43 - Sunday, November 20, 1988 - North Shore News

Weddings don’t need tourists

PAGE 44

lorth Van teachers get a learning experience in Japanese exchange

CULTURE SHOCK can be a learning experience.

By MICHAEL BECKER News Reporter

Five North Vancouver teachers and five teachers from Chiba, Japan; slipped into alien cultures for a spell and recently completed an exchange program paid for by Sony Corporation’s Sony Educa- tion Fund.

The fund's exchange program, initiated in 1987, promotes educa- tional exchanges between sister cit- ies around the world. The North Vancouver-Chiba link was the first Canadian exchange and the fifth of a series which has also seen Norfolk, Virginia, and Rochester, New York, link with sister cities in Japan.

The North Vancouver teachers were in Chiba May 5 to May 19. The Japanese guests visited North Vancouver Oct. 21 to Nov. 4. The North Vancouver participants were Lonsdale Elementary principal Cam Shields, Carson Graham Secondary science teacher Barbara McKinley, Highlands Elementary teacher Michael Day, Windsor Secondary science teacher John Kennah and Argyle Secondary science teacher Kenneth Kuhn.

The Chiba City participants were Honda Junior High School principal Tadashi Ima, Kitakaizuka Elementary School science and physical education curriculum coordinator Mineko Takayama, Hanamigawa First Junior High Schoo! science teacher Kiyoshi Sugiyama, Tsuga Elemen- tary School vice principal Satoshi Kosuge, and Chishirodai-higashi Elementary School science and home economics teacher Sumie Fujisaki.

Said exchange participant Bar- bara McKinley: ‘‘For us going to

Japan, there was a little more culture shock. It’s much more of a mystery. We have less exposure to their culture. All signs are in Jap- anese; there was no written English language as a signpost; the food was very different and the social customs were very different. It is a very uniform society, while here in the West, we have lots of different approaches. The culture shock was intense, but it was a wonderful ex- perience because you're totally immersed.””

McKinley said she went to Japan expecting to find a school system set up to engender conformity and close control. ‘‘But we didn’t find that at all. Japanese elementary school students are encouraged to be quite free. The children were bouncy and buoyant. But by sec- ondary school, they are truly nar- rowed and on task. Their focus is school and success and the pressure is quite intense."’

According to McKinley, the Japanese visitors appreciated the attention paid to individual stu- dents in the local school system. “The one-on-one approach isn't possible with the larger class sizes in Japan,’’ she said. In Japan the class sizes average 30 students for Grade I and by Grade 12 the average number jumps to 48 pupils per class.

While on the North Shore, the Japanese teachers met with North Vancouver School District superin- tendent Dr. Leo Marshall, North Vancouver City Mayor Jack Loucks, North Vancouver District Mayor Marilyn Baker, and toured through several local schools.

Sony Corporation paid for round-trip tickets for the partici- pants and provided additional funding to defray the program’s costs. The teachers were paired with their visiting counterparts and billeted at their guests’ homes.

JAPANESE TEACHERS from Chiba, Japan, and

North Vancouver teachers — enjoyed a farewell funch

earlier this month at the end of a recent educational ex- change program organized by the Suny Cerporation.

ce The teachers turned cultural me shock into a comparative pe learning experience by tour-

ing through schools and observing how the educa- tienal systems worked in each other’s countries,

§ Highlands Community

School teacher Michael Day (front left) says farewell to Kitakaizuka Elementary

§ Schoo! curriculum coor-

dinator Mineko Takayama.

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