion at a biennial award ceremony in Church House, Westminster.
The award ceremony included presentations by Ms Julia Weston, Chief Executive of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, (HYPERLINK) and Mr Jeremy Soames, Chairman of the Trustees.
The medal was presented by guest of honour and world-renowned architectural artist Prof Brian Clarke, who presented the same medallion to Her Majesty the Queen last year on the event of the 50th anniversary of the death of Sir Winston.
The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust expect that Churchill Fellows:
“demonstrate the commitment, the character and the tenacity to travel globally in pursuit of new and better ways of tackling a wide range of challenges facing us today, and upon their return work to transform and improve aspects of today’s society for the benefit of others in the UK”.
Mr Bamkin’s research demonstrates the importance placed on moral development by educators in Japan, working toward values that contribute to civil society, including consideration of others, compassion, persistence, compartment, and fundamental life habits.
Teachers use moral education classtime not primarily as a means of delivering moral education, but as time for reflection which underpins educational practices in these values in many areas of the school curriculum.
Mr Bamkin has produced a detailed report on moral education practice at Japanese elementary school written for UK education practitioners, and is additionally preparing academic papers on the role of teachers in implementing moral education in the context of policy change in Japan.
This ongoing research is revealing how teachers operationalise their broad beliefs within the narrower, or differing, confines of the curriculum; and more widely the relationship between policy and practice in a changing educational landscape in Japan.
Photo credit: C. Totman
Posted on Wednesday 22 June 2016