I have been a teacher for 28 years. For the last 23, I’ve taught English and humanities at Mount View School in Thorndike. Last spring, I was accepted in the Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher Program, a three-week learning experience in Japan with 199 other American teachers. The school year was still in session when, in an effort to learn more about Japanese culture and education, I read Bruce Feiler’s book “Learning to Bow: An American Teacher in a Japanese School,” and in my journal I transcribed three quotations:

. “In Japan, the dream of personal freedom is not the Holy Grail that it

is in the West. People aspire instead to drink from a cup that is well

worn and has been passed around the room.”

. “If Japan had a national shape, it would surely be the circle… ‘We like

round things … We want to run smoothly with no sharp edges.'”

. “The problem that I face is knowing when to act like you and when to act like me. Perhaps that is the secret of what you can call ‘internationalization.’ None of us can be one color all the time. We must learn how to change naturally.”

Would my own experiences in Japan confirm the truth of Feiler’s observations? If so, how would these ideas manifest themselves in the schools I will visit on the island of Amami in southwestern Japan? What connection do these ideas have with the statistics that we are all familiar with placing Japanese students at the top in international testing comparisons?

My journey begins.

In June, I travel to San Francisco, the first leg of the trip and the meeting spot for the teachers in the program. We are reminded of the goals of the FMF program: to increase understanding between the people of Japan and the United States; to enrich curricula by presenting teachers with the opportunity to integrate international perspectives and methodologies; to encourage more Americans to appreciate the people, culture, and educational system of Japan; and to expand international professional development opportunities for educators.

We begin to meet these goals during nine days in Tokyo and during one-week visits in groups of 20 to 10 different prefectures (similar to states). We will continue to work with the people we meet when we are back in our classrooms and communities. It’s an exciting task that we can’t wait to begin. During our first four days in Tokyo, I listen to experts on Japanese economy, education and government discuss the education reforms recently instituted in Japan. School days have dropped from six to five days each week, moral education has been implemented, and there is a new sense of balance between academics and “the whole child.”

I believe these reforms have been prompted by at least three factors. First, the stress that students experience because of the heavy emphasis on test performance for acceptance to high schools as well as universities. Second, a rising concern over “bullying” in schools. Third, a growing belief that Japan needs more creativity to compete in the new global economy.

Experts are quick to praise the performance of Japanese students, but are also candid about the weaknesses inherent in a system that focuses too heavily on the mind at the expense of the heart and the imagination. They are also open about the strengths and weaknesses of a society in which the needs of the group are considered more important than those of the individual. I realize that in the United States we face the same dilemma, but we approach it from the other end, placing more emphasis on the individual rights and giving the group secondary consideration. Each emphasis, if pushed to the extreme, has its dangers.

Already Feiler’s words have begun to resonate, but the most important statement for me was made by Prof. Susumu Ishitani, a survivor of the bombing of Nagasaki: “All education, if it is done right, is peace education.” Can we understand why we’re different, accept those differences, and move on without trying to change the other person? This crystallizes my own purpose in coming to Japan and in sharing my experiences when I return.

After a week of experiencing Japanese culture in and around Tokyo, my group heads for Amamioshima, but first we stop at Kagoshima University on the island of Kyushu to meet with Japanese education majors. They emphasize a difference that is important to understand if I am to learn anything else about Japanese society. Japanese students, they say, are unwilling to express ideas and true feelings. They ask us for ideas that might help to encourage students to be more open.

We are quick to offer suggestions. Use small groups that give students an opportunity to talk informally before having to speak in front of the entire class. Raise questions for which there are no single answers; ask students to keep journals of their own thoughts. Give students research projects that require them to teach the class what they’ve learned.

I think about two Japanese words I’ve recently learned regarding the expression of ideas: Tate-mae (appropriate sentiment) and Honne (true sentiment). The Japanese people, I remember, “want things to run smoothly,” and fear that any confrontation or unpleasant feeling will damage a relationship. Therefore, they are reluctant to “speak their minds” in many situations.

Can education change this ingrained trait? Should it even try? At what point does not speaking out do harm? I am beginning to question my own beliefs, considering which “new colors” might be good to try on for a while.

When we arrive in Amamioshima, a group from Naze City holds up a huge welcome banner. They greet us by putting a shell necklace over each of our heads. Our week’s stay includes meetings with local officials and tours of cultural sights, but the highlights are a weekend home-stay and three days in the schools.

On the morning of our first school visit to Naze City Asahi Junior High School, I sit at the window of our hotel and watch students on their way to school. Perhaps it’s the uniformity of their appearance that makes them seem, at first glance, so different from American students. They all wear navy blue and white uniforms, and each one carries the same black leather satchel. Many boys are wearing bright yellow caps, and the girls are carrying towels in their hands.

Then, when I look more closely, I see these students are not so different from my own back in Maine. Some are sleepy and yawn, others are eager and laughing, and still others are zombielike, going through the motions.

At the Naze City school, we must first remove our shoes and place them in cubbies provided for the students, staff and visitors who enter the building. This is a superficial difference between our countries, but it has larger implications. In his book, Feiler says that the classroom, indeed, the school itself, is “leased” to students to take care of while they are there. This respect for the building and for the people who are in it is fostered by many practices in this junior high as well as in the high school and elementary school we visit later in the week.

Before class begins, students meditate briefly, then stand to bow to each other and greet the teacher. At lunchtime, students dressed in white jackets and hats and wearing masks over their mouths (for sanitary reasons) transport food from the kitchen to the homerooms. They serve each other, chatter happily together, and then clean the dishes and return them to the kitchen. Near the end of the day during a half-hour cleanup time, each student goes to his or her assigned cleaning job – washing windows and floors, edging the grass by the walkways, dusting shelves and shoe cubbies, weeding flower beds, or washing teacher coffee cups – while upbeat music is piped throughout the school.

Clearly, these practices build an impressive feeling of community and pride in the school, and they provide food for thought about practices that often go unexamined in American schools. Why don’t we ask students to participate in the cleaning of our schools? Why do we consider it the teacher’s responsibility to begin the class? How do we foster a sense of belonging and personal investment in our classrooms?

Here is what stands out about my classroom observations: There are large numbers of students in each class – upwards of 40 is not uncommon. While most students are attentive, there are also class clowns, sleepers, hand-raisers, whisperers.

There is also the student response to us. During breaks, students are friendly and open, some are even willing to try out their budding English skills on us. Most enthusiastic are the elementary school students who line up for our autographs wherever they get a chance. They hand us notebooks, rulers, hats, books – whatever they can find – watch intently as we sign, and then bow politely before backing away from us. I wonder how American students would respond to a group of visiting Japanese teachers.

For a week, the heat and humidity, the landscape and vegetation, the food, the customs of the people, the language, the music, and even the clothing have made me keenly aware of differences between our cultures, but on our last full day in Amami, at a meeting with PTA members, I am reminded once again of what we share with the people of Amami and the rest of Japan.

They, too, are concerned with the quality of education their children are receiving. They worry about whether their children are accepting enough of responsibilities for their actions, whether they have high enough aspirations, whether they are developing into good people. They wonder if, as adults, they are doing all that they can, and they are looking for ways to involve parents and community at large in educating all children.

We return to Tokyo for our final three days during which we share our experiences with the other Fulbright groups. Although we have similar stories to tell, I am reminded of another comment by Prof. Susumi Ishitani: “It is dangerous to generalize.” This, too, I want to bring back to my students.

It is now September and I am back in my own classroom, sharing my experiences with my students. I know I have much to learn about the Japanese people, their culture, and their education system, and my students are going to help me to learn. As they look at my slides of Japanese students in their schools and help to run our classroom by taking responsibility for beginning and ending class, for cleaning the room, and for teaching each other, they will be exploring their thoughts in personal journals. Already, they are seeing themselves differently.

“When Japanese people they must think …” or “I don’t think American students would…” are some words they’ve used to begin their exploration. Like Feiler, they will be wondering what they can take from the Japanese to make their own. They will be trying on some “new colors,” and deciding if and when to wear them. This, I hope, will be a foundation for peace education in our classroom.