Abstract
The major purpose of this paper is to analyze the characteristics of mori-no-youchien, which is starting to have a high profile in infant education, and thereby determine its significance in today's education system in Japan. There are already more than one hundred mori-no-youchien in Japan, and they can be classified into three groups: the “everyday”, the “event” and the “integrated” types.
This paper focuses on the first “everyday” type, which is defined in this paper as the type that provides nursery and educational services every weekday, all year around, in principle, and is largely managed by a citizens’ voluntary circle. This type of mori-no-youchien shares many important characteristics with shizen-gakkou. The “everyday” type has three major characteristics: education that embraces nature, freedom from established curricula, and management by independent citizens.
Historical and terminological analysis of mori-no-youchien and shizen-gakkou shows that the “everyday” type can provide a critical viewpoint for examining the role of the school system in supporting an industrial society and helping us become aware of problems arising from today’s education, which, for example, sometimes places excessive emphasis on conformism on the one hand and competition on the other. While this posture of mainstream school education is not necessarily compatible with democratic values, the “everyday” type of mori-no-youchien reflects democracy through both daily kindergarten activities and participatory management by committed citizens.
In conclusion, mori-no-youchien is not only an emerging hope for early childhood education, but also provides a setting for development of promising alternatives to today's formal education system.
