The purpose of this study is to reexamine Dewey's methods of early childhood education in order to clarify what elements of these methods can be applied to early childhood education in today's Japan. The structure of Dewey's methods of early childhood education can be viewed as follows. They are aimed at enabling children to independently organize knowledge around central subject matters established by the teacher. Moreover, in order to foster the development of children who voluntarily continue to pursue realistic and cooperative inquiries, the means of childhood study is developed into a cooperative inquiring process that depends on qualitative changes in children's ends, the qualitative development of children's inquiries and the development of cooperative activities among children. While we acknowledge the validity of certain basic criticisms of Dewey's methods of early childhood education, we consider that the following elements of the theory can be constructively applied to early childhood education in today's Japan. 1) The approach that teachers establish central subject matters for children's activities and stress the continuity of children's activity because of importance attached to the independent organization of knowledge by children. 2) The approach that teachers foster the development of children who voluntarily continue to pursue realistic inquiries. 3) The approach that teachers organize cooperative activities among children by making positive use of communication. The application of these elememts to early childhood education in Japan has an effect on our accomplishment of the basic educational tasks of encouraging children to acquire knowledge, fostering the development of children who voluntarily continue to pursue their study, making use of child's individuality, and realizing a cooperative relationship among children.

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The origin of project method has been regarded as one at the beginning of this century. But M. Knoll's article (1991) presents the fact that the word "project" has been used since 18C., in the royal academy of architecture in Paris, later in technical colleges in Germany and U.S., as the concept of a method of teaching. This paper describes the theory and practice of C. M. Woodward who established Manual Training School in St. Louis Mo., in 1879. According to Knoll, he is "the father" or "the pioneer" of project method, and "the mediator" of this concept from college to high school. Such a historical position is examined, in this paper, especially through the analysis of the practice in Woodward's school, and of the features of his project.

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This paper looks at a new approach to early childhood education by examining Frobel's "Leiblichkeit". First, we discuss the idea that all human beings are born into a system of interrelationships with others. Through his/her earliest physical and tactual relationships, each human being already has the latent "Intersubjektivitat", which will manifest itself later in life. Second, we elucidate how Frobel emphasized the importance of rhythm in education and child care, and then refer to the relationship between rhythm and speech. Third, we study the process of how infants acquire physical consciousness (image) by examining the concept "Mutter-und Koselieder". Then we stress the importance of caretakers' encouragement in developing physical rhythmic expression from infancy, as well as the importance of letting infants experience inter-human resonance through rhythm. Fourth, we discuss the "spiral", the basic characteristic of Frobel's "Bewegungsspiel", and elucidate how the "spiral", along with rhythm, represents a vital phenomenon. Lastly we examine Frobel's "Spielfest", to show the humanistic significance of celebrations and festivals.

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In this paper I analyse the change of paradigm in the German didactitics after 1970. The main object of this study is the "communicative didactics". Communicative didactics was established by many researchers who criticize the school that gave its focus on the efficiency of education. This didactics considers that the interactive communication among human subjects is most important, because it realizes "the productive-creative function of communication". Communicative didactics will change the relation between teacher and child into symmetrical one. It means the creative "inter-subject" relation. But, at the sametime this didactics protests against "the simple misunderstanding" that there is not the concept of "leadership" in that relation. I analyse the process of the establishment, development and ripply effect of this didactics. I clarify the basic structure of "the theory of teaching and communication".

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The purpose of this paper is to make it clear how the concept of "educational relations" was re-interpreted theoretically in Germany after the World War II. Herman Nohl proposed the concept of the educational relations. The concept means the human relations between a teacher and a student and can be defined as the personal and passionate relations of a teacher to a student. Nohl's educational relations influenced other German educational researchers in their thoughts. But after the World War II, especially from the 1960s, the way of comprehending the concept was changed theoretically. For the background of the new viewpoints in education, the concept of "educational interaction" was offered in Germany from the 1960s, instead of the educational relations. It is a kind of vague concept that is difficult for us to define it clearly. We can interpret it in the two ways, that is, "the social interaction in education" and "the educational interactionism". In this paper the main stress falls on the consideration of the latter. In the view of the educational interactionism, the educational interaction is interpreted by means of the symbolic interactionism. The term of symbolic interactionism refers to the peculiar and distinctive character of interaction as it takes place between human beings. Thus, the interaction between a teacher and a student is mediated by use of the symbols, by interpretation, or by ascertaining the meaning of each other's actions. So the educational interaction means that a student has the equal stance with his teacher, then they interact. Therefore, the concept takes the logical status, what Jurgen Habermas and Klaus Mollenhauer defined it as the concept of "Discourse". The discourse is rational communication and the type of the human relations which is regarded as the ideal relations between a teacher and a student.

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This article describes the educational action as the Symbolic Interaction. Current studies of the educational action emphasize the spatial relations between teacher and students. But in the educatinal action, we must grasp it in temporality. In this respect, Symbolic interactionism gives us fruitful suggestions. Symbolic Interactionism which derives from the thought of G. H. Mead was accepted by German pedagogy in 1970s'. This theory rests on three premises: that human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings the things have for them, that the meaning of such things derive from the social interaction one has with one's fellows, that these meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretative process. This theory deals with not only human interpersonal communication but also intrapersonal communication. Furthermore, it deals with intersubjectivity and temporality. H. Joas says Mead's philosophy of time is certainly the least intelligible and least well elucidated part of his work. The key concept of Joas's study is practical intersubjectivity and the relation between intersubjectivity and temporality. Especially in educational action as Symbolic Interaction, we must pay attention to temporality of educational action. I will discuss the practical intersubjectivity, which bases on cooperative action in the classroom, and the relation between cooperative action and temporality.

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In this paper the fundamental issue of the relation between child development and education is discussed, especially the internalization model of social influences. In general terms, internalization refers to the process by which external action and material are transmitted to internal plane. The views of internalization model usually presuppose an external-internal dualism, and are tied to an assumption that mental processes exist within the isolated individual. In a variety of theories using the notion of internalization child development through teaching-learning is viewed as wholly internal possession of external pieces of knowledge and skill, that is, internalization of ready-made standards of behaviour and cognition. To overcome the theory of teaching-learnig and development based on the views of internalization views, we need to shift to the expanded model of human mental development. This model is created in the idea of mediated action that serves as the starting category of analysis, and accounts the very specific and important role of mediating artifacts in the process of human activity. According to this idea, we can view human mental development as active and creative transformation of individual(s) operating with mediating artifacts in sociocultural activity. In connection with the idea of mediation, the semiotic version of activity theory rethinking L. S. Vygotsky's idea gives special attention to the way in which mental development emerges from the activity of a subject mediated by inter-subjective relations. This perspective provides an important correction to an assumption that the individual is a passive recipient of external social or cultural influences. Humans can change and transform their own subjective worlds through using and creating mediating artifacts of activity. An explicit analysis of the role of mediation makes it possible to conceptualize the creative character of teaching-learnig and development. From the new perspective, the telos of teaching-learnig activity can be appreciated as forming societally important new intellectual tools and patterns of collaboration rather than the acquisition of pieces of knowledge and skill. Child development through teaching-learning is creative transformation within culturally organized social (inter-subjective) environment. In this paper this conceptualizaion is proposed through an analysis of a classroom interaction in social studies.

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The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the concept of "style" as the pedagogical term through a case study of an American female teacher's radical teaching at the elementary school. The teacher's name is Jane Eliot, and the documentary film's title of this practice is "A Class Divided". To teach the racial problem she divided her class by the color of the children, and discriminated against their color. This experiment had an extraordinary effect on reducing their racial prejudice. At first, her skills are detailed and their pedagogical meanings are clarified. This description makes it clear that the effect of this experiment is based on her detail skills which are usually overlooked. Secondaly, her lived body's imporant role in her practice is described. This description is based on Melreau-Ponty's phenomenological study of our lived body. Lastly, her teaching style is interpreted. The concept of style means the coherent deformation of the standard mode in several demensions from one's principle or identity to the concrete teaching skills. In conclusion, the meanings of an excellent teaching method can be learned by the description and interpretation of the teacher's detail skills, lived body, and style.

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In a lot of schools today, there are many trouble and serious on teaching in the classrooms. It has been thought that there is one of the causes in the relationships between the teachers and the students. But the relathonships are some imagination, parsonal or emotional things, and the studies about that are very few. So the relationships between both have not been known anything generally. The aim of this study has been to make clear about the student's relationships with the teachers. The results have been got by analyzing the free writing answers from the students of the elementary school and the junior high school. These are follows; 1. All the students have desired to hold good relationships with the teachers and the teachers to be good personality. 2. Almost bad teaching behaviors have not been noticed by the teachers themselves. 3. It has been recognized that there have been some changes about the elements of the student's relationships with the teachers by the differences of their characters. If the teachers will be able to notice and control their such behaviors in the classrooms, they will develop their own limits and standards to fit new situation. As the next step, the theories of the teacher-student relationships will have to he practiced among the school teachers. In this way, gradually the schools will be very calm places and students will be able to study well.

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From the standpoint of post-war classroom edcution, in Japan the major teaching methods to promote the development of thinking power in students are the "Yusaburi" theory (bringing up doubts in the students' minds), the "Tsumazuki No Sakidori"(clarifying the most difficult issues of any subject before going on to the main subject) teaching method, and the technique of using drama within the classroom. In China, similar teaching methods are represented by the "Yiwen Fa" (brining up doubts) technique, overall design of the education system so as to promote the development of thinking power, and "Qingjing Jiaoue Fa" (trying to give the students the feeling that they are actually at the scene or directly involved with whatever is being taught). Yusaburi serves as a sort of "ignition fluid" for the development of the student's thinking power, this creation of doubt pulls the student along to further growth. In order for the students to grow up into adults with their own independent thinking ability, it is necessary for the teacher to provide through guidance. In order to stimulate critical thinking in the students, the creation of an experiential feel in the education environment is essential.

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The use of video tape recorders in the study of the classroom teaching and learning processes has increased and diversified in order to describe teaching and learning communication. I made a hypothesis and tested it by experiment in the preceding research. -The hypothesis that video records of the teaching and learning process should be connected with the recorder's viewpoint of the child's cognition or behavior of the teaching materials was confirmed. -The aim of this paper is to develop how to describe protocol of teaching and learning communication from the viewpoint of analyzing shot-size. Fundamental and Sub categories were set up in order to describe the point of view of the observer taking a video. The unit entitled CHISANA NEKO in the first grade at an elementary school in AKITA prefectre were recorded from the same camera position by two student teachers. The style of description using the categories was applied to the video record. So those categories are effective for the describing viewpoint of recording observer.

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When you say "linguistic ability in the national language in Okinawa," you will fell something contradictory. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how we should grasp "linguistic ability in the national language in Okinawa" which was once an independent state and has its own vernacular, and where the people have been taught Japanese as the national language after "the Ryukyu-Shobun (the Disposal of Ryukyu)" in 1879, when Okinawa became a quasi-colony. For this purpose I consider two basic problems, (1) what attitude Okinawan people have taken toward Japanese as the national language, (2) what kind of linguistic culture is covered in school education. From this consideration, the following results are found. (1) We should grasp "linguistic ability in the national language in Okinawa" over the tension between the terms, "the national language" or "the standerd language" and "Ryukyu dialect" or "Ryukyu language", using the terms of the intelligentsia and teachers, or, using the terms of the ordinary people, between "Uchina-guchi (Okinawan tongue)" and Yamato-guchi (Japanese). The consciousness of the tense relation between their mother tongue and "the national language" will be the part of "linguistic ability in the national language in Okinawa".

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This Paper describes meanings of area studies and several effective methods to advance experiences to abstract thinkings. Experiences in community are foundations of social understanding. In Japanese social studies, it is only chance to study community that area studies in elementary school. So area studies are very important for growth of children's social awareness. In area studies, we teach not only the structure of society but also mutual relations and communications in community. Children have to study a way of objective looking at community. For improving children's social awareness, it is necessary to objectify their experiences and knowledges in social studies. For that purpose, discussion, drawing imaginative maps and making stories are very available means. By their methods, children change subjective judgments to objective ones.

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The purpose of this paper is to clarify the principle of teaching history for strengthening the Counter-political socialization. In this paper, the author try to analyze the textbook, "Opposing Viewpoints: American History Series" developed by a historian, John C. Chalberg. The results of the analysis are as follows. 1) It is necessary for the students to take a critical thinking on the existing political norms, in order to strenghthening the Counter-socialization. 2) It might be possible to break the existing political norms into the individual acts and policies. 3) A critical thinking of the existing political norms for the students can be realized by tracing the process of making policies at the historical situations. 4) To reconsider the process of framing the existing political norms can be realized by analysing the opposing viewpoints at the time of submitting the individual policies.

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In the new national curriculum of Japan, the course works (Kadai Gakushuu) of junior high school mathematics has made big news. But, we can find so many various opinions on the course work that we cannot decide which is the true Kadai Gakushuu. I give, in this article, some historical view of the course work, and what it should be in the mini-culture of the classroom, and using a theory on the reinforcement of the motivation, how it should act. In the other words I claim that the course work should act as a multi-dimentional means of evaluations in the classroom and we should make environments for the desirable hidden curriculum. The word "estimate" makes us think that the scores must be objective, and that the score is to be used in the selection process for senior high schools. But it is against the new values of course work. Coursework should not serve as a means of evaluation but a way of encourging students. To introduce students' work to other students is not for evaluation but it is to develop mutual appreciation in the mini-culture of the classroom.

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This paper reports and discusses experimental classes integrating math and fine arts as a trial to go beyond the relationship between two or more subjects. Despite the teachers' efforts as rote and drill-centered classes using step-by-step learning materials, their classes would only sometimes accelerate each learner's passive attitude toward learning. In order to create a positive learning environment, task or problem-solving learning would be one of the best solutions. Thus, task learning was introduced to the 7th graders, although in the past it had been conducted for the 8th graders and/or upper graders. Also developed within this trial was task learning into topic-based or integrated learning. Six classes were alloted with the title of "From dimensional imaging to artistic design."

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