The article "Teaching is a Cultural Activity" discusses the different cultural scripts of teachers and
their effect on student’s learning. Teachers and students in a school share the
same script in their mind around teaching. They know what is expected and what
role to play through implicit observation and participation. Furthermore,
students seem to be accustomed to similar routines, teaching styles, and day-to-day
classroom activities which makes it difficult for students to adjust and
perform well when their teacher suddenly implements significant changes to
their instructional methods. According to the article, a U.S. fourth grade
teacher watched a video of a Japanese lesson and followed that same style of
teaching in his next class. Unfortunately, the U.S. teacher’s students failed
to respond like the ones in the video. As teachers we should not be repetitive
and predictable. Using differentiated instructional strategies early on in the
year and consistently will benefit the students and allow them to experience
learning using alternate methods. By involving new activities and using
different formats to the lesson, students will grow and expand their learning
capabilities, resulting in higher order thinking.
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| Japanese Classroom |
There are different beliefs on
how students learn across cultures. U.S. and Japanese teachers have very
different views and teaching styles in their classroom. U.S. teachers want
their students to learn skills, procedures and follow a systematic approach,
whereas Japanese teachers want their students to think about things in a new
way and see relationships between mathematical ideas through self-discovery.
These goals create a very different classroom environment. U.S. teachers show
steps and examples of how to solve a problem by starting with an easy example
and then moving on to the difficult ones. They constantly try to keep students
focused and attentive during the lesson, otherwise they will get lost if they
miss a step. Japanese teachers believe students learn best by first struggling
to solve the problem, discussing it with their peers, and understanding many
different methods to solve the problem, not just one. They do not need to focus
on keeping the student’s attention because they feel the students are already
interested in the subject, and they use a chalkboard to have a cumulative
record of their class.
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| U.S. Classroom |
Japanese teachers and U.S
teachers use completely opposite methods of teaching. I find it interesting how
U.S. teachers try to avoid creating confusion, and feel as if they are not
doing their job correctly if the students are confused. Whereas Japanese
teachers start their lesson by giving the students a challenging question, and
have them struggle to solve the problem. I believe it is important to challenge
students and allow them to engage in deep thinking because it will expand their
problem solving capabilities, thinking capacity, and improve their
intelligence. We should allow students to figure out problems on their own
instead of always showing them the method and steps to solve every problem they
are given.
Throughout my time as a High
School student, I have mostly experienced the U.S. methods of teaching where
procedures and steps were given through examples and I was required to follow
these methods. I enjoyed this method of learning at the time, however when I
encountered math problems in University it was a little more difficult to
transition since straightforward steps on how to solve each problem were no
longer given. As a result of this experience, I will definitely use a combination
of both the U.S. and Japanese styles of teaching in my classroom because it
will allow students to grow as critical thinkers and prepare them for future
success. Students need to learn at an early age how to be critical thinkers and
investigate problems without a step-by-step process available to them so that
when they get to University they will already be accustomed to the teaching
methods they will encounter.
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