Pages from my Diary: Shikoku Love at First Sight
http://www.how-to-teach-english-in-japan.com/shikoku.html
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
JIGG Table Games Club
JIGG Table Games Club offers free membership!
We play air hockey, foosball or table soccer, subbuteo, table hockey,
electric football, chess, shogi, go, backgammon, table tennis and more!
You get the idea!
Join us at the link below:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/JIGG-Table-Games/
We play air hockey, foosball or table soccer, subbuteo, table hockey,
electric football, chess, shogi, go, backgammon, table tennis and more!
You get the idea!
Join us at the link below:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/JIGG-Table-Games/
Friday, August 7, 2009
KevCon: Boardgames Weekend, Sept. 12th & 13th, 2009
KevCon fun starts on Saturday, September 12th and finishes at dinner time on
Sunday, September 13th.
Starts:
3PM on Saturday
Where:
Kevin`s House
Address: Iizawa 242-23 Minami Ashigara City, Kanagawa
Email: greatpowers at yahoo.com
What to bring?
Your shoes, games, beer to bribe Kevin (optional)
We have the house to ourselves for most of the day so we can
get a lot of game playing in and say four letter words eh! I love
4 letter words like: four, dice, damn!
There are a few beds available on a first come first served basis.
Email me if you want a bed. If not bring something to sleep on--sleeping
bag etc. We have a lot of room. We have a Canadian,
Victorian style home imported from Cloverdale,BC.
How to Get There from:
Tokyo, Fujisawa, Atsugi, Machida, Yokohama or Sakhalin:
Take the Odakyu Line to Odawara and be sure to get into one of the
first four train cars as the train splits. Take a Kyuko (express
train) it has red kanji on the side usually next to the door up top.
It takes about 90 minutes. Bring a good book!
Get off at Odawara Station and transfer to the Daiyuzan Line. Get off
at Daiyuzan Station, it takes 21 minutes from Odawara. Take the only
exit, walk straight out to the main street out in front and head left
down that street through the traffic lights (under the covered
pedestrian overpass). Over the bridge and you will see our green
roofed house with "Kevin`s English School" signs plastered all over
the place.
How to Get There:
From Shizuoka, Nagoya and other points South: Take the
Tokaido line or the Shinkansen and get off at Odawara. Transfer to
the Daiyuzan line and follow the directions above (for Tokyo).
**The Shinkansen also stops at Odawara. You take a Kodama Super
Express. It takes about 39 minutes from Tokyo. Costs a little over
3,000 Yen one way.
Take a break from the city and see some mountain views and breathe some fresh air.
Feel free to pass this on to interested people. Games of all kinds
welcome. Bring whatever you would like to play, chances are, others
will want to play it too. We have three guest beds and some futons.
Bring a sleeping bag if you`d like. It is a nice area as well.
A great break from wherever you live with a great bunch of people!
Kevin Burns
http://greatpowers1.googlepages.com/jigg%3Ajapan%60sinternationalgamersguild
http://www.jigg-greatpowers.blogspot.com
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Bulletin Japan - Lego to the Rescue
by: Dr. Rob R. Moore
We have heard it before: The average Japanese student is doing as well in mathematics as the best US students. In test after test, the top 5% of US math students are matched by the top 50% of their Japanese counterparts.
Why should that be so? Surely US students compare well with Japanese learners in terms of intelligence, and potential.
Well, we know that schools stay open longer in Japan, an average two hours per day longer, than in the US. It has also been pointed out that in order to promote proper attention to classroom lessons each Japanese classroom period is followed by a recess aimed at allowing excess youthful energy to be discharged. Sadly, this is at a time when many US schools are being forced to abolish recesses altogether because of the threat of violence recesses pose.
Until recently, the one area in which US students continued to outperform their Japanese counterparts was that of creativity. That is, in tests measuring the ability of students to innovate, US learners seemed to be able to consistently rank higher than Japanese learners in their ability to formulate a number of solutions to any given problem.
However, beginning roughly in 2004, Japanese schools introduced a system of creativity training that seems to be opening doors for Japanese students. Today, Japanese students' performance on creativity evaluation instruments is at least as good as that of American students.
Surprisingly, the creativity training system being referred to here was developed by an American University (MIT), and is available to every American school and family. However, the system has not been utilized as in the US as hoped. The name of this magic system is Lego Mindstorms.
Dr. M. Csikszemtmihalyi, in his work entitled Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, emphasized the importance of providing a sense of freedom, a sense of educational flow to students if we wish them to be creative in mind and spirit.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi
Mindstorms provides unlimited opportunities for all students to practice free flow thinking as they create mechanical systems of various kinds. However, it is only the Japanese who have fully internalized this message.
Creative flow is, unfortunately, the one environmental element that formal accredited US school programs, especially at the middle and high school levels, find difficult to promote. This is no one individual's fault really. It is rather a logical result of an emphasis on strict adherence to administratively approved programs geared to satisfy state mandates, and the effect these programs have on creative flow, especially when accompanied by the bells and buzzers that John Dewey introduced into American education after his exposure to successful Prussian military training camps at the turn of the last century. See: http://www.sntp.net/education/school_state_3.htm
Lego Mindstorms creativity programs have, of course, been attempted in American schools, and occasionally one such program can still be found. Unfortunately though, Lego creativity programs have run into obstacles on American campuses as students, in the competitive atmosphere created by the reigning system, aggressively compete for Lego resources, sometimes resulting in violence. When this occurs, the subsequent threat of litigation posed by parents quickly forces school authorities to retreat from free flow programs toward fully restrictive, "in your seat" offerings. This situation then exacerbates the lack of "flow" necessary for promoting creativity among learners.
However, all is not lost.
Many parent groups are attempting to encourage public school districts throughout the United States to look closely at their delivery systems.
In addition, motivational scholarships are being offered by entities such as ToysPeriod in the form of Mindstorms scholarships to encourage free flow creativity in the schools.
Further, there are school models that continue to serve as models for how free flow can work in the US.
For example, Waldorf Schools present materials to students as they, the learners, are ready for them. The Waldorf system looks to each student and responds to each student's academic and physical need as it occurs. In other words, Waldorf never imposes subject matter on segmented age groups as if students were all the same. Waldorf's student-first philosophy then goes a long way toward motivating a student body to enjoy learning, and therefore to fully benefit from Lego Mindstorms offerings. In the online school community, Linda Christas Academy has promoted a similar philosophy.
A warning blast, however, has shaken California Waldorf Schools recently. As Waldorf begins to accept state money, the State educational bureaucracy is looking with some disfavor on the individualized educational concept for which Waldorf stands. Only time will tell if Waldorf is able to maintain its integrity in the face of such state challenges.
From the Lego Mindstorms perspective, beginning with the individual student and his or her learning needs is not rocket science, although with Mindstorms rockets are a definite option.
About The Author
Dr. Rob - Toy Tech writes for "Ask Toy Tech" - the ToysPeriod blog. ToysPeriod is a premier online vendor of classic Lego set toys and model trains. Dr. Rob also writes for ivi.tv.
Dr. Moore is the holder of two PhD's, one in mathematics, the other in physics.
We have heard it before: The average Japanese student is doing as well in mathematics as the best US students. In test after test, the top 5% of US math students are matched by the top 50% of their Japanese counterparts.
Why should that be so? Surely US students compare well with Japanese learners in terms of intelligence, and potential.
Well, we know that schools stay open longer in Japan, an average two hours per day longer, than in the US. It has also been pointed out that in order to promote proper attention to classroom lessons each Japanese classroom period is followed by a recess aimed at allowing excess youthful energy to be discharged. Sadly, this is at a time when many US schools are being forced to abolish recesses altogether because of the threat of violence recesses pose.
Until recently, the one area in which US students continued to outperform their Japanese counterparts was that of creativity. That is, in tests measuring the ability of students to innovate, US learners seemed to be able to consistently rank higher than Japanese learners in their ability to formulate a number of solutions to any given problem.
However, beginning roughly in 2004, Japanese schools introduced a system of creativity training that seems to be opening doors for Japanese students. Today, Japanese students' performance on creativity evaluation instruments is at least as good as that of American students.
Surprisingly, the creativity training system being referred to here was developed by an American University (MIT), and is available to every American school and family. However, the system has not been utilized as in the US as hoped. The name of this magic system is Lego Mindstorms.
Dr. M. Csikszemtmihalyi, in his work entitled Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, emphasized the importance of providing a sense of freedom, a sense of educational flow to students if we wish them to be creative in mind and spirit.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi
Mindstorms provides unlimited opportunities for all students to practice free flow thinking as they create mechanical systems of various kinds. However, it is only the Japanese who have fully internalized this message.
Creative flow is, unfortunately, the one environmental element that formal accredited US school programs, especially at the middle and high school levels, find difficult to promote. This is no one individual's fault really. It is rather a logical result of an emphasis on strict adherence to administratively approved programs geared to satisfy state mandates, and the effect these programs have on creative flow, especially when accompanied by the bells and buzzers that John Dewey introduced into American education after his exposure to successful Prussian military training camps at the turn of the last century. See: http://www.sntp.net/education/school_state_3.htm
Lego Mindstorms creativity programs have, of course, been attempted in American schools, and occasionally one such program can still be found. Unfortunately though, Lego creativity programs have run into obstacles on American campuses as students, in the competitive atmosphere created by the reigning system, aggressively compete for Lego resources, sometimes resulting in violence. When this occurs, the subsequent threat of litigation posed by parents quickly forces school authorities to retreat from free flow programs toward fully restrictive, "in your seat" offerings. This situation then exacerbates the lack of "flow" necessary for promoting creativity among learners.
However, all is not lost.
Many parent groups are attempting to encourage public school districts throughout the United States to look closely at their delivery systems.
In addition, motivational scholarships are being offered by entities such as ToysPeriod in the form of Mindstorms scholarships to encourage free flow creativity in the schools.
Further, there are school models that continue to serve as models for how free flow can work in the US.
For example, Waldorf Schools present materials to students as they, the learners, are ready for them. The Waldorf system looks to each student and responds to each student's academic and physical need as it occurs. In other words, Waldorf never imposes subject matter on segmented age groups as if students were all the same. Waldorf's student-first philosophy then goes a long way toward motivating a student body to enjoy learning, and therefore to fully benefit from Lego Mindstorms offerings. In the online school community, Linda Christas Academy has promoted a similar philosophy.
A warning blast, however, has shaken California Waldorf Schools recently. As Waldorf begins to accept state money, the State educational bureaucracy is looking with some disfavor on the individualized educational concept for which Waldorf stands. Only time will tell if Waldorf is able to maintain its integrity in the face of such state challenges.
From the Lego Mindstorms perspective, beginning with the individual student and his or her learning needs is not rocket science, although with Mindstorms rockets are a definite option.
About The Author
Dr. Rob - Toy Tech writes for "Ask Toy Tech" - the ToysPeriod blog. ToysPeriod is a premier online vendor of classic Lego set toys and model trains. Dr. Rob also writes for ivi.tv.
Dr. Moore is the holder of two PhD's, one in mathematics, the other in physics.
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