クロス・カリキュラムと教科、そして「これから」

抄録

  In this paper the author discusses the merits and demerits of cross-curriculum and an independent subject as learning methods for environmental education, and furthermore points out that more integrated learning methods should be developed in the future.

  Since 1990, Japanese schools have adopted a learning method called cross-curriculum, in which environmental factors are covered in each subject. However, around 2010, many argued that environmental education should be an independent subject.

  The author is positive about making environmental education an independent subject, because in South Korea, which made environmental subjects an independent subject in 1992, teachers specializing in environmental education were trained, and the content and methods of environmental education continued to be innovated. This kind of innovation is difficult to achieve in cross-curriculum learning. On the other hand, in Japan, each subject group has strong power to its interests, so it has been difficult to keep a certain number of hours for environmental education and make it an independent subject.

  In recent years, there has been a growing recognition that it is important to integrate various fields to solve problems for a sustainable society. From this point of view, cross-curriculum and making environmental education an independent subject is not appropriate. This presupposes divided subjects, which is the opposite of integration.

  Therefore, in this paper, the author argues that each school should set up a “Period for becoming a creator of a sustainable society”, in which integrated project learning is carried out to solve issues related to building a sustainable society.