"Tsukuba Style" Curriculum - Environment-Related Exercise, Grade 7

Tsukuba's public middle schools began the new school year on April 9. In his first year at Yatabe Higashi Junior High School, my son today brought home his first assignment for the new "Tsukuba Style" Curriculum. A letter from the school principal, this assignment asks parents and guardians to provide information for a CO2 emissions audit.

"Tsukuba Style" Curriculum - Broad Outline

In 2007, Tsukuba City declared that it would reduce CO2 emissions from the city 50% by 2030. As part of this effort, it developed a new eco-global curriculum, the "Tsukuba Style" curriculum. Piloted in 2011, it is now being fully implemented in grades 1 through 9 in Tsukuba's public schools.

This blogger's son is entering this curriculum in grade 7.

Tsukuba Schools Introduce New Eco-Global Curriculum

Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. The parents' orientation handouts listed two hours a week for "Tsukuba Style Studies." My wife and I raised our eyebrows. What are 'style' studies and why would our son get two hours a week of it when he enters Yatabe Higashi Junior High School in April?

The handout page for Tsukuba Style Studies listed objective thinking, problem discovery, communications, cooperation, self-consciousness, independent correction, "information gathering, analysis and activism," regional and global citizenship, life and career design, creativity and innovation - all leading edge education areas.

Eating Manners of Farm Women - Tsuchiura, circa 1926

The Japanese character for "to eat" 食 has two readings. The first that students of Japanese learn is "taberu" (食べる), which carries connotations that most people associated with eating: sitting at a table with family and friends to consume a meal. The other reading "kuu" (食う) treats the act as a bodily function with no graces. This distinction separated farm women from town women.


From: "Life in the Sewing School (お裁縫所の暮らし)," told by Oshima Mitsu, born 1906