Contrasting Attitudes of Japanese and American Teachers (1982)

In the March 1982 issue of Educational Leadership, research associate Takiko Morimoto explores the attitudes of Japanese and American educators by comparing survey results from a small sample of teachers in Los Angeles with a small sample in Tokyo. Asked about their role in the classroom and within the larger social context, the two groups of teachers differed significantly in approach, outlook, and practice.

Read the article: Contrasting Attitudes of Japanese and American Teachers (PDF)

Extrapolating from survey results, Morimoto notes that just as Japanese factory workers more closely identify with their companies than do American workers, Japanese teachers more closely identify with their schools. Japanese teachers surveyed favored shared decision making and top-down reforms and saw teaching as a personal mission with great value. For example, more than half of the Japanese teachers polled would give up summer vacations to help improve their teaching, and close to 90 percent would refuse to take a second job if it would compromise their teaching—even if they needed the money.

By contrast, American teachers in Morimoto's sample were more likely to see schools "chiefly as a workplace." Morimoto explains that for the Americans surveyed, personal enrichment and self-actualization were more important than a sense of social duty. These American teachers also found teaching less personally satisfying than their Japanese peers did. (Flash forward to the future: Public Agenda and Learning Points Associates' recent study where 40% of teachers identify as "disheartened": Teaching for a Living: How Teachers See the Profession Today.)

Morimoto's snapshot has relevance in modern debates about who is served by education reforms. So-called reformers are harshly critical of policies that prioritize teachers' interests and take what Morimoto might characterize as a Japanese approach to teacher improvement: top-down reforms issued from high-ranking officials and appealing to national interests (Joel Klein or Michelle Rhee, anyone?). 

Do narrowly defined "Japanese" and "American" attitudes about teaching create a false dichotomy, or do these attributes play out on a larger scale? Can we shake these real or perceived differences and move toward a system where supporting students and teachers is not mutually exclusive? Some say this third way is not only possible, but also happening.