If you have read any of my previous blogs you will know that I came to Japan in August of 2003 in order to study and teach in the Japanese school system. I left a relatively easy assignment in Baltimore City Public School System for world travel and a different perspective on education. In America, I often heard how the Japanese used the team approach and how their students score higher than their American counterparts. I came to find out why. I learned Japanese children study the facts and that is all. They sit and take meticulous notes and then study just that, their notes. When the test comes their are more than prepared because they know the facts about just about anything. Often in class students sit and have conversation before giving the answer to any question. In my English class, students sit and stare for 50 minutes afraid to respond to any stimuli.

Before embarking on this journey, I was told that I would be team teaching with a Japanese teacher of English. Wonderful thoughts ran throught my mind as to the things that I would learn and new techniques that I could bring back to the U.S. Well much to my surprise I am "told" what to do. Instead of let's try this, it is do this. As a fully trained and certified instructor of English, I find it insulting to my intelligence to be told what to do and what to say. I can not remember one time that one of my counterparts came to me and asked what do I think or what do I want to do. The teamwork approach, if there is such a thing, somehow has allued me and now I am in a place that I most uncomfortable with. Please do not misconstue what I am saying about the Japanese people as a whole. They are some of the most caring and open people you would ever want to meet sometimes to the point of pain.

In summation, I guess my trek to find the orgin of the "team" approach to teaching will continue when I return to the states. Perhaps it will take me to Germany, a place that I found out is where the true team approach orginated from. One thing that I have learned is people all over the world will become terrortorial when think someone is moving in or stepping on their toes even if it is unintentional.