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My learning from Japan…..By Ms. Pradnya Thorat (Grade 1 Teacher)

日本から学んだ

Nihon kara mananda

Few years  ago when I was in Japan, I had enrolled my child in a Japanese kindergarten school  called as Yochiien. It was not only a beautiful learning experience for my daughter but also for me as an individual. Japan and Japanese people have always amazed me. All over Japan before the school starts (all school start normally at same time) and after the school disperses there is a specific music played throughout the city just to make everyone aware that the children will be on the road and one needs to be careful.

In the school my daughter with other children just played around, rolled papers, played  with clay, did gardening etc. Till the age of 6, the whole emphasis is to develop the child’s multiple intelligences. The students are responsible to keep their classrooms and school clean. Every day by turn few kids sweep the floor, serve the food etc. In the younger years of the child the focus is more on developing the values within the child, to create a better citizen, to make an independent person. This according to me is very necessary as it instills the thought that no job is less or low in kind. The kids are taught to be empathetic, polite and humble.

 I remember one instance when I and my mother were walking on a very small footpath in Japan. The cyclists can cycle on footpaths there. There was this one kid maybe aged 11-12years old and he was behind us as there was no space for him to overtake us. This child just kept walking behind us till we realized and gave him the way. He quickly sat on his cycle said Gomen nasai (sorry) and drove away. The humbleness, the consideration for others, feeling of not troubling others is instilled right from the childhood. That instance is always close to my heart and I feel that these are the things , values which we as adult should strive to foster in our new generation…well that happens best with we doing it ourselves. When I came back I looked for such a school where the focus is on creating the individual and not a machine. However I could not find it at the right time, but when I came across Kalpavruksha ,understood its philosophy ,I knew it that this was the kind of school which I always wanted for my child. Though my child has already graduated from high school but nevertheless it’s a great opportunity to work under the school which I always desired of.

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