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I wonder if Stromberg case is an apple-to-apple comparison to schools in Indonesia. Especially, a school with big number of students and staffs

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All Finnish kids address their teachers by their first names, as the students at Helsinki's Strömberg School do, but many other aspects of education at this school can be considered progressive no matter where you're from. Let's open the door and step inside.

Here we go!

It's a few minutes past eight and the dim October morning has not yet given way to daylight when the pupils of Strömberg Lower Comprehensive School (ages 7-13) start taking off their jackets, caps and shoes in front of their coat-racks. An inviting fire, lit by the school caretaker to cheer the pupils up, is crackling in the fireplace in the hall.

Hellos are shouted along the corridors as pupils, teachers and the rest of the school staff greet each other. In this school, everybody knows each other, and the pupils call their teachers by their first names, as is customary in Finland.

Each child finds his or her own group. The classes are named after animals that live in Finnish forests: Elks, Bears, Foxes, Lynx, Hawks, Weasels, Seals, Eagle Owls and Wolves. And there are the Beavers, a class of pupils with mental disabilities; these kids arrive by taxi each morning. The school day can begin.

Light, space and social spectrum

Strömberg Lower Comprehensive School in Pitäjänmäki, a suburb of Helsinki, is located in the middle of an old industrial estate that has recently been filled with new blocks of flats. Situated near busy thoroughfares in the western part of Helsinki, some ten kilometres from the centre, Pitäjänmäki encompasses a wide social spectrum, from high-income homeowners to low-income families living in city-owned rental houses. A fair number of immigrants live in the area.

The school itself is a City of Helsinki comprehensive school, drawing pupils from homes in the neighbourhood. It is located in a former machine engineering workshop that was converted and extended for use as a school in 2000. The school principal, Päivi Ristolainen, took part in planning both the school curriculum and the building, her expertise helping ensure that they serve the modern concept of good learning.

In typical Nordic architectural style, the premises are light and spacious, the materials durable and the colours warm. Apart from ordinary classrooms, the school has workshops for magazine-making, handicrafts, music, drama, science and environmental education; and a gym and a library. The school's specialities include a small winter garden, corners with sofas for reading, and chess tables for games.

Active lessons

Back to the classrooms: some of the groups are being taught in their own home classrooms. For these lessons, which include Finnish, mathematics and more, the pupils determine weekly targets with their teachers and choose tasks to be carried out at their own pace.

Some groups are taking their turn in the workshops, learning through practical training. For instance, each group regularly spends time in the magazine workshop, working on their own publication.

The lessons are by no means spent in silent memorization; the children walk around, gather information, ask advice from their teacher, cooperate with other pupils and occasionally even rest on the sofa. The classroom situation is active, but the teacher never lets go of the reins - and doesn't have to resort to authoritarian methods.

Learning by doing

Each lesson lasts 90 minutes. The pupils usually spend the thirty-minute recess outside playing in the schoolyard, regardless of the weather. They use the sports field for football in the summer and skating in the winter.

The school follows the pedagogical principles of the Frenchman Célestin Freinet, who underlines learning by doing and community orientation. Mrs Ristolainen-Husu points out that both the Finnish national core curriculum and the Helsinki city curriculum comply with Freinet's ideas, but Strömberg School takes the model one step further.

This also means that the school has age-group-integrated classes, so that each group has children of two different ages. In such groups, differences between the children are taken for granted and less comparison results.

Windows on the world

Learning by carrying out "chores" is a key element in the school's curriculum. This means that pupils participate in common chores from the first year onwards. Taking turns in groups, they see to the school's houseplants, library, wastepaper collection, recycling, compost, yard and aquarium. They help in the kitchen and the Beaver classroom and care for the environmental workshop's pet tortoise Pertsa.

Non-teaching staff guide the kids in these chores: cleaners, kitchen workers, the caretaker, the school secretary and attendants. Everyone shares responsibility for educating the children and unnecessary hierarchy is avoided among the staff.

The school is also open to the local community. Parents are always welcome in the classrooms and their expertise is utilised in the workshops and evening school sessions. The classes go on a lot of excursions.

Each year the school has a special theme for all pupils; it is discussed from interdisciplinary and artistic viewpoints. The themes rotate from year to year: water, earth, air and fire.

Lunchtime!

It's time for a break after all that studying. And we're hungry, too!

Like all Finnish schools, Strömberg School serves a free hot meal every day. Today it's meatballs and mashed potatoes, a favourite with generations of children, served with salad, bread and milk. Special portions have been reserved for children with different dietary requirements for health or religious reasons. The children eat at cosy tables with tablecloths and flowers in vases throughout the year.

No extra funds above the average school construction budget were spent in building or maintaining Strömberg School. Yet a lot of ideas have been implemented here that people come from all over Finland and the world to learn about. Architects, too, come from all over the world to see the school building designed by Kari Järvinen and Merja Nieminen.

Fun for everyone

The school day is over between 12 noon and 2 pm, depending on the day and group. Nearly all the children come from families where both parents work fulltime, as is customary in Finland, and the little schoolchildren find the afternoon alone at home too long. Consequently, city authorities have built a playground near the school, with access safe from motor traffic.

The playground offers the schoolchildren an extensive recreational area with playground and games equipment and two buildings where first- and second-grade children can do their homework or play indoor games. Playground attendants take care of the children, who are also provided with a snack at cost in the afternoon. Otherwise the entire playground facility is free of charge.

After four o'clock in the afternoon, the playground gate opens and shuts repeatedly as parents arrive to pick up their children. The knees of the children's trousers are dirty and their gloves are damp; they've done and seen a lot. They've played hard and a fun time has been had by all.

The school also arranges a low-cost snack and free afternoon clubs and hobby groups for students in the upper grades. This year they are studying Japanese, learning to play in a band and doing arts and crafts.

On with your rucksacks and wave to the attendants - see you tomorrow!

By Salla Korpela, updated March 2011

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A day in the life of Strömberg School - thisisFINLAND

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All Finnish kids address their teachers by their first names, as the students at Helsinki's Strömberg School do, but many other aspects of education at this school can be considered progressive no matter where you're from. Let's open the door and step inside. Here we go!

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Annie Holmquist -

The other day, NPR wrote a feature article about a unique program at John Bowne High School in New York City. Despite being in the heart of one of the biggest metropolises in the United States, John Bowne runs an agricultural program for upwards of 500 students.

Known as "Aggies," these students "grow crops, care for livestock and learn the rudiments of floriculture, viticulture, aquaculture, biotechnology and entrepreneurship."

According to NPR, such a program is an excellent addition to the high school curriculum because agriculture is a booming industry. The students who participate in the program will accumulate a wide variety of hands-on experience with which they can land a job in the agriculture sector, a job which may even pull their families out of poverty.

But while this is a great reason to encourage such a program, I think there's a deeper reason why more schools - both urban and rural - should consider a similar one. In a nutshell, such a program promotes what one might call a "chore culture," a culture which instills hard work, responsibility, and the knowledge of basic skills which today's society has lost. The article gives a glimpse of what this "chore culture" might look like:

"It's Monday, 8 a.m., and these teens have already mucked stalls in the barn and fed the goats, alpacas and miniature cows. They've rounded up eggs in the henhouse, harvested cabbages and a few green-tinged tomatoes, and arranged them in tidy tiers to sell in the Agriculture Store. Now they're ready to put in a full day of classes."

It's this type of chore culture that gives students an understanding of the world around them so they won't simply think that milk comes from a grocery store.

It's this type of chore culture that teaches students to carry through with their responsibilities, instead of simply ditching their new Christmas pets because they didn't count the cost of time, energy, and money it would take to raise them.

And it's this type of chore culture which trains students in basic skills - such as knot tying or map reading - skills which various surveys have found are fast disappearing amongst today's young people.

Would we see a change of direction in society if more kids were raised in a "chore culture" of hard work and responsibility both at home and school?

Source: Chores in School? Why, Yes! | Better Ed

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Annie Holmquist - The other day, NPR wrote a feature article about a unique program at John Bowne High School in New York City. Despite being in the heart of one of the biggest metropolises in the United States, John Bowne runs an agricultural program for upwards of 500 students.

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In previous editions of ECJ correspondent Bobbie van der List has brought an overview of the Japanese cleaning industry, illustrating the enormous importance people place on cleaning. Visiting the cleaners of the Shinkansen trains, for instance, provided an interesting insight into the thoroughness and efficiency of cleaners, but also their position in society. But where does this 'cleaning mentality' come from?

In order to find out, he visited a Tokyo-based elementary school, where children are taught and expected to clean their own classroom on a daily basis.

The deputy principal Ms. Hamao greets us on a Friday afternoon at the gates of the Azabu Elementary School, right in the middle of the expat area Azabu. She bows kindly, just as the security staff member right beside her. Media attention is nothing new to them: they have received visits from various media outlets and they're more than happy to share their thoughts on cleaning with ECJ.

The importance of cleanliness already starts at the front door: on the right side a big wooden closet. We are expected to place our shoes in one of the smaller boxes; in exchange we get indoor shoes. A first humble lesson in keeping the school clean: don't bring in any dirt from outside. After that we are allowed to enter and head to the second grade children.

Excited to clean

The second graders are neatly seated in their classroom, plates of rice and soup on their desks. Interestingly, the food is served by one of their classmates. The late Japanese author Yutaka Okihara wrote about this phenomenon in his book Gakko Soji (School Cleaning):

"This lunch routine contains several moral messages: no work, not even the dirty work of cleaning, is too low for a student; all should share equally in common tasks; the maintenance of the school is everyone's responsibility."

Teacher Ms Mukai explains that all children are expected to take part in serving out lunch, bring it to the classroom, collecting it, and returning it to the kitchen. Suddenly the bell rings; children start running around, their excitement makes you think they are going on a field trip. When we ask the teacher why they are so excited she tells us: "It is time to clean!"

The tables are pushed to the back of the classroom. One of the seven-year-old boys accidentally pushes over his desk, causing his drawer to fall out. Pencils are scattered across the floor. Not to worry however, since his classmates directly kneel down beside him to collect the pencils. It illustrates the group mentality of these youngsters.

Bring a washing cloth to school

Next, the boys and girls of Azabu Elementary School take their washing cloth (which they are supposed to buy themselves and bring to school everyday). One of the girls, seven-year-old Koko, enjoys cleaning the classroom: "We bring this from our home, we have to. I like to clean and I clean at home as well. It's not difficult at all."

But when do they usually start with cleaning? "They are expected to start cleaning when they are six or seven years old, so when they're first graders", says Mukai. In European schools cleaning is sometimes introduced as a form of punishment. This is definitely not the case in Japanese schools, she says. "The children in my class enjoy cleaning up, they never considered it as a punishment," she clarifies.

And how do they typically respond to the notion of having to clean up their classroom, at the start of their first year in elementary school?

"Usually they never did this at home, they don't know how to use a broom or dustpan. So we teach them at the beginning of the year. But they know this is part of school, it is normal to them," Mukai explains. The Japanese term for students cleaning the classroom is gakko soji and it is an important part of the Japanese educational curriculum.

The latter is further explained in a book called Looking into the Lives of Children, where the Japanese cleaning approach is explained in detail. The book states: The ultimate goal of Japanese education is to foster the student's ability to become a fully integrated and productive member of Japanese society.

Therefore, Gakko Soji is viewed by teachers and administrators as an essential part of the daily school curriculum. Additionally, students develop a strong sense of pride and ownership in their
schools and the control they have over classroom management.

Cleaning part of the learning process

When Ms Humao is asked about the Japanese law regarding children working in classrooms, she refers to the cleaning as a crucial element of education: "We have such a curriculum in Japan that cleaning is an integral part of the classes and part of the learning process."

According to Mukai there is no underlying philosophy when it comes to cleaning at a young age: "It is not so serious, not a philosophy. We just want to teach them - if you use something or spend time in a certain place, whether that's a classroom or your own room, you need to clean it up yourself," Mukai continues. "It is our custom, to us it comes very naturally", says the teacher.

Does this ever cause friction with parents, who might have different views on seeing their children clean? The first answer to that is a resolute no. "We have foreign children (there is a big expat community in this particular area) and they are not used to this, so it is more difficult to teach them."

And how does it affect later behaviour? When we ask one of the children, a seven-year-old boy, he replies, surprised at the question if he ever litters outside: "No, I'm a kid, I don't do that!" Then he goes back to the broom, his favourite cleaning instrument. "I like to keep things clean especially with this broom." The thoroughness we already witnessed with the Japanese professional cleaners in the Shinkansen is also reflected in the cleaning moral with this young boy. He goes right under a difficult-to-reach a corner of the classroom, underneath a box.

Helping each other

Mukai smiles and explains that it is not so common to use a broom to clean the house in Japan. "At home we use a vacuum cleaner." So why not use one in the classrooms? She starts laughing. "You need to learn how to clean using these instruments, with a broom and a dustpan."

But luckily the second graders don't have to do everything themselves. Two sixth graders join the class, to assist the youngest pupils with jobs that are a little too difficult for them. Again, this is a good example of the group-focused mentality, which is nurtured at a very young age.

Some jobs, however, are better left to the professional cleaners, says Hamao. "For example, the students don't have to clean the washrooms." According to some English language media reports Japanese children do all the cleaning in Japanese elementary schools. But in reality there is a janitor - also in at Azabu Elementary School. "The janitor is responsible for cleaning the bathroom, as well as other jobs such as painting, repairing broken lights, or broken windows, these kinds of chores," Hamao explains.

Before we leave we just want to make sure that the cleaning process is not just a charade, neatly performed for naïve foreign media. So we sneak to one of the other classrooms to see if the children there are just as excited as Ms Mukai's pupils. In all classrooms children are actively involved and most of them seem to have a great time.

Becoming a good citizen

Although the children seem to be nurtured in a way that makes them think of cleaning as a natural part of life; you need to go back a bit further to fully understand the Japanese attitude towards cleaning. Japanese author Okihara thoroughly investigated the roots of Japanese attitudes towards cleaning. He writes that in Shintoism and Buddhism - the main religions of Japan - it is understood that cleaning means keeping the mind as well as the body and surrounding places clean.

Eventually this led many Japanese educators to think of gakko soji as "an essential school experience that encourages a child's sense of responsibility, cooperation, cleanliness, interpersonal and socialisation skills and duty towards the community and society" (Yutaka Okihara).

Cleaning, Okihara continues in his book, is therefore much more than a goal in itself, but rather a tool to reach a more important goal.

The purpose of gakko soji, as an aspect of education in Japanese public schools, is not to teach specific moral values but to foster a child's skills to become a functional member of society. This component of education in the Japanese curriculum includes an emphasis on acquisition of well-mannered behaviour in the social context: respect for law and order within the society; and a sense of social duty and responsibility.

The school maintenance program, gakko soji, is seen as one of the most effective school experiences for providing lessons in these three main objectives of moral education.

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Japan - Cleaning On The Curriculum - ECJ

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In previous editions of ECJ correspondent Bobbie van der List has brought an overview of the Japanese cleaning industry, illustrating the enormous importance people place on cleaning. Visiting the cleaners of the Shinkansen trains, for instance, provided an interesting insight into the thoroughness and efficiency of cleaners, but also their position in society.

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Without janitors student are in charge of keeping school shipshape

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Without janitors student are in charge of keeping school shipshape

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Back in 2011, Newt Gingrich was running for president, and he proposed a radical idea to help schools cut costs: Fire the janitors and pay students to do the cleaning.

Needless to say, the idea to turn students into moonlighting janitors had about as much support as Gingrich's presidential campaign.

But ask Kim De Costa and she'll say there isn't anything radical about asking students to clean up after themselves. At her school, there are no janitors. Instead, students in grades 6-12 meet in teams once or twice a week to clean assigned areas.

De Costa is the executive director of the Armadillo Technical Institute. It's a public charter school in Phoenix, Ore., a few miles from the California border.

For 30 minutes after lunch, students sweep, mop, take out the trash and even clean the bathrooms - but responsibilities rotate so no one is stuck scrubbing toilets more than two or three times a year.

De Costa says it's easy to encourage students to respect their environment when they're the ones responsible for preserving it.

"We really wanted a school where the students took ownership and made it their own," says De Costa, who helped found ATI in 1999.

The school still has maintenance staff for the difficult or dangerous work. But for the most part, students at ATI handle the daily upkeep. And with a little help from peer pressure, the school stays clean.

Eden Cox, a 10th-grader, says that recently she had to confront a classmate after he left a mess behind. "I got on to him and said, 'Can you please throw your trash away so I don't have to,' " Cox recalls.

"After all, it's our school," she says, with an emphasis on "our."

Places like ATI that build cleanup into the curriculum are rare in the United States.

But in Japan, there's a long tradition of students cleaning their own schools.

There, "school is not just for learning from a book," says Michael Auslin - a former English teacher in Japan. "It's about learning how to become a member of society and taking responsibility for oneself," says Auslin, who is now a resident scholar and director of Japan studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

To make cleaning easier, Japanese students put on slippers before entering the classroom to prevent dirt from being dragged into the room.
Many Hands Make Light Work
At Brentwood Academy outside Nashville, Tenn., keeping the school spick-and-span is just part of the daily routine for students.

Each day before P.E., students at the private prep school report for 10 minutes of "clean-up" duty in their assigned areas.

Susan Shafer, the school's director of communications, considers "clean-up" an additional component of the school's mission of educating the whole person.

"We're trying to train them for life," says Shafer. "They're all going to go to college. No one is going to clean their dorm room for them."

Maddie Jarrard, an 11th-grader, is responsible for dusting a classroom every day. She says even after sports games, Brentwood players are expected to stay behind to pick up any trash left in the stands.

"They're not only trying to keep the place clean," says Jarrard, referring to Brentwood's staff. "But they're also trying to build character in each student."

While some parents might balk at the idea of a school taking time away from class to make students push a broom, educators at both ATI and Brentwood both say that parents have shown overwhelming support.

If anything, according to staff, parents want to know how to get their kids to clean their room at home as well as they do at school.

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Without Janitors, Students Are In Charge Of Keeping School Shipshape

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Back in 2011, Newt Gingrich was running for president, and he proposed a radical idea to help schools cut costs: Fire the janitors and pay students to do the cleaning. Needless to say, the idea to turn students into moonlighting janitors had about as much support as Gingrich's presidential campaign.

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Other than learning how to clean, what lesson do you think gained by students through this kind of activities?

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A few weeks before my son started first grade, I asked my friend Nagako to help me read the list of school supplies I needed to buy.

We were going down the list - hasami (scissors), iroenpitsu (colored pencils) - when we got to the item that always strikes me as odd: zokin (cleaning rag). I stopped and commented on it to my friend.

Nagako looked at me blankly. "Why is that funny? What do American kids use to clean at school? A mop?"

"American children don't clean at school. There are adult employees called janitors or custodians who do all the cleaning," I replied.

She was shocked. One of the traditions of Japanese education is that students do o-soji (cleaning). It had never occurred to my friend that things might be different elsewhere.

"Actually, Japan is famous for o-soji," I told her. "That's one of the few things foreigners tend to know about Japanese schools."

Unfortunately, those foreigners tend to get the details wrong. I've twice seen in print the assertion that Japanese schools have no janitors because students do all the cleaning. I saw this once in the New York Times and once in a book from a reputable university press.

It's simply not true. Japanese schools have non-teaching staff called yomushuji, or shuji for short. They have many responsibilities, including serving as crossing guards when school lets out, but their main job is cleaning and maintenance.

It's a good thing, too. I've watched students clean on several occasions. Schools definitely need adults to mop things up after the kids finish cleaning.

At our school, o-soji starts after lunch and lasts 20 minutes, after which the kids are set free for recess. This happens four times a week (they don't clean on Wednesday or Saturday). On the last day of each semester, there is a longer sprucing-up called osoji (big cleaning). Throughout cleaning time, the public announcement system blasts cheerful marching music ("the o-soji song," my kids call it).

Every class is responsible for cleaning its own classroom and two other places in the school. My son's fourth-grade class is currently in charge of the nurse's office and the library. The class is divided into han (small groups), each of which is responsible for one of the areas to be cleaned.

Here's one assignment I find really sweet and typical of the attention to human relations at Japanese schools: A group of sixth-graders is sent to each first-grade classroom to help the little kids clean. Many schools provide this kind of interaction between the upper and lower grades because so many Japanese kids are hitorikko (only children, i.e., they have no siblings). Teachers believe older students need to experience helping younger children. And little kids need older role models.

Three times a year, students in third grade and above do chiiki seiso (neighborhood cleanup). The school has an arsenal of kid-size brooms and dustpans that are brought out for the event. The kids put on cotton-knit gloves called gunte (another item on my list of school supplies) and head out to pick up trash in the neighborhood around the school.

Not all schools bother with neighborhood cleanups anymore. I heard on television recently that littering by Japanese teenagers is on the increase. A commentator on the show suggested that more middle and high schools should organize chiiki seiso. If teenagers had to pick up trash around their school, maybe they'd think twice before littering, he said.

Naturally, some kids are more serious about cleaning than others.

Recently I observed a group of third-graders assigned to clean the center staircase. Two girls were deeply immersed in chatter as they stood on the stairs, wiping one spot on the handrail over and over. A boy had flopped himself down on the landing, his legs splayed out in front of him, his left hand idly sliding a dirty zokin back and forth on the floor.

My son happily confessed to me that when he was in third grade, with responsibility for those stairs, he and his classmates would drop cleaning rags down the hole in the center of the staircase. Then they'd race to see who could be the first to get down three flights and return with his rag.

Schools vary in how much emphasis they put on o-soji. Our school draws the line at the toilets, which are cleaned by the shuji, not the students. But at a friend's school in Chiba, fifth- and sixth-graders get latrine duty. (They hate it, naturally).

One of my tennis partners sends her kids to a prestigious private elementary school. Her big dissatisfaction with the education they receive is that the school doesn't require students to clean.

"Where are they going to learn to clean if not at school?" she complained to me recently. "I certainly can't get them to clean at home. I don't think either one of them has the slightest idea how to use a broom and dustpan!"

At the other extreme is a private girls' school near Yotsuya in Tokyo. Despite its reputation as an o-josama gakko (school for spoiled, rich girls), students there are expected to be unusually thorough when cleaning. I hear the toilets at that school sparkle.

It's a little hard for non-Japanese to grasp why kids should be cleaning at school. With all the concern about falling academic achievement, shouldn't they be using that time for learning?

But students are learning during o-soji, Japanese parents and educators will tell you. They are learning to respect their surroundings. They are learning that it's better not to make a mess if you are the one who has to clean it up.

Having watched the students at our school clean, I'm a little skeptical. I don't think many kids are taking those lessons to heart. And while I wish I could report an improvement in my own children's habits since they started attending Japanese school, they are as messy as ever.

Still, I'm going to keep an open mind and hope they are building character and learning to respect public space.

If nothing else, maybe they'll learn how to use a broom and dustpan.

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Kids get down to classroom clean-ups | The Japan Times

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A few weeks before my son started first grade, I asked my friend Nagako to help me read the list of school supplies I needed to buy. We were going down the list - hasami (scissors), iroenpitsu (colored pencils) - when we got to the item that always strikes me as odd: zokin (cleaning rag).

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Japan’s mouthwatering school lunch program is a model for the rest of the world

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Japan’s mouthwatering school lunch program is a model for the rest of the world

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Japanese school lunches aren't synonymous with "mystery meat," but rather, s hokuiku. It means "food and nutrition education," and it's a vital part of the Japanese child's early education.

Beginning in elementary school, kids come to understand that what you put into your body matters a great deal in how you think and feel throughout the day - and how you go about your life.

As a country, Japan prioritizes school lunch. If parents can't front the $2.50 cost of a meal, free and reduced lunch programs help kids stay full.

"Japan's standpoint is that school lunches are a part of education," Masahiro Oji, a government director of school health education, told the Washington Post in 2013, "not a break from it."

Here's what it looks like to be one of the global leaders in lunchtime.

Lunchtime in Japanese primary schools is almost sacred. It isn't hurried or hasty - kids get the time just to sit and eat.

Kids serve one another in an effort to reinforce a culture of self-sufficiency. In many schools, there is no janitor. Kids learn to pick up after themselves.

Rice has been a staple for decades, but it wasn't until the 1970s that school lunches began to look mostly like what they do today.

Source: The Washington Post

Lunch often comes with a main dish, rice, and a side soup. This lunch has miso soup, a small packet of dried fish, milk, rice, and pork fried with vegetables.

Another option might include tofu with meat sauce on rice, paired with a salad, apple, and carton of milk.

At Jinego Elementary School, in Akita Prefecture, a typical lunch includes chicken, rice, miso wakame soup, vegetable salad, milk, and a tangerine.

Jinego Elementary will occasionally offer curry and rice, which comes with milk and fruit salad. Many other schools will offer Korean or Italian food at least once a week.

Source: The Washington Post

About 25 miles away, Yashima Junior High School offers students rice, pork, and egg; lemon yogurt; tofu seaweed soup; and milk.

The end result isn't just a satisfied student body, but one that learns responsibility and healthy eating habits. Japan's life expectancy is among the highest in the world, while it's rate of obesity is well below the global average.

With the end of any good meal comes one inevitability: naptime.

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Chris Weller, Business Insider US

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Japan's mouthwatering school lunch program is a model for the rest of the world

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Japanese school lunches aren't synonymous with "mystery meat," but rather, s hokuiku. It means "food and nutrition education," and it's a vital part of the Japanese child's early education. Beginning in elementary school, kids come to understand that what you put into your body matters a great deal in how you think and feel throughout the day - and how you go about your life.

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School lunch programme for health promotion among children in Japan

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School lunch programme for health promotion among children in Japan

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The school lunch programme putting all others to shame

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The school lunch programme putting all others to shame

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Toru Takahashi/AP

The country ensures lunch is delicious, healthy, and part of the curriculum.

Do efforts to feed students help improve their performance in school? Mick Mulvaney, director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, grabbed headlines Thursday when he argued in favor of cutting federal funds to programs that provide food to poor students. His justification: There's "no demonstrable evidence" that the programs help them do better in school.

Tell that to Japan, where more than 10 million kids receive delicious, fresh food every school day, in large part because the country considers lunch part of a child's education, not a break from school. What students there receive is a far cry from the processed, reheated meals you'd find in American schools. Picture a tray filled with fish with pear sauce, mashed potatoes, and vegetable soup. The ingredients come from local farmers or the school's farm, and a team of cooks made the dishes that morning.

Elementary and junior high school students eat lunch in their classroom, where they learn about nutrition and Japan's food history and culture. They also take turns serving the meal to each other, cleaning up, and recycling. As government school lunch experts Nobuko Tanaka and Miki Miyoshi write, this helps children acquire "a sense of gratitude" and "spirit to appreciate foods and social manners."

In the late 19th century, some Japanese schools began to provide lunches for poor children. But it wasn't until after WWII, with the School Lunch Act of 1954, that school lunch became a nationwide program. In the years following the war Japanese school lunches consisted largely of U.S. and other international donations-lots of powdered skim milk and bread. By the 1970s the meal had become much like what kids eat today. Soups, vegetables, fish, and rice are common.

While municipalities pay for the labor it takes to make the lunches, parents pay for the food, about $2.50 per meal. Reduced or free lunches are available for those in need. Some children depend on school lunch for their main meal; around 16 percent of two-parent households in Japan aren't able to supply enough food for their children, and this figure increases to 32 percent for single-parent households. An education official from Fukuoka, in southern Japan, told Japan Today, "There are many elementary and junior high kids who depend on school lunches, who come back from summer break looking very thin."

There's a term in Japanese for "food and nutrition education": Shokuiku. In 2005, with more children battling eating disorders, the government enacted a law on Shokuiku that encourages schools to educate children on good food choices. In 2007, the government advocated for hiring diet and nutrition teachers. Though these teachers are only in a small percentage of elementary and junior high schools, research has shown their positive effects, from better school attendance to fewer leftovers.

Japan's school lunch program has also no doubt contributed to the country's low global rate of obesity. And Japan's life expectancy, at 85, is one of the world's highest. In contrast, the U.S. has a high obesity rate and a lower life expectancy of 79.8.

The likes of Jamie Oliver and Michelle Obama have tried to improve American school lunch. The 2010 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, championed by Obama, mandated larger portions of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, and limited calories. Studies showed some positive effects, though the legislation is now under threat by lobbyists looking to capitalize on the new administration's likely sympathetic stance on their calls to allow more sodium and reduce whole grains in school food.

As U.S. politicians and local leaders debate these issues, they might do well to consider the Japanese system. Where else do reverence and nostalgia for healthy school meals spur a restaurant to serve up the fare? One municipality in northern Tokyo even publishes a cookbook of its greatest school lunch hits. And parents call up their children's schools for recipes.

"[They] hear their kids talking about what they had for lunch," a Tokyo principal told The Washington Post. "Kids ask them to re-create the meals at home."

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Japan's School Lunch Program Puts Others to Shame

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The country ensures lunch is delicious, healthy, and part of the curriculum. Do efforts to feed students help improve their performance in school? Mick Mulvaney, director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, grabbed headlines Thursday when he argued in favor of cutting federal funds to programs that provide food to poor students.

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Encouraging our young to be independent can start with a simple task - tying their own shoelaces, says Mr Dennis Yap, Principal of Punggol Cove Primary.

At one cohort camp, I saw a P5 boy who had just finished a water activity, but was standing around with his shoes in hand. His classmates were already moving off to the next task, but Kyle* looked lost.

I checked to see if he was injured - he wasn't - and asked him why he wasn't joining his friends. I found out Kyle didn't know how to tie his shoelaces. He explained that back home, a helper would always tie his shoelaces.

I helped Kyle with his laces so he could move on.

When I spoke to the camp instructors, they weren't surprised. They had come across Sec 3 students who didn't know how to tie their shoelaces! These children were used to simply slipping on shoes that had been pre-tied.

At the end of the camp, I spoke to Kyle's parents. I explained that tying shoelaces is something we, as adults, take for granted. However, for children, it's an opportunity for them to be independent - one of many important life skills.

I've also met students who refuse to use the camp bathrooms because they are afraid of insects such as cockroaches - and would rather relieve themselves behind a tree.

So, before taking our students for an outdoor camp, we would encourage parents to prepare the child - nothing elaborate needed, simply by going for a picnic outdoors at, say, East Coast Park. Then, get the child to use the public washrooms.

Really, public toilets are very clean nowadays. But you'll be surprised how some children can be so used to the nice bathroom at home that they refuse to relieve themselves in any other bathroom.

I'm happy to say that by the end of every camp, students tend to return to school braver and more confident than before.

Parents who were once over-protective - perhaps due to their own fears or a lack of information, end up feeling proud of their children!

Of course, we help by keeping them updated. When parents stay engaged and in open conversation with the school, it gives them confidence to let go, which helps the child to be independent

This is important even when there are problems such as the child feeling too shy to make friends.

It happens. For them, recess can be the most stressful time of the day. So, when my teachers see a lonely student, they would walk with the child and encourage them to be brave and approach the group they would like to play with. These are teachable moments.

During recess, we loan out sports equipment such as balls and Frisbees for students to use. There's only one catch: they must use these as a group. The strong desire to play encourages children to make friends and be more inclusive.

And at the end of the loan, we'll remind the children to demonstrate these values outside of school.
Mr Dennis Yap is the principal of Punggol Cove Primary School, after serving as principal of Opera Estate Primary School and as vice-principal at Zhenghua Secondary. *Names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

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Encouraging our young to be independent can start with a simple task - tying their own shoelaces, says Mr Dennis Yap, Principal of Punggol Cove Primary. At one cohort camp, I saw a P5 boy who had just finished a water activity, but was standing around with his shoes in hand.

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What Chores at What Age? A guide for parents

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What Chores at What Age? A guide for parents

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Elementary ichinensei (1st grade) students cleaning their classroom.

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Japanese student clean classroom to learn life skills

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Japanese student clean classroom to learn life skills

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Japanese Students Clean Classrooms To Learn Life Skills

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School Lunch in Japan - It’s not just about eating

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School Lunch in Japan - It’s not just about eating

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School Lunch in Japan - It's Not Just About Eating!