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| Feb.9, 2007 |
| At the CRN International Symposium: Child Science as a Place of Hope!
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| Nobuyuki Ueda, Ed.D., Professor, Doshisha Women's College of Liberal Arts |
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On Saturday, February 3, I attended an international symposium on the subject of Children in Societies in East Asia with a Declining Birthrate from the perspective of Child Science which was held at the U Thant Conference Hall of the United Nations University in Tokyo.
This conference was held to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the founding of Child Research Net (CRN). Researchers from China, South Korea, and Japan took part in enthusiastic discussions on how the environment of development and the future of children are affected by the declining birthrate.
The morning started off with a Special Lecture by Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel Laureate in Literature, on "Children: A Model of the Human Future" in which he eloquently described how in the process of writing the fantasy, "The Two Hundred Years Old Child" (Chuko Bunko), he began to think of the future of human beings. He also movingly touched upon his relationships with Jacques Yves Cousteau, Edward Said, Kazuko Tsurumi, Noam Chomsky and other major figures of our time. Thinking about the future of children means thinking about the future of human beings, and we adults must take seriously our responsibility toward future generations. These were the messages in his lecture that made a strong and unforgettable impression on me.
The Special Lecture was followed by the Keynote Address delivered by Dr. Wei Yu, Ph.D., Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering on Research on Cognitive Development in Children: Brain Science and Education in China. She advocated "learning by doing" as a way of adapting education for the twenty-first century and stressed the importance of hands-on inquiry based learning and teaching, a fact which studies in brain science have also recently corroborated. The second half of the symposium day was devoted to a panel discussion with Dr. Nianli Zhou, Associate Professor, East China Normal University, China; Dr. Jung Han Park, Professor, Catholic University of Daegu School of Medicine, Korea; Dr. Keun Lee, Professor of Department of Pediatrics, Medical College, Ewha Womans University Hospital, Korea; and Dr. Masafumi Harada, Professor, Osaka University of Human Sciences, Japan; and Dr. Yoichi Sakakihara, Professor of Ochanomizu University, Research Center for Child and Adolescent, Development and Education, Japan.
The panel discussion focused on the topic of the declining birthrate as a social phenomenon and its repercussions on the developmental environment of children based on research in Japan, China, and South Korea. It included reports on the effect of the One-Child Policy in China on the development of children in China and changing values in South Korea amid a record low birthrate of 1.08 in 2005. Dr. Harada reported on changes in Japan's child-rearing environment by comparing the most recent Hyogo Report with the Osaka Report released twenty years ago.
In his closing statements, Dr. Noboru Kobayashi, Director, CRN, reiterated the mission of Child Research Net as cyber research institute that was founded with the support of Benesse Corporation ten years ago for the research and development of Child Science. Recalling the words of Ellen Key whose appeal to make the twentieth century "The Century of the Child" was unfortunately not realized, Dr. Kobayashi called on us to ensure the realization of this goal in the twenty-first century.
For me, this symposium made me think again about how to actively put into practice the three main approaches of Dr. Kobayashi's Child Science:
1) How do we think about children in light of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Perspectives on Children)
2) How do we study and resolve children's issues? (Children's Issues)
3) How should we design things and activities from the child's point of view? (Child-Caring Design)
Thank you, CRN, for this opportunity! Child Science really is a place of hope!
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Child
Research Net is supported by Benesse Co., Ltd. |
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