First up, the views and the news in Japan on education:

40% of universities mull shifting academic year (Jan 27, Japan Times)

“Major private institutions, including Waseda University, Keio University and Ritsumeikan University, have also shown willingness to ponder the move, which a University of Tokyo panel recently advocated to bring the system in sync with international norms.

The survey, conducted by Kyodo News between Monday and Wednesday, covered the presidents of all 81 national universities except the University of Tokyo and graduate schools unaffiliated with universities, as well as 12 major private universities. The response rate was 100 percent.

The University of Tokyo, known locally as Todai, has called on nine other national universities, including Kyoto University and Hokkaido University, as well as Waseda and Keio, join it in shifting the academic year and said it will set up an organ in April to facilitate coordination.

Of those 11 universities, only Kyoto did not express a willingness to participate, making it highly likely that coordination will start in April.”

Earlier: Mixed response on autumn enrollment plan (Yomiuri Jan 22)| 36 natl colleges eyeing autumn enrollment (Yomiuri, Jan.22) | Other universities may follow Todai’s lead (Yomiuri, Jan 20) A number of leading public universities have announced they will consider shifting to autumn enrollment, in tandem with the University of Tokyo’s steps to move enrollment for all academic departments to autumn to help ensure its international competitiveness in education and research. The universities’ announcements Wednesday have been welcomed in financial circles, which have been dissatisfied with universities’ ability to develop human resources. However, many challenges remain. “Autumn enrollment is the standard internationally. It would be more convenient for foreign students,” Kyushu University President Setsuo Arikawa said at a regular press conference Wednesday.

Earlier: Todai panel recommends fall enrollment (Japan Times, Jan 19)

A University of Tokyo panel has proposed that the leading institution shift undergraduate enrollment from April to the fall in line with the international norm, sources said Wednesday. The proposal in an interim report sets the tone for further deliberations at the renowned university locally known as Todai, which has been considering reforms to improve its competitiveness among the world’s top-notch institutions that usually begin their academic year in September or October. The report, which recommends introducing the change in five years, will be officially released Friday. (Japan Times)

Unfair criticisms of education (Japan Times, Jan 19)

Some recent comments criticizing Japan’s education system are devoid of reality. It’s true that more Japanese students used to go abroad when the country’s university system was not developed, just as China sends thousands of students abroad today because its university system is not yet fully developed. There are two opposite tendencies in Japan today. On one hand, dire economic conditions in Japan, where the average disposable annual income of a Japanese family is ¥6 million to ¥7 million, compete with the cost of a university education, which ranges as high as ¥4.5 million (assume ¥1.5 million a year for living costs). Meanwhile, high school graduation no longer qualifies one for decent jobs in Japan anymore as so many manufacturing jobs have vanished to China. Only administrative jobs are available, for which a university graduation degree is needed. (Japan Times)

The national unified college entrance examinations began Saturday, with more than 550,000 applicants and a record-high 835 public and private institutions taking part. The exams mark the start of an annual competition for spots in two- and four-year universities for the start of the 2012 academic year in April. Total applicants fell by 3,447 from last year to 555,537, and included 439,713 high school students scheduled to graduate in March, according to the National Center for University Entrance Examinations, an affiliate of the education ministry. (Japan Times)

Student count, knowledge sliding (Japan Times)

The next two articles highlight the plight of jobless university and high school graduates …]

Poor employment conditions push Japan’s young to the edge (Mainichi)  January 6, 2012

According to a Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications survey of non-standard (non-full time) employees aged between 25 and 34, in 1991 the ratio of non-full time to all workers was approximately one in 10. In 2010, it had increased to one in four. Government estimates also show that some 60 percent of all non-standard employed men (all ages) receive less than 2 million yen a year — a figure that is even below the amount for welfare assistance. Meanwhile, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, the number of welfare recipients as of September 2011 was 2.06 million — the highest in Japan’s history. In 2009, there were approximately 112,000 welfare recipients in their 30s — about 1.9 times more than in 2000.

University degree and full-employee-status no protection against joblessness in Japan(Mainichi)

Universities seek to utilize gap years(Yomiuri, Dec. 26, 2011)

Govt to poll student affluence / Authorities aiming to shrink disparities in academic performance (Dec.27, Yomiuri)

Flip fantasia: Engaging an audience with kamishibai(Tokyo Reporter Jan 12)

The October 1 issue of Tokyo-based weekly business magazine Shukan Diamond took a unique approach to simplify understanding the resent global financial debacle. Over ten consecutive even-numbered pages the publication printed a single descriptive phrase above a half-page cartoon, each　representing a stage in the crisis, to accompany the charts, tables, and main text of an article about the problem. The arrangement is rooted in the Japanese practice of kamishibai, or storybook theater, which in its most recent incarnation began in Japan before television and serves as a way for a stand-up performer to concisely tell a tale with a series of illustrated notebook-sized cards over a brief time period.

Suicide leap at disciplinary school (Jan 10, Japan Times) A 21-year-old man jumped to his death Monday in an apparent suicide at a sailing school in Mihama, Aichi Prefecture, that is known for its strict education program for troubled young people, police said. The man jumped from the roof of a three-story dormitory at Totsuka Yacht School around 7:30 a.m., leaving a note on the roof terrace that read: “It’s painful for me to live. I want to die,” police said. The Hiroshima Prefecture native, who joined the school in December 2010, climbed onto the roof while taking out garbage with another student, the police said.

Mothers worried thin walls at temporary housing units create stress for children (Dec.27)

Schools in Minamisoma getting back to normal (Japan Times)

Read all about the NIE (Newspaper In Education) Programmes at work in Japanese schools.

Taiwanese man sought in killing of 2 Taiwanese students in Tokyo | Police admit pat-down of Taiwanese student who committed suicide was insufficient

Elsewhere in the world on education:

The higher education bubble (educationnews.org)

Read the rest here 

China’s preschool woes (Straits Times, Jan 13 retr. fr. Lexisnexis.com)

BEIJING: To enrol her daughter in the kindergarten of her choice, one boutique owner had to get help from friends, as well as pay illegal admission fees of 18,000 yuan (S$3,700), dubbed as ‘sponsorship fees’ in China.

All in, Ms Lu, 36, who did not want to give her full name, forks out 27,000 yuan a year on kindergarten for her five-year-old daughter, more than what it costs to study at the elite Peking University. …

But not everybody can stomach the hefty fees.

In recent years, the high cost of preschool education has become a common complaint in China, so much so that the authorities last week threatened new penalties against the collection of illegal fees to guarantee admission.

Schools caught doing so would not have their licences renewed, said China’s top economic planner, as well as its Education and Finance ministries, in a statement earlier this month. Nor would they tolerate preschools that force parents to pay extra for all kinds of enrichment classes, they said.  Read more here.

Sweat and tears: China’s gymnasts (CBS News)

Recommended readings from the Telegraph:

A first, with honours, for the student who rejected Oxbridge

Oxford finalists are ‘little better than A level students’, claim tutors

Pupil sends Oxford University ‘scathing’ rejection letter 

Alice Roberts hits out at science ‘geeks’

Study: Good Teachers Have ‘Profound Effect’ on Students (educationnews.org)

A new study has found a “profound” link between the quality of a teacher and lasting future… Read more…

Julia Steiny | Learning to write teaches westerly students science

TED Conference: Teach Math, Not Calculating

Experts at the TED conference on math instruction emphasize the use of the calculator as a way to… Read more

Schools to Monitor Obese Students, Raising Privacy Fears (educationnews.org)
As a Long Island district uses electronic monitors to keep track of the physical activity of obese students; critics call it an invasion of privacy

Study: Gifted and Talented Programs Have Little Effect (educationnews.org)

Parents Camp Overnight for Places at Coveted KindergartenParents in West Philadelphia camped out over night in an attempt to get their children places at one of the most coveted public schools in the stat

Alice – in Wales? C. M. Rubin discusses the origin of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its connection with Llandudno, Wales, summer home of Alice Liddell

Study Shows Minority Students Achieve with Minority TeachersStudy on Teacher Value Uses Data From Before Teach-to-Test Era

The Method Of Comparative Statics (Very, Very Wonkish) by Paul Krugman

The Bay Citizen: California Leads Nation in Unaccredited Schools, and Enforcement Is Lax

Do Thrifty Brains Make Better Minds? (January 15, 2012, The Stone)

“Some recent work in computational and cognitive neuroscience suggests that it is indeed the frugal use of our native neural capacity (the inventive use of restricted “neural bandwidth,” if you will) that explains how brains like ours so elegantly make sense of noisy and ambiguous sensory input. That same story suggests, intriguingly, that perception, understanding and imagination, which we might intuitively consider to be three distinct chunks of our mental machinery, are inextricably tied together as simultaneous results of a single underlying strategy known as “predictive coding.” This strategy saves on bandwidth using (who would have guessed it?) one of the many technical wheezes that enable us to economically store and transmit pictures, sounds and videos using formats such as JPEG and MP3.

Neural versions of this predictive coding trick benefit, however, from an important added dimension: the use of a stacked hierarchy of processing stages. In biological brains, the prediction-based strategy unfolds within multiple layers, each of which deploys its own specialized knowledge and resources to try to predict the states of the level below it. …

A familiar, but still useful, analogy is with the way problems and issues are passed up the chain of command in rather traditional management hierarchies. Each person in the chain must learn to distil important (hence usually surprising or unpredicted) information from those lower down the chain. And they must do so in a way that is sufficiently sensitive to the needs (hence, expectations) of those immediately above them.

In this kind of multilevel chain, all that flows upward is news. What flows forward, in true bandwidth-miser style, are the deviations (be they for good of for ill) from each level’s predicted events and unfoldings. This is efficient. Valuable bandwidth is not used sending well-predicted stuff forward. … Things work similarly — if the predictive coding account is correct — in the neural incarnation. What is marked and passed forward in the brain’s flow of processing are the divergences from predicted states: divergences that may be used to demand more information at those very specific points, or to guide remedial action.

…All this, if true, … suggests that perception may best be seen as what has sometimes been described as a process of “controlled hallucination” (Ramesh Jain) in which we (or rather, various parts of our brains) try to predict what is out there, using the incoming signal more as a means of tuning and nuancing the predictions rather than as a rich (and bandwidth-costly) encoding of the state of the world. This in turn underlines the surprising extent to which the structure of our expectations (both conscious and non-conscious) may quite literally be determining much of what we see, hear and feel…..Brains like ours may be constantly trying to use what they already know so as to predict the current sensory signal, using the incoming signal to constrain those predictions, and sometimes using the expectations to “trump” certain aspects of the incoming sensory signal itself….

Just suppose (if only for the sake of argument) that it is on track, and that perception is indeed a process in which incoming sensory data is constantly matched with “top down” predictions based on unconscious expectations of how that sensory data should be. This would have important implications for how we should think about minds like ours.

First, consider the unconscious expectations themselves. They derive mostly from the statistical shape of the world as we have experienced it in the past. We see the world by applying the expectations generated by the statistical lens of our own past experience, and not (mostly) by applying the more delicately rose-nuanced lenses of our political and social aspirations. So if the world that tunes those expectations is sexist or racist, future perceptions will also be similarly sculpted — a royal recipe for tainted evidence and self-fulfilling negative prophecies. That means we should probably be very careful about the shape of the worlds to which we expose ourselves, and our children.

Second, consider that perception (at least of this stripe) now looks to be deeply linked to something not unlike imagination. For insofar as a creature can indeed predict its own sensory inputs from the “top down,” such a creature is well positioned to engage in familiar (though perhaps otherwise deeply puzzling) activities like dreaming and some kind of free-floating imagining. These would occur when the constraining sensory input is switched off, by closing down the sensors, leaving the system free to be driven purely from the top down. We should not suppose that all creatures deploying this strategy can engage in the kinds of self-conscious deliberate imagining that we do. Self-conscious deliberate imagining may well require substantial additional innovations, like the use of language as a means of self-cuing. But where we find perception working in this way, we may expect an interior mental life of a fairly rich stripe, replete with dreams and free-floating episodes of mental imagery.

Finally, perception and understanding would also be revealed as close cousins. For to perceive the world in this way is to deploy knowledge not just about how the sensory signal should be right now, but about how it will probably change and evolve over time. For it is only by means of such longer-term and larger-scale knowledge that we can robustly match the incoming signal, moment to moment, with apt expectations (predictions).”

***

Rick Santorum’s Anti-College rant  …  Santorum accused President Obama of “elitist snobbery” and “hubris” for suggesting that “under my administration, every child should go to college.” Perhaps this should be read together with The true cost of high school dropouts

The History Of Economic Thought Andrew Beattie, Friday 21 October 2011 see also The History Of Capitalism: From Feudalism To Wall Street | Introduction To Supply And Demand | How Interest Rates Affect The U.S. Market

Japanese strategy for improving teachers is catching on in Chicago (hechingerreport.org Jan 12 )

In the sunlit library at Jorge Prieto Elementary on Chicago’s’ northwest side, an experiment is under way. A provisional classroom has been set up. A white board sits at the front of the room, and 20 eighth-graders are seated at library tables. Math teacher Michael Hock is giving a lesson about the distributive property. Scattered throughout the room are some 30 other teachers. They aren’t wearing lab coats-but they might as well be. They clutch clipboards and carefully monitor kids’ reactions to the teacher’s explanations, peering over students’ shoulders as they write answers. “What is the area of the garden?” Hock asks students as he points to an illustration on the white board. “Nestor, I haven’t heard from you today.”

Cruising the book aisles:

Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs by Paul Willis

Based primarily on ethnographic data, “Working Class without Work” examines the identity formation process among white working-class youth in the context of the de-industrialization of the American economy. The elimination of many basic production jobs and the expansion of the service sector have changed the expectations and opportunities of the white working class. Weis documents the way in which these young people respond to such changes, and the way they help to create the conditions of their future lives. In the process, she explores issues of race, class, gender and considers the roles of school and family in the production of self

Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St Paul’s School by Shamus Rahman Khan

Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life by Annette Larea

***

On health and safety matters:

2012 Jan 2nd, South Korea, Seaweed radioactivity test (part 1) from joytek onVimeo.   Unopened packets of seaweed from the east coast of Korea measured 0.76 microSv/h on 1/2/2012.

Co-op checking meals for cesium  (Japan Times)

Don’t rush to put out flames during quake (Yomiuri, Jan.21)

NHK Asaichi TV programme – aired a programme this week on the new study on Tokyo likelihood of earthquake predictions, interviewing the professor who originated the study (see the science behind the report at the Japanese source). The programme also noted that research shows the use of L-shaped brackets attached to the wall is the most effective method, compared to the use of floor stoppers (to prevent slip), ceiling to furniture supports – in preventing falling furniture-induced injuries.

Related:

70% chance of big Tokyo earthquake ’within 4 yrs’ (Yomiuri)

Major earthquake zone newly found off Tohoku (Yomiuri, Jan.27)

Currently, there are two known earthquake regions along the Pacific coastal area from Hokkaido to the Tohoku region.

One is the area where the March 11 quake was centered. The other is in the area from Nemuro to Erimomisaki cape in Hokkaido, where major magnitude-8 level quakes have occurred every 500 years. Until Hirakawa’s findings, there was no information about the region between the two areas. Read the entire article here.

Tabled in our parenting potpourri forum discussions:

Should parents control what kids learn at school?

Education advice: How to encourage your children to read (03 Jun 2011)

Shared Babysitting Yahoo Group brings like-minded families together so they can, “share babysitting”.

UK context:

School choice – an overrated concept…

“True choice is a myth. All parents want are good local schools, but it appears no political party is interested in delivering them. Both Conservatives and Labour seem obsessed with in effect privatising the system by persuading companies, religious organisations and charities to run the show. The US has been doing this for two decades, and the most significant research shows that it doesn’t work: on average, children at state-run schools do significantly better than their counterparts at taxpayer-funded but privately run schools…

Perhaps even more worryingly, the concept of school choice has led to deep societal fractures,…

Yet the evidence shows that parents are tremendously supportive of schools, even when they are failing, as Charles Desforges established in a thorough research review conducted in 2003. His findings … showed that if a parent talks regularly to their child, has high expectations and believes in the value of education, then that child will succeed – even in a school with a poor reputation.”

BBC NEWS | UK | Education | The problem with school ’choice‘

“…The school system …has grown much more diverse over the past 20 years.

England has a dizzying variety of secondary schools in addition to community comprehensives and faith schools.

These include: foundation schools, CTCs, academies, specialist schools, grammar schools and, shortly, trust schools. Scotland has none of this variety.

…There have been many academic studies of the impact of “school choice”. Some argue it increases social segregation, others say it reduces it. Unfortunately, there is no consensus to help guide policymakers. One thing seems to be clear, though: the more choice you offer, the greater the level of dissatisfaction. That does not mean that parents would willingly give up their chance to state a preference or to have a menu of different schools to choose from. But there are consequences of letting the choice genie out of the bottle and whichever system you use – home-school distance, catchment area, lottery, or banding – there will always be relieved “winners” and upset “losers”.

The key, of course, is to try to protect the children from feeling like winners and losers.”

US context:

Dr. Judith Stein, Executive Director of the National Institute for Educational Options examines a few common myths about school choice as she concludes that despite some flaws, school choice is better than no choice.

Robert Enlow, President and CEO of The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, writes that although school choice is on the right track — many called 2011 the ‘Year of School Choice’ — we still have a long way to go.

***

This LA Times review by Kitty Ferguson review of the new biography of Stephen Hawkings’ life is interesting.

“She begins when Stephen was a perfectly healthy kid and not much of a scholar. At St. Albans public school, age 11, he was third from the bottom of his class. However, like many future physicists, he wondered obsessively about the universe…”

How many of our kids match this description, many Nobel prize winners and other movers and shakers never made the best grades, and yet the majority of universities and school systems today continue to choose their applicants only from those who produce impeccable grade records, their evaluation systems vastly need a change. Many of the world’s past successes probably would never have made it to college and to where they have had they lived in today’s society. Why do the evidently clever academics, edu policy-makers create and support such a test-reliant flawed edu system (in which they might not have succeeded had they had to go through it) … I wonder?    Aileen

In another review The earthly passions of a pop icon physicist He was characterized as “Outgoing and playful, Hawking as a child didn’t make the best marks in grade school, for he stubbornly absorbed only those subjects he belived worth knowing. //In college at Oxford, Hawking was recognized as brilliant but underchallenged. Hawking himself admits that it was his ensuing illness — he possibility of an early death –that put an end to his academic laziness.”

You might also find helpful, “The best iphone and android apps for college students“ (Buzzfeed)

Some apps to help you breeze through school (recommended byh Straits Times Education Special) are: Evernote ; inClass; Dictionary.com; Dropbox; Documents to Go and Flashcards Deluxe [Many more suggestions of the same sort are to be had at this Edudemic page.]

And that’s the wrapping it up from me

Starting this spring we will be matching volunteer English instructors with junior high and high school students from the Tohoku region.  The lessons will be done online using Skype and will be free of charge. We wish to have volunteers with the following experience and credentials:

• A four -year university degree 
• A teaching license or certificate
• One year experience teaching English in Japan to junior high or high school students 

• Volunteers do not necessarily need to live in Japan.  However, we hope all volunteers have at least one-year of experience living in Japan and are familiar with Japanese customs and culture.

If you would like to volunteer please email us your resume and a cover letter.  The cover letter should include a detailed description of your experience teaching in Japan and reasons for wanting to volunteer. Mail to: afterschoollessons@gmail.com

After School Lessons For Tohoku Children

www.aslftc.com/

Lunar rainbow over southern Japan (Image: Creative Commons, courtesy of Mila Zinkova)

On yesterday’s TV news, we got a stunning view of the “lunar rainbow” phenomenon. I thought for a moment that that must be the proverbial “pot of gold” at the end of the rainbow. In fact, it looked like there were two pots of gold at each end…as seen in the photo below.

A rare lunar rainbow (a.k.a. moonbow, night rainbow, space rainbow) lights up the sky over Ishigakijima island, Okinawa Prefecture, captured on the 7th of January. (Image captured by the meteorological observatory camera and image provided by National Astronomical Observatory of Japan) In Japanese, it is called the Gekkou (月虹), so-called because it is a rainbow produced by moonlight, and as such it is usually harder to see. A larger photo can be viewed at this Okinawa Times page.

The phenomenon is explained in an UPI article “Rare moonbow photographed in Japan” thus:

“In the rare phenomenon, a ghostly multicolored arc is created by light reflected off the surface of the moon and always appears in the opposite part of the sky from the moon, experts said.

Small water droplets in Earth’s atmosphere refract the light from the moon, creating the lunar rainbow, also knows as a moonbow.

The moonbow was observed by the Ishigakijima Astronomical Observatory on Ishigakijima Island in Okinawa Prefecture, The Asahi Shimbun reported Thursday.

Moonbows occur with a combination of very dark skies, just before or after a full moon when it is brightest, and rain falling opposite the moon, scientists said.

While moonbows are often so faint they appear white to the human eye, the observatory’s camera was able to capture the multiple colors in it, they said.”

***

If watching the skies with the kids is your kind of thing, put a post-it! on this date May 21st, 2012 around 8 am. Because that’s when a solar eclipse will be happening … its trajectory will right overhead of Tokyo. It was mentioned on NHK TV news, and you may find more details of its trajectory and other information at these links:  Wiki:Solar_eclipse_of_May_20,_2012 and NASA’s page

Taiku / Gym class

1. They teach dance in PE!
I was in school last week to prepare for the school bazaar when I saw the PE teacher with music player compo and a class of students dancing to what looked like hip-hop. Checking up on the PE curriculum, I found Japanese PE now incorporates dance (national curriculum components: folk dance, creative dance and dance with modern rhythm).

2. You get paper-tested for PE in Japanese schools!

I found out these past few weeks, as my son “hit his books” to study for P.E.  This “Theory of Education component” for which kids actually have to do paper tests — is rarely found in other countries’ schools (at least at elementary and secondary levels) in which the child is tested on the “cognitive content on the social and cultural aspects of sport, motor learning and the affective outcome of learning physical activity for personal meaning”.

3. Japanese P.E. theory owes a huge debt to the Swedish system, specifically something called Swedish Gymnastics

I found this out incidentally when trying to uncover the origin of the Kumi-taiso /組休操 Human Pyramid event (details at this blog) which is a traditional Undokai sports event and staple.

Per Henrik Ling was a Swedish physical therapist, developer and teacher of the system of Medical-Gymnastics. Ling was suffering from joint (overuse) injuries and rheumatism when he was appointed fencing-master to the Uppsala University and subsequently found that his daily exercise routine completely restored his bodily health. His thoughts then turned towards applying this experience for the benefit of others, and he saw the potential for adapting these techniques to promote better health in many situations. He trained as a doctor, attending classes on anatomy and physiology, and then elaborated a system of gymnastics, exercises and maneuvers, divided into four branches, (1) pedagogical, (2) medical, (3) military, (4) aesthetic, which carried out his theories and would demonstrate the required occidental scientific rigor to be integrated or approved by established medical practitioners.

Ling formed the Royal Gymnastic Central Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.  His students carried on his work after his death.

This system of gymnastic exercise was eventually adopted by UK, US and Japan. (Encyclopaedia Brittanica)

Sometimes called the “Swedish Movement Cure,” founded by Pehr Henrik Ling  With his strong medical background, Ling recognized that exercise was necessary for all persons. He maintained that exercise programs should be devised based on individual differences. Ling also believed physical educators must possess knowledge of the effects of exercise on the human body. Ling used science and physiology to better understand the importance of fitness (4).

How Japanese P.E. came to adopt Swedish gymnastics.

School gymnastics (gakko taiso) is the older concept equivalent to today’s school physical education (gakko taiiku). School gymnastics was encouraged by the first Order of Educational System (Gakusei) in 1872, and in the next year, “Illustration of Room Gymnastics” (Shachu Taisoho-zu) and “Illustration of Gymnastics” (Taiso-zu) were officially presented by the Department of Education. Yet, it was not until 1879 that the National Institute of Gymnastics (Taiso Denshujo) was established and started for the purpose of training qualified gymnastics teachers and studying the systems of school gymnastics.

George A. Leland was invited from America to systematize school gymnastics in 1879. His systems were drawn mainly from Dio Lewis, and were called “light gymnastics” (kei-taiso) and “normal gymnastics” (futsu-taiso). The Swedish “light gymnastics” used no apparatus, consisting of calisthenics and exercises. School gymnastics were then diffused by the rapid growth of national education.

Although Swedish light gymnastics lost ground as a theory and died out, Motokuro Kawase, Akuri Inokuchi, and others actively introduced the Swedish-Per Henrik Ling’s system of Medical-Gymnastics during the 1890s, and this permeated into many schools because of its rational and scientific system.

This leads us to the next point.

4. Japanese P.E. has a militaristic history

As Japanese education moved toward nationalism in 1880s, with the 1885 reorganization of the Department of Education was reorganized into the Ministry of Education, new Education Orders were promulgated for elementary, middle, and normal schools, excluding imperial universities, and “military gymnastics” (heishiki-taiso) were introduced as a compulsory subject.

As Swedish light gymnastics became replaced by the introduction of military gymnastics, the Swedish system (Swedish Gymnastics) took its place in the Japanese P.E. system (introduced by Motokuro Kawase, Akuri Inokuchi, and others during the 1890s, ) Swedish “Medical-Gymnastics” then permeated into many schools because of its rational and scientific system.

After some years of confusion following the Manchurian Incident, school gymnastics evolved its superficial “rationalism” and in 1913, the Ministry of Education proclaimed the Syllabus of School Gymnastics for the first time. In these, school gymnastics was prescribed to consist of gymnastics (mainly Swedish), military drill, and games. Examples include gymnastics, fencing, rifle shooting, riding, and skiing -introduced through military reform or modernization.

In 1935, the doctrine of school gymnastics clearly became chauvinistic; liberalism and individualism were denied but esprit de corps was encouraged. In June 1936 the Ministry of Education promulgated a revision of the Syllabus of School Gymnastics that introduced Danish gymnastics, expanded the constituents of athletics and play, and directed the rationalization of teaching methods. However, the aim of the revision was to support a militaristic regime attempting to standardize school gymnastics.

The syllabus denoted schools’ obligation to conform to the standard, and emphasized the training of character as well as the healthy development of body. Japanese militarists, physical educators, and athletes began seeking Japanized physical education and sports. The movement rejected the use of borrowed foreign terminology and all foreign sports terms were translated into Japanese. This included creating such diverse terminology as Taiiku-Do (“The Way of Physical Education”), Supotsu-Do (“The Way of Sports”), and Ishiteki-Taiiku (“Physical Education Controlled by Will”).

Western liberalism was rejected and attempts were made to reconstruct the theories of sport and physical education according to traditional and fundamentalist philosophy or codes of behavior. Most theories appearing after the late 1930s were strongly connected with the traditional warrior’s feudalistic morality of Bushido. Educational directive gave detailed directions for budo, the traditional military arts to “cultivate a national spirit” (judo and kendo are still incorporated components in school P.E. today).

“In 1941 this doctrine was realized in the National School Order, which clearly stressed its aim that every national school should train up a “Nation of Emperors” (Kokokumin). The school gymnastics (Taiso-ka) was renamed “physical discipline” (Tairen-ka). In September 1942 a Syllabus of Physical Discipline was issued in which physical activities dedicated to national defense were stressed. Basically, physical discipline was divided into two categories (budo, including judo and kendo, and gymnastics, including gymnastics, games, athletic exercises, drill, and hygiene), and the practical descriptions given to these materials became much more militaristic than before.

A fascistic regime was almost completed before the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941. School gymnastics became synonymous with military training. All amateur sports organizations were reorganized into the Greater Japan Physical Education Association, which was an organ of the Ministries of Education and Health and Welfare. All youth organizations became subservient to the fascist regime.

Contests and games were ritualized to indoctrinate militarism, patriotism, and above all, the ideology of the Emperor System. All kinds of physical activities were colored by bushido (“the Way of the Warrior”) and Yamato damashii (“Japanese spirit”).” – KURISU Mitsuru in “A Reexamination of Physical Education and Sports in Japan (IV) : Physical Education, Sports, and the Ideology of “Winning Is Everything” 

However, with the end of WWII, the defeat and occupation of Japan in 1945 ostensibly brought about the abolition of all fascist laws and orders, American occupation policies also swept away the fascist system of physical education. Military drill and budo were prohibited in schools and Japanese physical educators actively assimilated American “New Physical Education”. The sports that form part of the physical education curriculum today were largely imported during the Meiji years, mainly from Britain and America. Many nationwide sports competitions were also instituted at that time, and today’ s national high school tournaments have their origins in sports meetings at the old “middle school” level.

Despite the sweeping effect of the American occupational policies, commentators have been alarmed that budo, a reminder of fascistic physical education, has been revived as a school subject and some commentators are of the view that

” … the current (postwar) situation of physical education and sports in Japan, ….have continued in almost every respect, to follow the ideology that was established in this historical context” (see KURISU Mitsuru in “A Reexamination of Physical Education and Sports in Japan (IV) : Physical Education, Sports, and the Ideology of “Winning Is Everything”)

Kurisu contended that in the process of importing foreign sports and introducing them nationwide, a number of serious errors were made allowing nationalistic and militaristic tendencies to come to the fore again:

1. The Japanese tradition of physical exercise integrated into daily life (budo) was based on the spirit of  bushido (“the Way of the warrior”). However, the essence of  bushido in a distorted form was injected into physical exercise that was not integrated into daily life, i.e., into sports.

2. Physical education (i.e., physical training) was regarded as synonymous with sports (i.e., physical recreation).

3. The ideological emphasis placed on winning meant that sports could be understood only in competitive terms, rather than in terms of personal recreation.

4. An absolutist ideology of winning became established, linking world-class achievements in competitive sports to the restoration and display of national prestige.

5. Participation in sports instilled a spirit or ideology of absolute obedience in male middle school students, who were being prepared for military service. All of these developments can be traced to an attitude of rivalry with other countries that had begun to form in the nation as a whole through repeated experiences of war. They can also be attributed to an effort to boost national morale using nationalistic ideals such as yamato damashii (“the Japanese spirit”) in order to offset a deficit in physical size and strength relative to other nations.

And the above leads us naturally to the next point…

5. The hidden curriculum cultural content

The major goals and objectives of PE in US and Japanese edu are ostensibly similar since post-WWII democratic education brought in by US revamped Japanese P.E. …

Mandated by government are 5 groups of fundamental outcomes sought in school P.E. programs (broadly the same as US ones): democratic PE / culture-oriented PE / fitness-oriented PE / PE as prep for lifelong sport participation /PE for mind and body

However, while the goals and objectives appear to be similar in US and Japan, the goals in Japan do not specify performance-related outcomes, instead they are viewed from a cultural perspective,”In Japanese culture, body and mind are viewed from a holistic perspective and this relationship must be maintained in order to keep physical education in the schools” and “the ultimate objective is to cultivate an attitude that will cause students to live a happy and cheerful life that is well integrated with physical activity…” and “Through experiences in physical education, youths should develop a love of sport and attain a level of personal fitness needed for a healthy life”.

6. Japanese P.E. teachers are often overstretched in their duties and responsibilities

A problem that has been noted of Japanese physical educators (similar to that found in the US), has the tendency for the PE educators to become overstretched in their coaching roles and responsibilities for their school sport programs, often at the expense of their class teaching duties and responsibilities. Like in the US, P.E. is often part of the school educational plan, and Japanese school physical educators implement ECA events, including sport festivals, coach school sport clubs – which often involve a school’s particular traditional sporting strengths.

7. Japanese P.E. is hindered by some systemic weaknesses

Although some “progressive schools” offer selective programs and coed classes, and a few elementary schools may offer some limited options (eg. one event from track and field activities), most lower secondary schools do not offer wide choices – they are also severely limited by the lack of dedicated facilities and equipment, and inadequate staff development.

Centralized government regulation by MEXT hinders the P.E. teacher’s acquisition of expertise, impedes the formation of original curricula in schools as well as the types of instructional approaches that might be used by teachers. Japanese P.E. teachers are said to be familiar with “teaching skills”, but to be less familiar with “teaching style” (or instructional method), although they may teach in ways that resemble sport educational styles or models.

To improve PE, it was suggested that teacher education system in J. universities needs revamping to improve instruction, and to improve awareness among PE teachers of the possibilities offered by a new curriculum and how to develop expertise in planning and implementing a new curriculum. teachers’ responsibilities need to be reduced to that of teaching only (as opposed to the teacher-coach role)

***

SOURCES AND REFERENCES:

Sport and Physical Education under Fascistization in Japan (pps 177 ff.)

Standards and Practice for K-12 Physical Education in Japan  Takahashi Nakai & Michael W. Metzler

InYo: Journal of Alternative Perspectives June 2000 by Ikuo Abe, Yasuharu Kiyohara, and Ken Nakajima

KURISU Mitsuru, “A Reexamination of Physical Education and Sports in Japan (IV) : Physical Education, Sports, and the Ideology of “Winning Is Everything“

Encyclopaedia Brittanica, ”Per Henrik Ling”

Modern History and the Problems of Physical Education in Japan  KATAGIRI, Yoshio

NEC offers radiation measurement device(Asahi Dec 27)

NEC Corp. has released a radiation measurement device that can be installed at public sites–including schools, hospitals and convenience stores–to provide updated data at any time on the Internet. Read more here.

Parents wary of Fukushima village schools (Yomiuri, Dec 26)

A survey by the municipal government of Kawauchimura, Fukushima Prefecture, part of which was designated an emergency evacuation preparation zone, has found that most residents do not intend to let their children return there for school. There is a primary school, a middle school and a day care center in the now-dissolved emergency evacuation preparation zone, and the survey was conducted on 142 residents whose 227 children were to attend or enroll in one of the facilities at the start of fiscal 2011. The survey was conducted by anonymous questionnaire in November. Eighty-eight people with 147 children responded. The children comprised 80 primary school students, 34 middle school students and 33 day care attendees. (Yomiuri)

Researchers: 225 schools may lie on active faults  (Asahi, Dec 22) A university research team is asking the government to take steps to ensure student safety, after finding that 225 schools are likely to lie on active faults, with 780 other schools located close to such rifts. Based on the results, the team has started further investigations using aerial photographs and other means to pinpoint locations of all schools nationwide and active faults. “We hope the heads of schools located on active faults and administrative officials in charge will consider banning use of school buildings on such rifts,” said Takashi Nakata, professor emeritus of geography at Hiroshima University, who led the study, along with Takashi Kumamoto, associate professor of geographic information at Okayama University.

Lack of exercise a concern for Fukushima children (Asahi Dec 22)

A 34-year-old woman watched her son running around an indoor play center in Fukushima city. “It’s the first time in a long while I have seen him breaking a sweat as he plays,” she said. The boy, a second-year elementary school student, has, like many of his contemporaries, spent much of his time cooped up indoors since the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. His mother won’t let him play outside because of the threat of radiation, so he has been watching television and DVDs after coming home from school instead of playing in the parks or vacant lots that were his old stomping ground.

Government evacuation order to come under fire (Japan Times, Dec 27)
A government panel probing the Fukushima disaster is expected to state that the nuclear evacuation order issued after the crisis began was irrational.

Panel compiles interim report on nuclear accident (NHK, Dec 26)

A panel looking into the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has severely criticized both the operator and the government for mishandling the accident.

The government panel released an interim report on Monday. Its investigations were based on interviews with about 450 people, including workers at the Tokyo Electric Power Company and government officials.

The report says that the utility itself predicted in 2008 that a tsunami larger than 10 meters high could hit the plant but that it failed to take preventive measures.

The report says that after the plant lost all its electricity following the March 11th earthquake and tsunami, workers mishandled the emergency cooling system at No 1 and 3 reactors.

The report says if fire trucks had been dispatched earlier to pump water into the reactors, there would have been less damage to the fuel rods, and smaller amounts of radioactive substances released into the air.

The report also describes the government’s handling of the crisis as problematic.

It says lack of communication within the Prime Minister’s Office in Tokyo prevented the government from making use of the so-called SPEEDI system that predicts the spread of radioactive substances.

Data from SPEEDI wasn’t used when the government issued evacuation orders to residents living near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

The report says the evacuation orders were not precise and failed to promptly reach the municipalities involved.

The panel intends to question Cabinet ministers and others to further learn how the government handled the crisis before it compiles a final report by next summer.

TEPCO to conduct endoscopy of Fukushima reactors  (NHK, Dec 27)

Gov’t panel finds breakdown in chain of command in nuclear crisis response | NUCLEAR CRISIS–9 MONTHS ON / Govt pressure on N-agency cast doubt on meltdown (Dec.16) | N-plant procedure ignored? / Workers ‘didn’t check’ reactor pressure day before explosion (Dec 17)

Decommissioning Fukushima plant to take max. 40 years (Mainichi) | National：Japan gov’t declares ‘cold shutdown’ of crippled Fukushima plant (Mainichi, Dec 16) | Officials: Cold shutdown has been achieved (Japan Times, Dec 17) |  Noda’s declaration on Fukushima met with cynicism (Japan  Today, Dec 17) | Daunting tasks await Japan after cold shutdown of Fukushima plant (Mainichi) | IAEA welcomes Japan’s announcement of cold shutdown at Fukushima plant (Mainichi)

‘Absolutely no progress being made’ at Fukushima nuke plant, undercover reporter says (Mainichi, Dec 17)

Conditions at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant are far worse than its operator or the government has admitted, according to freelance journalist Tomohiko Suzuki, who spent more than a month working undercover at the power station.

“Absolutely no progress is being made” towards the final resolution of the crisis, Suzuki told reporters at a Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan news conference on Dec. 15. Suzuki, 55, worked for a Toshiba Corp. subsidiary as a general laborer there from July 13 to Aug. 22, documenting sloppy repair work, companies including plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) playing fast and loose with their workers’ radiation doses, and a marked concern for appearances over the safety of employees or the public.

For example, the no-entry zones around the plant — the 20-kilometer radius exclusion zone and the extension covering most of the village of Iitate and other municipalities — have more to do with convenience that actual safety, Suzuki says.

Tomohiko Suzuki shows reporters a watch with a pinhole camera on Dec. 15 at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. He used the watch to photograph the inside of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant while working undercover there in July and August. (Mainichi)

“(Nuclear) technology experts I’ve spoken to say that there are people living in areas where no one should be. It’s almost as though they’re living inside a nuclear plant,” says Suzuki. Based on this and his own radiation readings, he believes the 80-kilometer-radius evacuation advisory issued by the United States government after the meltdowns was “about right,” adding that the government probably decided on the current no-go zones to avoid the immense task of evacuating larger cities like Iwaki and Fukushima.

The situation at the plant itself is no better, where he says much of the work is simply “for show,” fraught with corporate jealousies and secretiveness and “completely different” from the “all-Japan” cooperative effort being presented by the government.

“Reactor makers Toshiba and Hitachi (brought in to help resolve the crisis) each have their own technology, and they don’t talk to each other. Toshiba doesn’t tell Hitachi what it’s doing, and Hitachi doesn’t tell Toshiba what it’s doing.”

Meanwhile, despite there being no concrete data on the state of the reactor cores, claims by the government and TEPCO that the disaster is under control and that the reactors are on-schedule for a cold shutdown by the year’s end have promoted a breakneck work schedule, leading to shoddy repairs and habitual disregard for worker safety, he said.

Workers at a Toshiba Corp. facility at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant are seen in this photo taken with a hidden camera. (Photo courtesy of Tomohiko Suzuki)

“Working at Fukushima is equivalent to being given an order to die,” Suzuki quoted one nuclear-related company source as saying. He says plant workers regularly manipulate their radiation readings by reversing their dosimeters or putting them in their socks, giving them an extra 10 to 30 minutes on-site before they reach their daily dosage limit. In extreme cases, Suzuki said, workers even leave the radiation meters in their dormitories.

According to Suzuki, TEPCO and the subcontractors at the plant never explicitly tell the workers to take these measures. Instead the workers are simply assigned projects that would be impossible to complete on time without manipulating the dosage numbers, and whether through a sense of duty or fear of being fired, the workers never complain.

Furthermore, the daily radiation screenings are “essentially an act,” with the detector passed too quickly over each worker, while “the line to the buzzer that is supposed to sound when there’s a problem has been cut,” Suzuki said.

One of the reactor buildings at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant destroyed by hydrogen explosions is seen in this photo taken with a hidden camera. (Photo courtesy of Tomohiko Suzuki)

Meanwhile much of the work — like road repairs — is purely cosmetic, and projects directly related to cleaning up the crisis such as decontaminating water — which Suzuki was involved in — are rife with cut corners, including the use of plastic piping likely to freeze and crack in the winter.

“We are seeing many problems stemming from the shoddy, rushed work at the power plant,” Suzuki says.

Despite the lack of progress and cavalier attitude to safety, Suzuki claims the cold shutdown schedule has essentially choked off any new ideas. The crisis is officially under control and the budget for dealing with it has been cut drastically, and many Hitachi and Toshiba engineers that have presented new solutions have been told there is simply no money to try them.

“Yakuza to genpatsu,” by Tomohiko Suzuki. (Cover image courtesy of Bungei Shunju)

In sum, Suzuki says what he saw (and photographed with a pinhole camera hidden in his watch) proves the real work to overcome the Fukushima disaster “is just beginning.” He lost his own inside look at that work after it was discovered he was a journalist, though officially he was fired because his commute to work was too long.

“The Japanese media have turned away from this issue,” he laments, though the story is far from over. (By Robert Irvine, Staff Writer)

—–

A book by Tomohiko Suzuki detailing many of his experiences at the plant and connections between yakuza crime syndicates and the nuclear industry, titled “Yakuza to genpatsu” (the yakuza and nuclear power), was published by Bungei Shunju on Dec. 15.

:::

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Mothers and other groups are calling on the central government to permit sales of ready-made baby formula, for its safety as well as its convenience during times of emergency.

After the Great East Japan Earthquake, ready-made formula was distributed to mothers with babies in affected areas as part of relief assistance from foreign countries.

The products proved to be far more convenient than conventional powdered formula due to their ease of use. Unfortunately, they are yet to be made widely available in this country.

Rika Sato, 31, was in Shichigahamamachi, Miyagi Prefecture, when the disaster hit on March 11. She had no choice but to use powdered formula to feed her then 8-month-old son immediately after the quake.

However, the quake cut off the water supply in the town, and as she had no means of getting hot water to dissolve the powdered milk, she was forced to use cold well water instead. She tried to dissolve the power by vigorously shaking the bottle, but found it difficult.

“The powdered formula was not completely dissolved. I was also concerned about the safety [of the well water],” she said.

After Sato sent out a call for help on Twitter, ready-made baby formula products were delivered to her from Finland via a volunteer organization.

“It helped me a lot because the product required no preparation and could be stored for some time,” Sato said. “I hope I’ll be able to buy it in Japan.”

Mothers with babies in quake-hit areas received not only Finnish ready-made formula, but also products from the United States.

According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, Japan has no guidelines for ready-made baby formula, so such products have not been imported or manufactured.

Imports of the products distributed in affected areas in the aftermath of the disaster were allowed as exceptions, ministry officials said.

In 2009, the Japan Dairy Industry Association called on the welfare ministry to establish guidelines on ready-made formula products.

To do so the industry will have to present data verifying the safety of the products.

But little progress has been made on the matter because the association was unsure whether there would be enough demand.

“Ready-made formula products are certainly necessary, but it’s also important to ensure their safety. We want [the welfare ministry] to set up guidelines as soon as possible in preparation for an emergency,” said Nobue Kunizaki, a crisis management adviser.

20 mSv yardstick set for repatriating residents (Yomiuri, Dec.17) | People remain afraid of returning to homes near Fukushima plant (Mainichi, Dec 17)

Ill-prepared TEPCO must heed lessons and warnings (Mainichi Dec 17)

EDITORIAL: Power, but at what cost?(Asahi Dec 16)

Earlier: Moms make radiation risks a study (The Japan Times Online Dec 14)

Concerned about the possible negative impact of radiation spewed by the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant on their children’s heath, mothers in their 20s who work as fashion models have begun studying the issue to raise awareness among other moms of their generation.

Representing some 300 members across Japan of the Mamacawa (Cute Mom) Project, which promotes educational activities of young mothers, the models recently took part in study sessions on practical ways to protect their children from the adverse effects of radiation.

They also held talks with an award-winning U.S. film director who has made documentaries about children affected by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

In a roundtable discussion organized by Kyodo News in November, three of the celebrity moms asked Keisuke Amagasa, a 64-year-old freelance journalist specializing in nuclear power, to provide useful tips on how to select and cook food to ensure their children’s safety.

Hitomi Dewa, a 27-year-old mother of two who hails from the city of Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, said she is worried about her sister and relatives who still live relatively close to the troubled nuclear plant.

“My sister called the farm ministry to ask it to prevent schools from serving kids milk produced in Fukushima, but an official said such an act would just enrage local farmers. We don’t know who to turn to for consultations,” said Dewa, who now lives in Yamanashi Prefecture.

“The government keeps saying that consuming food and drinks available on the market won’t ‘immediately’ harm health, but we can’t trust this,” said the mother of a 5-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl.

Rumi Itabashi, 24, who serves as the leader of the Mamacawa Project, said terms related to the Fukushima nuclear disaster such as “microsievert,” a measurement of radiation doses, are “totally incomprehensible” to her.

“I have no clue as to how dangerous the radiation is because it is invisible,” she said.

“I am worried as I don’t know how much radiation is measured in places I live and commute to, such as Tokyo and Saitama, and how the levels of radiation will change over the next 10 to 20 years.”

The Saitama Prefecture native, who has a 3-year-old daughter, said young mothers like her need information that is easy to understand and access.

Saori Suzuki, a 24-year-old mother who lives in Ibaraki Prefecture, said the mothers of her son’s elementary school classmates were initially nervous about radiation, making sure windows at their school were closed, but they later lowered their guard as news reports about the nuclear crisis tailed off.

In the roundtable discussion, Amagasa explained to the three that drinking water and water for bathing can now be considered safe because radioactive iodine detected earlier at purification plants has a half-life of only eight days.

He also said radioactive substances that exist on the surface of food can be reduced to one-tenth the level by washing the items carefully.

He also advised them to choose food items from a variety of different production areas to lessen the risk, as the labeling system to indicate a product’s origins is still imperfect.

The journalist, who also lectures at universities, told the models to be careful about eating fish caught in the sea near Japan, as over time the amount of radiation that accumulates in the fish will increase. He added that they should check the location of the fishing grounds and radiation levels whenever possible.

Referring to the risks of developing cancer or leukemia from internal exposure to radiation, Amagasa compared the health hazard caused by radiation with the negative impact on health caused by aging or smoking.

“Your DNA has a remedial ability and you get sick only when the self-repair mechanism can’t keep up with the rate at which damage occurs,” he said.

He said exposure to low-level radiation could slightly increase the chance of developing cancer but warned against being overly concerned about possible health risks.

Following the study session, the mothers, who were basically reassured by Amagasa’s explanations, met with film director Maryann De Leo, whose 2003 documentary “Chernobyl Heart” is now being screened in Japan. Her work on children born after the world’s worst nuclear disaster won an Academy Award in 2004.

Itabashi, who learned about the Chernobyl accident for the first time after the Fukushima crisis occurred, told De Leo she is eager to study more about radiation.

The director said mothers in areas affected by the 1986 crisis were mentally distressed but did not have support organizations.

“The slogan of the Mamacawa Project is ‘If Mom changes, her kids change and their future will change.’ We’d like to learn more about radiation and not let our fears get in the way, so as to disseminate information through our blogs to ease concerns of mothers of our generation,” the project leader said.

Meiji Co. was tipped off on three separate occasions in mid-November that its milk formula may be contaminated with radioactive cesium, but ignored the information for about two weeks, sources said.

The major food maker only looked into the matter after it was approached by Kyodo News and a citizens’ group earlier this month, the sources said.

Meiji said it had initially concluded that “further investigation was unnecessary” because one of the tipoffs was made by an anonymous caller and the other two, from concerned consumers, cited Internet information the company was unable to confirm.

Meiji subsequently found up to 30.8 becquerels per kilogram in its Meiji Step milk powder.

“We would like to respond with greater sensitivity (to such tipoffs) from now on,” a Meiji official said.

On Nov. 14, an anonymous caller informed Meiji’s customer service section that a citizen’s group in Fukushima Prefecture had detected cesium in the company’s milk formula in late October, according to sources.

Two consumers also contacted Meiji the same day, saying they had seen information about the suspected contamination of its milk powder on the Internet. Meiji’s customer service, however, told them that the company conducts monthly checks on its products and assured them there was no problem with Meiji Step, the sources said.

Health minister Yoko Komiyama said Friday that the ministry will regularly test baby food products for radioactive contamination in light of Meiji’s cesium-tainted milk powder, even though the level detected was far less than the government-set limit of 200 becquerels per kilogram.

The tests will be conducted at least every three months, she told a news conference.

The radioactive cesium found in Meiji’s milk formula was the first time contamination has been detected in baby food since the start of the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

The case has attracted much attention amid concerns that babies are more susceptible to the harmful effects of radioactive materials than adults.

“As mothers and other consumers are very concerned (about radiation), we want to carry out regular tests,” Komiyama said.

The ministry found no radioactive cesium when it tested 25 baby products in July and August.

Half of Fukushima examinees exposed to radiation above annual limts (Asahi, Dec10)

FUKUSHIMA — Hundreds of residents in Fukushima Prefecture checked for radiation exposure after the nuclear accident there had levels exceeding what the government says is the safe annual limit

Residents exposed to high doses of radiation (Yomiuri, Dec.10)

A Fukushima prefectural government survey on residents’ external radiation exposure showed those in government-set evacuation zones were likely exposed to annualized radiation doses of up to 14 millisieverts, government sources said Friday.

This is the first statistical data indicating external radiation exposure among people living around the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

The prefectural government sent questionnaires to about 29,000 residents from Iitatemura, Namiemachi and the Yamakiya area in Kawamatamachi, which are designated as in either a no-entry zone or expanded evacuation zone, between late June and mid-July, ahead of those in other areas. The survey covered the four months after the crisis began.

The figure is based on analysis of questionnaires from 1,730 people who responded early. The prefectural Fukushima Medical University and the National Institute of Radiological Sciences analyzed the results of the survey.

About half of the surveyed residents from the three municipalities are believed to have been exposed to external radiation of at least the government-set annual limit of 1 millisievert, according to the sources.

While the prefecture projected the annualized external radiation exposure would be up to 5 millisieverts for most residents, the figure was 10 millisieverts or higher for about 10 residents.

Among those examined, a Fukushima plant worker was estimated to have been exposed to a maximum annualized dose of 37 millisieverts, while the highest dose among non-plant workers was 14 millisieverts. The resident is suspected to have gone through a highly contaminated area at the time of evacuation, according to the sources.

The prefectural government has been conducting health surveys on those who lived in the prefecture when the crisis broke out at the plant.

The prefectural government plans to release the survey results by the end of December.

Meanwhile, the city government of Koriyama, also in the prefecture, announced Thursday four primary and middle school students’ cumulative radiation exposure exceeded 0.40 millisievert in the month from Oct. 5. The dose translates into an annualized dose of 4 millisieverts or more, city officials said.

The data was obtained from measurements by dosimeters that gauge cumulative radiation exposure. The city government distributed the dosimeters to 25,551 primary and middle school students. The cumulative radiation exposure levels among the students ranged between 0.01 millisieverts and 0.45 millisieverts, the city said.

“Experts told us the figures [for the four students] do not represent health problems, but we’d like to question the students to find out why their radiation exposure levels were high,” a city official said.

The International Commission on Radiological Protection sets the annual limit for radiation exposure at 20 to 100 millisieverts at the time of an emergency and 1 to 20 millisieverts after the disaster has been contained.

Fukushima officials: Rice checks inadequate (Asahi, Dec 10)

After a spate of rice crops were found with cesium levels exceeding safety limits, the Fukushima prefectural government has come under fire for insufficient testing and initial announcements that this year’s harvest was safe

Radioactive water leaks at Genkai (Dec. 10, 2011 Japan Times)

Mayor irate as utility fails to reveal glitch at suspended reactor…

The triple disaster of March 11^th, the 9.0 magnitude earthquake, 10-meter tsunami and the continuing Fukushima nuclear crisis has undoubtedly left a permanent mark on the Japanese memory and impacted the global community.  Thousands have died and many survivors have been forced to relocate.  Others are participating in home stays inside and outside of Japan to recover emotionally and/or temporarily escape the fear of exposure to radiation.

After School Lessons for Tohoku Children is a directory page created to put those who have been forced to relocate due to the tragedies of March 11^th in touch with schools and organizations willing to offer assistance. The schools listed on this page have expressed a desire to give lessons to affected children for free or at a discounted rate. These charitable offers may seem small.  But it is hoped that these efforts will help those in need and raise awareness.

It is also hoped that participation will help reinvigorate the volunteer spirit and compassion will flow freely to those who have suffered from the tragedies.  The immediate outpouring of goodwill after any tragedy typically fades as people feel separated from it by time.  However, many are still struggling as they resettle in new locations. The devastation to their lives and the emotional and psychological pain they experience will not likely disappear overnight and thus continued support is necessary.

Homepage: http://dp15152662.lolipop.jp/aslftc/

A listing of schools is at: http://dp15152662.lolipop.jp/aslftc/schools/

Email: afterschoollessons@gmail.com

Posted by:  Jason Bartashius <afterschoollessons@gmail.com>