TIS Director's Blog

I had the privilege of accompanying OIS students on Saturday to their visit to the Sannoh Children’s Center. The mission of the center is to provide after school care for children in one of the poorest wards in the city of Osaka. In the photo above, center president Maeshima Mami leads a reflection discussion with our students and other volunteers. The students had returned from  the yomawari or night patrol. Adult volunteers and children once a month prepare and deliver onigiri, which is Japanese rice wrapped in seaweed, and blankets to the homeless men of the Kamagasaki neighborhood of the Nishinari-ku ward. Kamagasaki is the popular name of the area and its use is discouraged by the government as it is associated with the large homeless population.

The homeless of Nishinari-ku are mostly elderly male blue collar laborers. For the usual reasons, like gambling addiction, alcohol, mental health, etc, they have come upon tough times. Mami-san gave the three groups instructions before leaving the center. I walked with one of the groups led by her, and our students encountered about 10 homeless men, sleeping on the streets of shopping arcades. They were usually against a wall and they spread newspaper on the ground and put up cardboard pieces to shelter them a bit from the elements.  All of them were very gentle and appreciative of the blankets and food. There are also shelters in the area that provide some beds and organize 1-day odd jobs for them with companies or people needing manual labor. There are also low cost hotels if they have some income.

I thought the Sannoh Children’s Center was crazy for having children walking the streets in such a notorious ward at night. It turned out to be quite safe and heartwarming, as the men were so grateful that someone noticed them and wanted to help. Crime rates are extremely low in Japan compared to other industrialized nations and violent crime. I was much safer in Nishinari than in the poor urban areas of my home country of the United States.

When we got back to the center, we all reflected on our experience. We gained an understanding of the plight of the homeless men in Japan. The homeless are not to be feared, but to be cared for. The work of the Sannoh Children’s Center and others in the ward should be supported more by the government and private citizens. I would like to thank our CAS and Community and Service Coordinator, Lyn Melville-Rea, for organizing this program for the school. She has been taking students down there for years and the center and our students have benefited from her efforts.

It is difficult to grow grass in Japan and the courtyard lawn was looking very patchy. A few weeks ago the grade 3 and kindergarten students got together to seed the area. As you can see in the photo below, their efforts paid off. The students not only helped make the school campus look better, but they also learned about plant biology and lawn care.

I would like to thank the teachers and students who made the project a success.

I spent some time in classes this week and wanted to share some of my observations. In the photo above, the grade 9 humanities class is discussing political cartoons from the time of the end of World War I. The students are learning about the Treaty of Versailles and instead of just memorizing dates, names, places, etc., they are applying their knowledge and thinking critically about the issues. Their major assignment for the unit will be to write a letter to the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations, taking the perspective of the defeated Germans, protesting the conditions in the agreement. This is very “IB” to have students put themselves in other’s position. I got the opportunity to help the group above, analyze the political cartoons. Our cartoon showed the hypocrisy of the allies, condemning German’s militarism while demonstrating even more militarism.

In other classes, Mr. Elshout was demanding perfection from the trumpet section and a short piece from the musical Chicago.  Next door, the high school choir was practice Carol of the Bells, a popular Christmas carol, based on Ukrainian folk music. The boys were supplying a low vocal harmony to the girls main melodic piece. A group of MYP students in physical education was practicing a choreographed dance routine. For the dance unit, the students have to demonstrate certain individual elements in artistic unity with their group members. The teenagers love it and dance is a lifelong skill that makes people feel good while they are doing it. Mr. Routh recorded the performance on his iPad and the students critically watched it, adjusting their routine in anticipation of the final performance next class. Another physical education class was doing the 12-minute run test. Two of the grade 10 students I asked, completed over 14 laps of the soccer field, which comes to about 2,700 meters.

I ended my tour in the kindergarten A classroom. Mrs. Dawn Inada, does a spin on the traditional “show and tell” activity and asks the students to bring in an object in a bag and then she gives clues to the students for them to guess what is in the bag. The student with the bag gets to pick students and it is much more interactive than show and tell. The object inside the bag was a pine cone and we were all wondering how you say it in Japanese.

It is always inspiring to spend time with the students and makes all the hard work we do in the offices worth it.

Students use the recording studios often. Last year they were upgraded to handle digital recording. Throughout the years, the elementary students have done broadcasts, administration occasionally does announcements, and much editing for our musicals and films is completed there.

Below is a broadcast from last month. In recent years, the videos are uploaded to Youtube and you can see more of them at this link on the activities web site.

The banner above was from our hosting of an IB PYP workshop this weekend at the school. Over 100 educators from 26 different countries came to SOIS to attend 5 different workshops in English and Japanese.

Last Thursday I attended the fall meeting of the Heads of School of the IB Association of Japan (IBAJ). IBAJ is one the numerous regional associations that has formed in countries throughout the world. This association is especially important here in Japan, because the IB Asia Pacific Regional Office overseas over 600 IB schools in 26 different countries. The association provides the IB schools in Japan, a forum to collaborate and support each other. The association also is a unified voice towards the Asia Pacific Regional Office in dealing with challenges specific to Japan. There are 27 schools in Japan currently offering at least one of the IB’s three programmes (PYP,MYP,DP). We at the Osaka International School of Kwansai Gakuin offer all three and we are one of only three schools in Japan doing so.

Some of the meeting was spent discussing the structure of IBAJ as it is a relatively new organization. We also had video conferences with members of the IB Asia Pacific Regional Team, including the Heads of School Services and Professional Development. They will also be visiting the Kobe/Osaka area on November 22-23 and I hope to get a chance to meet them in person.

We also received an update on the status of Japanese Ministry of Education’s (MEXT)  initiative of attempting to have 200 Article 1 (Japanese national) schools earn IB authorization by the year 2018. This is a move by the Japanese government to train its future workforce to be more globally competitive in this interconnected world. MEXT is working on a collaborative project with the IB to offer IB courses in Japanese. The idea is for students to earn a Dual Language IB Diploma, with 2 courses in English and 4 courses in Japanese. The IB website has this link in both English and Japanese with more information about the initiative. The list of Diploma Programme courses  now offered in Japanese is growing and includes economics, history. biology, physics, and as we learned at the meeting, mathematics is now in Japanese.  s.

As for the 200 IB schools by 2018, progress is slow because of many factors.  There is a lack of IB expertise and the costs are high for either training staff or getting qualified teachers. There are national curriculum demands that might make it difficult for schools to fit the IB requirements in the students already busy schedule. Finally, there are also language and culture barriers to get through to understand what it takes to start an IB curriculum. We spoke with Ayumi Hoshino, the IB Developer for Japan and she highlighted the numerous workshops taking place throughout Japan. I remember she said there were about 12 schools moving that are applying or going to apply for authorization.

We are SOIS are in an ideal situation. The Senri International School received a grant three years ago to explore the IB curriculum and over 70% of their faculty has received some training in IB pedagogy. They are moving towards offering some classes in IB in the near future. The eventual goal would be to have the full, IB Dual Language Diploma available for all SIS students. OIS faculty would serve as mentors and the two faculties could work together to improve their teaching. It would also benefit OIS to have more students in the Diploma Programme and give us the chance to offer more courses, possibly IB Theatre, different foreign languages, and even going towards the IB Career-related Certificate., and be the first school in Japan to offer the fourth IB programme. The expansion of our IB courses would cause the two faculties to work more closely together, living the vision of the two school concept. This also fits in well with KG University and KG Senior High School winning the Super Global Awards from the government. SOIS is a role model for the globalization of education in Japan.

This February 2014 article from the Japan Times gives some more background of the MEXT-IB collaboration. The article featured former Head of OIS, John Searle (excerpt below)

Osaka International School of Kwansei Gakuin is one of 27 schools in Japan currently offering the IB diploma in English. John Searle, the head of school, says the institution has been following the curriculum for many years and that they have a relatively deep understanding of its value in an international context. He says that offering the dual-language diploma within the national framework will “bring the benefit of significant diversity to Japanese education.”

“Our own experience has shown us that an interesting additional value of offering the IB programs has been the stimulus of discussion, ideas and learning created between all involved,” Searle says. “Such discussion is the bedrock of change and has far wider implications beyond just program implementation. On a larger scale, if students, parents, teachers, schools and universities have the conversations required to understand what the IB programs are about, it really could have a huge impact on how people think about education and learning here in Japan.”

Last week I visited many classes as part of the process of getting to know the school. I try to take some time each day to spend some time in classroom. International school teachers, well, all teachers, are language teachers because of the importance of vocabulary in learning. Without words, students cannot critically think and express themselves. Some of the words I noticed being used by students were astrolobe, peninsula, zeitgeist, onomatopoeia, ostinato and Balfour Declaration. These are not everyday conversational vocabulary, but are academic vocabulary. English language learners have even more challenges than native speakers and it can take up to 4-5 years of schooling for non native speakers to master academic English.

Above, Ms. Hancock’s science class is looking at a fake crime scene. The students were so excited it was difficult to hold them behind the lines. Using forensics science activities to get students to evaluate situations is a good idea and one of the best characteristics of an IB education. The students need to apply their knowledge to a new situation.

I had to laugh at the end of mathematics class (below) when the grade 9 students took out their phones to photograph the white board. I wish we had that in high school! Mr. Bertman does an excellent job of differentiating for instruction and had three problems on the board of varying levels of difficulty. All students were challenged by the word problems and no gave up due to it being too difficult. Note that I saw them taking notes the old fashioned way during the class.

It was an impressive performance by the elementary teacher at last week’s Back to School night for the elementary school. I sat in on a couple of presentations and the dedication of the teachers to the students was evident. From the specialists to the classroom teachers, clear descriptions of what is being taught and learned at OIS was presented to the parents. It was a well attended event and I am looking forward to this week’s MS/HS Back to School event.

The grade 12 English students are reading Canadian Robertson Davies’s novel Fifth Business. Mr. David Algey the teacher did an oral exam on an excerpt from the novel, demonstrating a requirement of the IB for the students. He demonstrated the Student Learning Result of Risk Taker, allowing the students to praise and critique his performance. This made the students feel better about the upcoming exam. Mr. Van Plantinga during the MS/HS Assembly did a presentation on the teen brain and invited students to come to the learning lab to take a right brain/left brain quiz.

Finally, the grade 5 students gave a touching version of Tim Wills’s “Don’t Laugh at Me”. The assembly focused on our Student Learning Results and the values of being open-minded and caring. You can watch the video below.

I try to make time for visiting classrooms and talking with teachers and students about what they are doing. As the Head of School, it is easy to sometimes get trapped in the office or in meetings. It is always uplifting to spend some time with the students and it helps me as a leader, understand the daily rhythm of the school. Sometimes I will do a blog post on my observations. The purpose is to keep community members and visitors informed about the teaching and learning and to show off what great teachers and student we have here at SOIS of KG.

It is nice to see the range of activities for the different subject areas and grade levels in a short time. The seniors were discussing the play, “Top Girls” by Caryl Churchill, which is set in late twentieth century London, and features a total female cast of characters. The play examines feminist issues. The grade 10 students were learning how to simplify radicals in mathematics, and the grade 8 students were learning how to use Adobe Photoshop in Design class. The grade 2 students were reading Goldilocks out loud as a group. As you can see in the first photo above, the kindergarten students were getting some exercise and were laughing while dancing the classic, “Hokey Pokey” a participation dance for children, popular in English speaking countries. That is one of best sounds, the infectious laughter of children! In a grade 8 visual arts class (middle photo), Ms. Henbest was explaining color theory to the students. The visual arts is one of the shared programs between the two schools and the building was designed to feature many stunning display places, almost like an art gallery. One of the projects the students did last term was to pick someone, most were famous people, and learn about their life. They then were asked to pick a quote by the person and feature it, and the symbols of the person’s life, into the design of a canopic jar. The ancient Egyptians used these jars to store the viscera of their owner during the mummification process to use in the after life. These jars contained no viscera, but many were quite provocative. The students also sketched their figure.

My second course this summer was School Law & Ethics taught by visiting professor, Mark Klein. Mark is the Superintendent of Council Rock School District, an affluent area near Philadelphia/Princeton area. It was enriching to learn about his experiences as leader of a large, public school community and he was generous in providing school documentation.

The course was thought-provoking and very useful for my daily work as an administrator. We covered a lot of different areas regarding school law. We learned the overall structure of the justice system in the US and practiced reading and analyzing court case documents, including the US Supreme Court. Over 2/3 of all cases brought to trial in school law in the US are dealing with the IDEA, the Individual Disabilities Education Act (Special Needs Students). Every day we took on topics like searches, security cameras, contract law, employees rights, tenure, background checks, religion in schools, student teaching, and the latest big issue, the Internet. It reemphasized the importance of having a good Acceptable Use Policy, Copyrights, and Social Media policies. We also explored how the different areas of professional and personal ethics come together for a individual code of conduct.

This is all very useful and I will definitely be referring to these notes below in the future.