CRN Panel Discussion
Bringing Family and School Together:
How Do Children Learn Social Aptitude and Rules?

The Link between School, Family, and Community -- The breakdown of order in the classroom or the phenomenon of so-called "classroom collapse" and other incidents would seem to indicate that children have lost a certain social aptitude. Up to now, it has been said that schools are responsible for the socialization of children, but the family and community are now expected to play a larger role in and bear more responsibility for this training. The report issued by The Second Report by the Central Council for Education under the aegis of the Ministry of Education also reiterates a recommendation that the family that should be responsible for discipline because schools are limited in what they can achieve on their own. Needless to say, the school, family, and community each play a role in socializing children and teaching them the rules that govern social behavior, but which environment should be given priority and what form should cooperation among the three take? We asked three leading authorities in this field for their views.

Fujita: First of all, I think the importance of the role played by the family, community and school shifts depending on the child's stage of development. Before entering school, the family is by far the most important, but after reaching school age, school and friends assume greater weight. Second, speaking of broad societal changes, we can say that role of the community has declined dramatically in the past thirty years or so. Third, I don't think we can ignore the influence of the information- and consumption-oriented society that cannot be grasped in terms of a community framework.

In particular, when it comes to school, it is the place where, after nursery school, children experience collective life, and this naturally includes rules that govern collective behavior. These rules do not have a negative connotation; they are the ways of behaving that people have to learn in order to conduct themselves in daily life, and school is an important place where these rules first become ingrained at a bodily level. In this sense, school is an extremely important environment.

Makino: The first developmental stage of human life is important because of the remarkable growth that takes place at that time, and for the most part, it is spent at home, so in this sense, the home plays an extremely important role. However, when people hear the word "home," they equate it with only the mother. Saying that the home plays a major role in the child's development is not really the same as saying that the mother plays a major role, but in actuality, it is the mother alone who plays too large of a role. I think this is a major problem.

Watanabe: I think it is the framework of "school, family, and community" that we have to reexamine. The family and community today are not what they once were, and if this is the case, it means that schools have to change, too. Speaking in very general terms, pre-modern societies were a mixture of what is called gemeinshaft and gesellschaft in sociology, and in modern times, it has been thought that children are first grounded in the sense of cooperation and community that exists within gemeinschaft before plunging into gesellschaft. This is undergoing another change at this time, and the issue is how we can reconcile the ideas of both gemeinschaft and gesellschaft within the framework of school, family, and community.

Re-examining the Framework of School, Family, and Community

Makino: As a matter of fact, I am now reading Stephanie Coontz's book, "The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap," in translation with my students at university. According to Coontz, the idea that the family should actually play a fundamental role and that good children are raised within a family are themselves myths. It is alarming that so much of one's education takes place at home and that the home has become a private and exclusionary place and she defines this is as the problem.

Since the Japanese family has also become an extremely small unit, it is very impoverished in terms of human relationships and this makes it a difficult place in which to acquire a basic social aptitude. In other words, the problem is that children grow up in this sort of closed and confined environment. So if, without fully realizing this, we continue to insist that children be trained so they will acquire this social aptitude and that they be educated with more discipline, it will just have the opposite effect. Unless we open up the family, expand its relationship with the community, and extend it to include places like day care centers and nursery schools that are preliminary stages to school, I think it will be very difficult for children to acquire social aptitude during the early years of development.

Watanabe: There is a novel called "Poppoya." I think the book was intended to address the disappearance of the fathers from the community. While the protagonist did not act like the father in his own home, he fulfills a father role in the community and society, and the development of the village children who come to the city is portrayed in a charming manner. He is a memorable figure for the children, too. In other words, the book is written so that children take with them very definite memories of the community they experienced in the previously mentioned gemeinschaft when they enter gesellschaft. So, while the boy named Kopel in the "How are You Going to Live? (Kimi tachi ha do ikiruka?)" is raised in a family without a father, communication with his uncle constitutes a sort of "diagonal relationship." He has more than just a vertical parent-child relationship.

Fujita: There is no denying that we have lost something like the neighborhood dad. Works like the musical Westside Story and the Higuchi Ichiyo's "Take Kurabe" show children learning various things through the different human relationships and structural contradictions that are the fabric of the local community. It is generally acknowledged that this sort of local community had virtually ceased to exist by the 1970s.

Watanabe: When that happens, it's not possible to revive what has been lost exactly as it was. So, when reexamining the framework of "school, family, and community," it is unreasonable to assume the conventional notions of "school, family, and community." I think we will have to remake the basic framework which means thinking about how to separate and compose its original functions in a deliberate manner.

Fujita: In other words, how do we remove the barriers built up around the family and reconstruct it as an open space? What we can say is that recomposing what has been lost will require a deliberate effort. In the past, children naturally picked up everyday habits and conduct such as greeting others and how to behave toward neighbors, but nowadays they don't learn this unless they are explicitly told to behave in a proper way. This tendency is increasing not only in kindergartens and preschools, but also in school so we need to focus on it as a problem. In addition, since school is a place where children acquire the habit of intellectual thinking, it is important to address the previously mentioned issue of "lost relationships" as an important one in various areas within the school. Third, the word "uncle" expresses an emotional commitment or a kind of emotional relationship that has weakened so the issue is to what extent can we provide a place that will create this experience.

Makino: It has been stated that children will probably learn rules if they make a deliberate effort, but ever since the period of high economic growth, mothers have hoped that if they raise children the right way, their children will turn out perfect, and they have tried to teach them the rules of social behavior. But, these rules in their true sense are learned by considering the other person's position, the relationship with the other person, and the particular situation and then exercising independent judgment. It is is difficult to learn this just through the mother-child relationship in daily life. For example, a basic rule in life is taking turns. Just a generation ago, children naturally knew how to wait their turn in relationships. For example, they knew the order in which the family members took baths or were served meals. But, nowadays, parents tell children to wait for totally arbitrary reasons. Since children are subject to the whims of their parents, they just have to live in accordance with their parents' inclinations. Or, for instance, even when the kindergarten teacher says "Good morning. How are you today?" to a child, the mother answers "Fine." In other words, children are under parents' control so children cannot follow rules even in kindergarten. When told that this situation is a problem, the mothers will start controlling their children even more. So, I think we have to objectively recognize that it is really difficult unless there are a number of people in the child's environment.

Fujita: I agree with what Professor Makino has said, but if that is so, then with the decline in the number of children and only one or two children per family, there is no way out of the situation. I myself don't think we should make such emphatic pronouncements. Certainly, rules and norms are learned in relationships with people, but on the other hand, there are also many obvious lessons that are incorporated in everyday life. Unless we place more importance on this, how will we be able to give children a consistent experience? We shouldn't have parents ordering their children to do this or that in an arbitrary way, but it is necessary to try to incorporate courtesy and habitual behavior in daily life.

Makino: It is important to make rules, but before that, I don't see a problem with thinking that there is no way out of a situation. Nowadays, when it comes to making a daily routine or rules, there is very little work to be done in the home and parents have become lax about rules and time. I used to live in a fairly big house in the country and there were many things that had to be done like taking out and putting away the bedding and closing the rain doors. But, now that I have moved to an apartment in Yokohama, I don't have rain doors and it's not necessary to sweep the street in front of my home. So, a confined space made up of just the mother and child in which they don't have to do anything to live is an environment that gives children no way out and I think it is important to realize this.

Fujita: Yes, in the sense that it is better to give up and admit there is no way out than to blame the family for everything every time something happens and for mothers to feel they have to raise perfect children.

Watanabe: I am basically pessimistic. It takes time to construct what has already been lost and things never go back to the way they were. But, we have to start somewhere and what we say we have lost may actually be what we think we have lost from our contemporary perspective.

The Necessity of a Mediating Agent in Relationships

-- Professor Fujita pointed out the emotional relationships are becoming weaker, but is it also becoming difficult to form these sorts of relationships in the family, too?

Makino: From the 1990s, children have been surrounded with material goods from a small age and raised in an environment with videos and television that do not allow input or feedback, or either their early education has taught them how to recognize numbers, but I feel that the emotional relationships that form the basis of relationships in the family are being endangered. If parents set strict rules and control everything without this basis, various problems are likely to arise in the child's development.

Fujita: Truly emotional relationships like the ones in which you can call an adult "auntie" or "uncle" develop naturally; you can't somehow isolate the emotional content and create the human relationship even if you try. This is why you need some sort of mediating agent. When it comes to human relationships or anything, today's society is based on the idea of unconcealed individualities colliding with one another and in the process, having to make the appropriate relationships. In fact, there are many different personal relationships, and when we are told to make them every more personal, we end up having nowhere to turn. So, for this reason, we really need to come up with something that that will mediate these relationships for us and also open them up to other activities.

--What is this so-called mediating agent?

Fujita: When the Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake occurred, the media showed professional counselors asking victims if they were all right. I thought they really had it wrong. What I mean is: can professionals who are brought in to provide emotional support really do so by asking the victims direct questions? I think it was really the volunteers and the doctors who treated injuries who gave the victims far more emotional support. In the case of doctors, treating people includes an element of emotional support, and in the case of teachers, he or she doesn't just teach, but provides emotional support as part of the various activities included in teaching. Even in the home, creating emotional ties does not mean doing something special, but includes having meals, being thoughtful, getting angry, etc., so I think every day activities can all function as mediating agents.

Watanabe: Children should be brought up within an environment in which the emotions created in a number of social relationships and systems overlap with one another in various forms. I think it is important for them to validate and learn the many different rules within a setting of complicated human relationships. In connection with this, I don't think there are mechanisms within our present-day society, family, or children that call into question our own conduct at a meta level, that is, that question the social structure. In other words, a mechanism that asks what is the meaning of parents doing something just for the sake of their own children. If the child has a "diagonal relationship" with an adult, like an uncle, for instance, it is possible for the child to find meaning in the relationship between himself or herself and the mother and put into a context. I think it is crucial to provide these third-person or meta-level perspectives for children.

Makino: As an environment in which to raise children, the structure of the family itself has become deficient, but people and space can also be mediating agents that open it up. For instance, Kichijoji in Tokyo renovates old nursery schools and makes them into centers where parents and children from the local community can get together. They can play however they want, they clean up the place themselves, and children of different ages look after one another. There are also professionals who are available to give advice to mothers. It is going to be necessary to build new types of networks like this in which human relationships are not fixed and rigid, and to provide professionals who can support and coordinate such networks. The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Education are planning to make day care centers and nursery schools into local "child-raising centers." It would be better to make these centers available as early as possible from the time children are small. So, it won't be the case that there is no way or nowhere to turn, but in the course of their activities outside the home, families will be able to get help.

Reconstructing the Role of the School

Fujita: It is a problem that child-raising falls mainly on mothers, but on the other hand, I have also got the impression that mothers and fathers have to try harder. For example, among parents in the United States who have chosen home schooling for their children for over the last ten years, a big issue is how children can acquire social aptitude and social relationships. All these parents make an effort to compensate by taking their children to various activities and giving them a number of different experiences, so unless parents are able to do that, it doesn't work. Since the beginning of modern society, schools have functioned as a space where this took place. I think that we have to give schools a close reevaluation that covers this as well.

Another thing is that this example of home schooling demonstrates is that voluntary spaces are apt to be "too sanitized." I think this is probably because even if these spaces provide children with different experiences, they are posited as spaces without contradiction, discord, or difficulty. I think that socialization, rules, and human relationships have meaning precisely because they go hand in hand with contradiction, discord, and difficulty. We certainly can't have the type of discord and difficulty that can't be resolved, but for the majority of children, school is the only place in present-day or future society where they will be able to have these experiences including experiencing the kind of discord that can be worked out. So, relationships that take place in an open space are also important, but we have to think about the experiences that can be fostered in a place like the school, too.

Makino: I understand what you mean about the necessity of having a place where there's discord and difficulty, but I think that refusal to attend school and bullying arise precisely because school has become such a very difficult place to be. So, I think that it would be good if school could become a little more fun and exciting and a place where children could learn about human relationships. It is important that the new educational reforms should not be carried out in a way that will introduce knowledge, but move in a direction that will allow children to learn by themselves.

Watanabe: A hollowing-out phenomenon is taking place in schools. As this is happening, people are starting to talk about the "ikiru chikara" or the ability to grow and adapt, and something called "integrated studies" has been offered for this. The curriculum is being streamlined and left to the discretion of each school, but the capacity of each school as an organization is weakening. The Ministry of Education is telling them to feel free to do as they please and schools are saying they will draw upon the educational resources of the community, get parents and the PTA more involved, and conduct integrated studies, but in reality, this situation has some serious problems.

Makino: There is the argument that bring "yutori" or flexibility into the schools will result in lower academic achievement. Professor Fujita, what are your views on this?

Fujita: I think that academic achievement will decline and I don't think we should think that this is acceptable. For instance, I believe that it is a mistake in itself to see time spent on studying as something that is uninteresting. If school is uninteresting, that is because children do not understand or feel they are making progress, and schools should make efforts to ensure they will understand and make progress. Moreover, according to a survey by Youth Affairs Administration, Management and Coordination Agency, 50% of young people in 1980 didn't think it was necessary to do what they were told by their teachers or parents, and in a survey by Japan Youth Research Institute in 1989, this percentage was 80%. I think that it is wrong in itself for them to be under the impression that they don't have to listen or that they should be allowed more freedom. Certainly, it is important to make school an open and less controlled space, but at the same time, this is not possible unless both students and parents take an autonomous and positive approach.

-- The phenomena of classroom collapse is said to more than just a problem of deviant behavior in which children stop following the rules and observing sanctioned social behavior, but one which threatens to erode the very foundations of the public life. What are your views on this?

Fujita: About the problem of whether public life is being eroded in a fundamental sense, I do have the impression that something is changing. I think that since the 1980s, in our information- and consumption-oriented society that overflows with rich stimuli, disparities have become problematic everywhere to some extent, regardless of the country. People are becoming more easygoing about the daily life experiences themselves that we learn at a bodily level and I think that children are being deprived of opportunities to understand the problematic nature of this for themselves. On the other hand, there is also a trend that could be characterized as supreme individualism. Everything you hear is about "individuality" or "enhancing yourself" or "how to cultivate yourself" and the tendency to shift the varied workings of society onto very personal relations or affairs is becoming powerful. Society is replete with stimuli and something is changing at the level of the body, while at the same time, the tendency toward individualism in strengthening. This may be creating some sort of difference.

Makino: Basically, it is really not possible any more for forty to fifty students to sit in one classroom and listen quietly to one teacher as it was in the past. I certainly understand that teachers have a hard time, but I see it as a problem that asks us what classes should be, in other words, a problem that questions the style of education. In its real meaning, the ability to learn refers to the ability to solve problems such as how to get along with others, who to seek information from, and how to go about attaining a goal. Over the past ten years, our society has become more information-oriented and we can now have instant contact with people all over the world. In this sort of environment, children have to make decisions and learn on their own depending on the particular situation. So, I don't think that children will find school interesting if they are expected to acquire the ability to learn that is really the ability to memorize as they have been up to now. For this reason, the so-called classroom collapse is also just another myth and I don't think it is a matter of the classroom undergoing a breakdown of order, but rather a new style of learning beginning to emerge.

Watanabe: Is it conceivable that as this new style of learning emerges, a new sense of public life will also emerge?

Makino: Yes. I think that social aptitude and skills are included in this. The school and classroom are the type of setup and place that will make children want to learn. But, having everybody sit at desks and face the same direction is not the way to instill the motivation to learn. Some schools are now trying to reduce the number of students in a class and make the classroom a freer space for study. I don't know if that is efficient, but it will be a question of how well the teacher can give them a reason to learn.

Fujita: I have a slightly different view of that. Open-space schools are by no means the prevalent style in Europe and United States. As a matter of fact, classrooms in Europe and the United States are not full because the number of school-age children has declined so there is empty space at the back of the classrooms. This area is partitioned off and camp-like facilities are set up so children can go there even during class. Certainly, one can say there is also a lot of group and independent study. However, leaving learning up to the pace of the child alone gives rise to differences among individual students and pace of study in the class as a whole often slows down. This is why teachers of what are considered to be the better classes try different things to be resourceful within the allotted time and place importance on the overall pace of learning even though the class primarily revolves around independent study. It is necessary to check this, in particular.

Watanabe: As for myself, I think that the main issue is how to create a flexible and emotionally warm space where children are not judged or evaluated in school. I am charge of a private junior high school and high school, and at private schools, children have to go on to university without relying on cram schools. This makes it necessary to think about how to transform the school itself. This means that they have to think about how to transform the school itself. In this sort of situation, I think the issue is how to develop a school "culture." Nowadays, together with the loss of the community's cultural capital, schools are weakening in a structural sense. So, Japanese education is in a precarious situation unless we try to support culture in this way, rather than solving problems at once (to be continued on April 28).

Media and the School-Family-Community Link

-- We talked about a "mediating agent" earlier in our discussion, but how do you see the role to be played by the new media that is outside the conventional framework of the school, family, and community?

Watanabe: I think there are many ways to tear down the walls of the family that have grown up thick around it. I think that connections with the outside including the Internet are one of many that deeply affect children. The issue there will be how to make these media and event-like happenings a part of daily life. It is a problem if ideas just end up one-time events so if there is on-line communication, this means people have to be linked even off-line.

Makino: According to one survey, children who spent a lot of time watching TV and videos from infancy and did not play outside much tended to be inexpressive, lacked empathy, averted their eyes, showed a limited range of play, were unable to engage in surrogate play, or avoided friends when they approached. Since the child watches TV or videos quietly, the child grows up having a good relationship with the mother without her realizing that the child is not playing with other children as friends. This is why I want to point out that there will be major problems unless people realize that the information media is a different world from that of human relationships. The information media is one means and to think that it can be made an end in education is, in effect, moving away from the ability to solve problems.

Fujita: There are a lot of merits to the Internet, TV, video and other media in our contemporary society. Certainly, the instantaneous response that we get from virtual media alone is fascinating, and it will be important to utilize these media. Nevertheless, the basis of education is face-to-face communication, and without it, I don't think that it is possible for children to become socialized or learn the rules of society or acquire the ability to learn in a true sense. Furthermore, even if we grant that TV, video and the Internet are language-based, they are different from what is conveyed through the printed word. There is a time element in the printed word that gives us a latitude that evokes the imagination or a kind of reverie. We should not lose sight of the significance of having this kind of time. So, I think the crucial point is how we can actually reinforce the importance of the printed word and face-to-face communication.

-- In conclusion, could you offer your thoughts on this discussion?

Watanabe: My children attend public school and at one time, there was a breakdown of order in the classroom. The parents took turns going to the school and had long discussions all night in a family restaurant. At the time, it was rough, but now I have nice memories of it (laugh). It was exactly as Professor Fujita said: both parents and children learned from discord. I also served as soccer coach, and when I rode my bicycle in town, students would say "Hey, there is the coach" or "Look, there goes Watanabe's father." It gives me a lift and I enjoyed it. So, in short, this has to do with how we can create such relationships and make them a part of our everyday lives.

Makino: I was originally interested in whether it was really possible for children grow up well if the mothers are the only ones who are so involved in child-raising. Then I started thinking about the anxieties that mothers have concerning child-raising and incidents of mothers killing their children and realized that it was really a problem that had to do with fathers. I don't think it is a good situation when parents band together to become an "education-crazy parents" and create a closed family that is focused on just the child. In the opening remarks, I mentioned a book called "The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap," and in one chapter, the author says that children grow up best in societies that regard child-raising as an important job that should not be left up to the parents alone. Of course, fathers need to be able to take childcare leave and working hours have to be shortened, but society as a whole still has to look after children. The family is the foundation, but I earnestly feel that we have to build on that and transcend it.

Fujita: In conclusion, I would like to stress three points. Earlier in our discussion, it was noted that human relationships may be undergoing drastic changes. I think change is taking place in some areas, but it is unlikely that the nature and rules of social behavior will change completely. So, I think that one important challenge is the extent to which we will be able to incorporate ritual-like events such as, for example, the festivals that were once a part of regional society, in collective settings such as the home and school. Second, as Professor Makino pointed out, I think it is important to make the family more open. Without this open element, it would be meaningless to force ritual-like events in our contemporary society. For this reason, I think it is also important to expand opportunities for people to take part in different activities on a voluntary basis and networks within the community. Third, it is necessary for us to properly convey a message as adults. These are the simple messages that we have been told for ages like: fulfill your social responsibilities, be considerable of others, and try hard. What is important is that children develop a positive attitude. These messages should not be forced, but appropriately incorporated in the educational materials and programs of school, at home, in the community, and in private educational institutions. I think that this respect, Japanese education and adults today have been very irresponsible.

-- We examined the relationship of school, home, and community and found that it is not a question of an entirely new system being created or of reviving a past practice as it was. Rather, while looking the positive aspects of each with an impartial eye, it becomes possible to discern a direction in which new constructive efforts can be made. Thank you very much.