Young Children - May 2008 - (Page 76) Sunao (Cooperative) Chil d r en How Japanese Teachers Nurture Autonomy “Friends, listen to me,” a teacher announces to the class of 5-year-olds in a Japanese kindergarten. “One of your friends, Masaru, will be out of school for two weeks because he is having an operation on his leg tomorrow. Let’s wish him well.” A hush falls over the classroom for a moment, and then everyone looks in Masaru’s direction and applauds as a gesture of wishing him good fortune. “But it hurts to be operated . . .” The words stop midsentence, and there is another moment of silence as all eyes turn toward the boy who has spoken in haste. “Why do you have to say something like that?” an annoyed girl says in defense of the soon-to-be patient. “We want to cheer him up! Besides, we just talked about how we should not do things to others that we don’t want others to do to us. That is our classroom goal. Don’t you remember?” Satomi Izumi-Taylor 1998). According to the Koujien (the Japanese dictionary), sunao refers to one’s honest, gentle, cooperative nature as well as one’s ability to listen to others. Although the early childhood education guidelines set forth by the Monbukagakushou (The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology) do not use the word sunao, their goals are closely related to this concept. They are based on the cultural belief system that during the early childhood years, children need to learn to connect with one another and to build a willingness and capacity to live harmoniously in a group. In caring for young children, it seems like families and educators universally share the same goals: they want children to be healthy, happy, kind, and cooperative. Teaching young children to be kind, to take others’ THIS GIRL’S CONSIDERATION for her classmate shows how children make autonomous decisions based both on their experiences and on information gained at school. Autonomous children make their own decisions by considering the needs and wishes of others (Branscombe et al. 2003). As this example illustrates, autonomous children show initiative, empathy, cooperation, Satomi Izumi-Taylor, PhD, is professor of early childhood education with the Department of Instruction and Curriculum Leadership at the University of Memphis in Tennessee. Satomi worked as a preschool teacher for 12 years and has been studying Japanese early childhood education for more than 20 years. Photos courtesy of the author. ® and problem-solving skills. The children in this class, with a little support and encouragement from their teacher, had been working on their classroom rules and, as a result, came up with the classroom motto—a variation of the golden rule. Not only did the children create their classroom motto, they also took the initiative to encourage one another to follow it. Studying the link between autonomy and sunao How did this teacher promote the development of autonomy in her classroom? One way Japanese teachers promote such abilities in children is through their cultural concept of sunao, or cooperation (Taylor, Lichtman, & Ogawa 1994, 1, 2, 3 76 Young Children • May 2008
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