Joseph Lee (1862-1937) is known as the “Father of the Playground Movement.” He began his work in Boston, giving children in congested areas playgrounds and recreation facilities, and promoted the enactment of the Massachusetts Playground Law of 1908. He became president of the Playground Association of America (PAA) in 1906, and led the playground and recreation movement until his death in 1937. During his presidency of the PAA, which became the Playground and Recreation Association in 1911, and the National Recreation Association in 1930, Lee advocated the idea of making good citizens through recreation, and, over time, citizenship education became one of his main objectives.

This paper has two purposes: (1) to illuminate the ideological background of Lee’s thoughts on how to make good citizens; and (2) to clarify the meaning of “good citizenship” promoted by Lee.

In the late nineteenth century, Lee considered constructive philanthropy a unique American tradition that should be protected from new immigrants. By constructive philanthropy he meant the development of the spiritual life by facilitating its expression in definite achievement, or in the American way of life. New immigrants, who were unfamiliar with the American way of life, must be restricted judicially, since there was no hope of their becoming good citizens.

Recreation was essential for constructive philanthropy. According to Lee, human beings have natural instincts including spiritual elements, which, when they are fully developed through recreation, would lead to morality and good citizenship. Lee’s emphasis on human instinct and recreation derived from the theory of recapitulation advocated by G. Stanley Hall, though Hall emphasized the physical aspect.

The meaning of good citizenship, Lee asserted, is closely related to the belonging and fighting instincts. The belonging instinct begins in the home, which is the oldest, most fundamental place where a child can play and learn human relations. It is the first form of the state, the parent of all nations, and the single cell of which all nations are composed. Eventually, Lee associated the belonging instinct with patriotism and loyalty to the State, as well as with morality and good citizenship.

The fighting instinct is so deeply ingrained in the human race that it ought to be encouraged, not repressed. A child in his early years is self-assertive, individualistic, and competitive; but as he grows older, he participates in team sports and learns to fight for his team, his school, and his country. Through the experience of participating in games, he transforms the fighting instinct into a belonging instinct, or morality and good citizenship.

This paper aims to reexamine the influence of Social Efficiency’s ideas on practices of teachers in Progressive Era.

Previous studies have showed that thoughts and theories of Social Efficiency, due to its highly administrative, bureaucratic and scientific nature, placed administrators and researchers at the center of curriculum-making rather than teachers. These conclusions, however, were not based on any narrative evidence that we could identify what teachers experienced, felt and thought. We should verify the actual influence of Social Efficiency on schools and teachers.

This study focuses on the Scientific Curriculum-Making Movement during 1920s that was stemmed from the ideas of Social Efficiency. Generally Speaking, the Denver Project started in 1922 is considered as the first case of this movement. In the Winnetka Plan, however, elementary and junior high school teachers and Superintendent, Carleton W. Washburne began curriculum-making in 1920. It was reformation of the entire public school curriculum in Winnetka and probably a pioneer case. Before 1920, teachers of the Winnetka schools were mechanically cramming the contents of curriculum made by the administrators or authorities into children’s heads. In the process of discussion with Washburne, they reconsidered their role as a teacher and felt the necessity to revise school curriculum scientifically by themselves. Teachers voluntarily organized the research seminar and studied principles of curriculum-making, particularly ideas of Franklin Bobbitt, Charles Judd and William Bagley. They eventually internalized thoughts of Social Efficiency as the criteria for curriculum decisions, namely “Common Essentials”. That brought about not only the renewal of school curriculum but also the change of teachers’ professionalism. Teachers began to design practices in a flexible manner while referring to the course of studies, so that they could adjust curriculum to the individual children.

The findings of this study substantiate that teachers of the Winnetka schools developed autonomy on curriculum decision throughout the Scientific Curriculum-Making based on Social efficiency’s thoughts and theories. In other worlds, it indicates that the ideas of Social efficiency placed teachers at the center of curriculum-making rather than administrators or researchers. Farther case studies are needed in order to reveal the whole relationship between Social Efficiency’s ideas and teachers’ practices.

As has been showed, the narrative approach focusing on actual experiences of teachers has possibility to offer different points of view on the Progressive educational ideas and movements.

School-based health centers (SBHCs) are health care facilities, literally what the name implies, locating on school campuses in the United States. The distinctive feature of SBHCs is that they can provide comprehensive health care services (e.g. primary care, mental health care, dental health care, health education, nutrition education, and behavioral health care) to students on-site. It is expected that such SBHCs give an important suggestion on surveying the way of school health care of our country’s future as it can be the one of influential model for more closely and more effective cooperation between schools and school health institutions.

However, although SBHCs are located on school’s site, they are totally different organizations from the schools. Therefore, it is essential to obtain the consent both the students and their guardians when the school and SBHC staffs exchange mutually personal information of the children, based on two federal laws; the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). It becomes very important that schools and SBHCs build an appropriate and effective system to cooperate while getting over such a certain “barrier” in order to demonstrate the maximum capacity of SBHCs.

In this respect, in Alameda County, California State, the coordination of services team (COST) has been adapted since 2005 as the original meeting system of schools and SBHCs cooperation. This COST is a framework of sharing information and action to adjust the services provided by various human resources (school staffs, SBHC staffs, other external leaders, and so on) effectively. The biggest purpose of COST is to support academic achievement and healthy development of children, so COST members discuss and adjust services for students who have educational and medical needs, and follow-up the progress after the services are offered. And now COST has been spreading out not only other areas in California such as Los Angeles but also outside the state in America. Hence, in this paper, I attempt to (i) outline of COST from the analysis of RTI as its theoretical background and to (ii) examine the practical side of COST as one of the prominent system of the cooperation between schools and SBHCs.

Bullying is one of the most considered problems in American schools. Although both school staffs and department of education struggle to reduce school bullying, the number of students who have experienced bullying, harassment and victimization remains unchanged. We must not forget that bullying deprived child of basic human rights in the first place. If bully doesn’t remember such thing, we must have the recognition that all children have a right to learn in a safe school.

First of all, the situation was made by US Department of Education (USDE) based on the results of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). In 1999 New Jersey State had enacted the first anti-bullying law to address bullying in the United States. Too notorious event occurred in that year: The shooting at Columbine High School. In order to make an environment of safety school, the movement to protect children from bullying, harassment and victimization is done. After the spread of such movement, as of May 2017 all states in the United States had enacted it. Besides, 39 states had anti-bullying policies. Despite the spread of anti-bullying laws and policies, some students kill by oneself. This report has an attention to the effectiveness of anti-bullying laws and policies, the structure of addressing bullying incidents occurred in a school, and the strategies of reducing students’ risk of being bullied.

Although Japan established an anti-bullying law to prevent bullying in 2013, little is known about the effectiveness of that law. Considering the American bullying prevention strategies, we can get some idea to reflect Japanese anti-bullying laws and the measure against bullying, harassment and victimization.

The purpose of this study is to analyze concept of teacher’s profession in standard- based early childhood curriculum reform in the United states from the perspective of lived-experience. Findings of this study come from a narrative case study of an early childhood teacher. The teacher worked in an early childhood institute at Chicago narrated her experience as the form of short cinema. Referring Ted T. Aoki’s concept: Dwelling in the zone of between curriculum-as-plan and curriculum-as-lived-experience, this study articulates how the curriculum reform operate teacher’s professional development and how teacher experiences the operation in their lived-experience. Specifically, this article highlights a gap between the model of professional development of the early childhood curriculum reform and the teacher’s subjective process that is to understand meanings of children’s experience. In addition, it addresses how teacher reflects on a conflict between the gap.

The first paragraph of this paper discusses with an idea of standard-based curriculum reform. Federal government started a discussion about standard-based early childhood curriculum reform from 1980’s. At the end of the discussion, National education goals panel suggested that the standard-based curriculum should be organized in terms of the concept of readiness. The panel argued that the purpose of public early childhood education is to guarantee test scores beginning in the first or second grade. The panel established a new concept of teacher’s profession. Early childhood teacher’s essential abilities were limited to use assessment tools and to apply its results to their practice.

The second paragraph of this paper reviews the phenomenological curriculum theory. The phenomenological theorists in North America rejected both rationalism and empiricism and tried to understand experiences as lived of individuals. From this perspective, teaching in classroom is an orientation for teachers toward being in a specific situation. Ted, T Aoki conceptualized the situation as pedagogical situation. Teacher was understood as a being who was dwelling in the zone of between curriculum-as-plan and curriculum-as-lived-experience.

The third paragraph of this paper analyzes a narrative of an early childhood teacher from the perspective of phenomenological curriculum theory. The teacher described her lived-experience as the form of short cinema. She depicted her memory of a boy’s activities who was her student. She attempted to understand his experience from two perspectives. In the first part, she reduced his activities into behaviors to measure his developmental levels using an assessment tool. In the second part, she understood his activities in classroom within his life world. She discovered that he tried to reconstruct identity formation through the activities. Through the inquiry, she realized the operation of standard-based curriculum reform on her pedagogical situation.

Teacher’s lived-experience was disregarded in the reform. Since the horizon of curriculum-as-lived experience was restored into the horizon of curriculum-as-plan, in the operation of the reform, the teacher’s inquiry that was described in second part of her cinema was ignoring. As a result, the reform disturbs teacher’s opportunities to understand a process of children’s growth.