Japan fattens textbooks to reverse sliding rank

在日本推行了十年的无压力教育（pressure-free education）之后，该国学生的国际排名却落到了南韩和香港之后。因而最近日本教育部推行了一系列的改革措施，要求教育“回归根本”（back to basics）。这些措施包括：在小学六年制的课本中多增加1200页的内容，从原来的4900页增至6100页；根据年级不同，每周上课时间多增加1-2个钟头等等。新增的课本中有60%的内容是数学和科学方面的，而新的教育措施中要求学生背诵的部分也比原来要多。

针对这一系列措施，分析家认为反映了日本社会的危机感：“在一个自然资源稀缺的国家里，人才是我们国家发展的根本……”；而反对者则认为增加课本里死记硬背的内容并不能给日本教育带来好的改变，担心教改会让学校重回填鸭式教学的模式（cram education）。而十年来实行的培养学生独立思考能力的教育模式，显然要给予更多时间加以培养才能有效果。

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TOKYO — When Mio Honzawa starts fifth grade next April, her textbooks will be thicker.

Alarmed that its children are falling behind those in rivals such as South Korea and Hong Kong, Japan is adding about 1,200 pages to elementary school textbooks. The textbooks across all subjects for six years of elementary school now total about 4,900 pages, and will go up to nearly 6,100.

In a move that has divided educators and experts, Japan is going back to basics after a 10-year experiment in "pressure-free education," which encouraged more application of knowledge and less rote memorization.

"I think it's a good move. Compared to the education I got, I'm kind of shocked at the level my children are receiving," said Keiko Honzawa, a Tokyo resident and mother of Mio and her seventh-grade brother.

Japan's near-the-top rank on international standardized tests has fallen, stunning this nation where education has long been a source of pride.

The textbook debate mirrors one in the U.S., where new Common Core State Standards for math and English adopted by 37 states aim to strike a balance between teaching content and how to use that knowledge in everyday life and unify different state requirements. In both countries, sliding scores on tests such as the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, given every three years to 15-year-olds around the world, have helped drive changes in educational guidelines.

For Japan, the debate reflects a deeper anxiety as the country struggles to find direction in a world where its influence has waned. Its once-powerful — and now stagnant — economy has been overtaken by China's, and political leaders are grappling with how to deal with a bulging national deficit and an aging, shrinking population.

Signs that Japan's academic prowess is sliding have added to the consternation. Furthermore, the number of Japanese students studying abroad has fallen.

"There's a sense of crisis," said Hiroaki Mimizuka, a professor of education at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo, who thinks the new guidelines are a step in the right direction. "With the year-by-year weakening of the competitiveness of our economy, there are serious concerns about whether our education system is working for a country with few natural resources, whose most valuable resources are its people."

Others see the revisions as misguided and believe the emphasis on independent thinking needed more time to bear fruit.

"Just adding pages to textbooks and pushing for more memorization isn't going to get us anywhere," argued Koji Kato, professor emeritus of education at Sophia University in Tokyo. "Japan needs to invest in developing thinking people for its future."

Science and math textbooks will see the biggest additions, getting 60 percent more pages compared to earlier this decade. Among new concepts: Fifth-graders will learn how to calculate the area of a trapezoid and sixth-graders will learn about electricity.

An hour or two of school will be added each week, depending on the grade, and English will be introduced in fifth grade instead of seventh. Middle and high school students can expect similar changes in subsequent years.

Some fear this heralds a return to the "cram education" of the past that stressed memorization and was geared toward passing rigorous university entrance examinations. Though some colleges have introduced essay sections, they largely test ability to recall information, including finicky questions about English grammar that would baffle many native speakers.