Saturday, May 7, 2011

An Innovative Solution in Sendai

通学バスで苦肉の車中授業…往復140キロ 宮城の高校」("A class in 140km: learning on the way to and from a replacement school")
Asahi Shimbun
published April 22, 2011
accessed May 7, 2011

Summary and Key Points: Some background first: because compulsory education in Japan ends with grade 9, the final grade of "middle school," many of the high schools are vocationally oriented. This article discusses a solution with which one group of three agricultural-studies high schools minutes from Sendai Airport (the airplane mark on the map below) is serving their students, who saw not only a flooded school, but the destruction of pigpens, chicken houses, and their agricultural machinery.

The school buses students 60km (about an hour and a half on the freeway) north to a school that wasn't as severely affected by the earthquake and tsunami. The teachers recognize the wasted time that that trip could become, so the trip up is now first period, and the trip back, sixth period. They take turns reading in an LA class, or watch an educational video; the teachers try to take it easy, to prevent motion sickness and the like.

Intended Audience: everyone

Relevance: This article is perhaps not directly relevant to anyone in the class, but I thought this form of "busing" was fascinating, and wanted to share it. It is inspiring to see the lengths teachers will go to to keep school going. It's debatable whether or not this is the best use of time and resources (it seems like there would be much to learn from rebuilding, or helping the community to recover, locally), but it's a fun story nonetheless.

Recall that Sendai Airport was one of the earlier and more frequently broadcast images immediately after the tsunami, a small airport with planes tossed around by the water as the airport staff looked on from their evacuation point on the roof of the building.


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