Abstract
The author of this paper has carried out an attempt to educate high-school students by cooperation with community residents in Itami city, Hyogo, Japan for about ten years since 2003. Specifically, students are given an opportunity to work in a shopping street run by community residents as a full-fledged member of society, which is called the ‘Shopping Street School.' It is expected to develop bonds of people in a community in the attempt. The process of realizing the School was described in the first half of this paper.
The School is totally different from ordinary school education in which a teacher follows what is determined in a formal textbook. The School never follows a predetermined scenario. It is expected for students to enjoy writing a scenario by themselves and playing it with pleasure and troubles and grow as a human. However, it is an enormous challenge for a teacher to play an undetermined scenario with students as far as the School is a part of formal educational activities of high school. In the second half of this paper, we focused on the Halloween Party that was one of the most important events in the School and analyzed how students worked for the event and how teachers responded to it after wavering in their determination.
Just a few case studies on an attempt of community residents to grow children were reported so far although the importance of such an attempt had been emphasized. The author wants to send this paper as a precious message that includes a series of troubles that he actually experienced.
