By Betsey Swardlick, Early Childhood Teacher
Thanks to the Hibbitt-Rockwell Travel Grant, I had the chance in November to return to Japan for the first time in almost 15 years. I spent three years living in southern Japan: one as a high school exchange student and two as an Assistant Language Teacher in public elementary and junior high schools. Both experiences stand out for me as times where I was actively, furiously, and joyfully learning– flying by the seat of my pants in a way that was equally thrilling and humbling. It was a time and place where I was constantly trying to connect with people across limited language skills and knowledge gaps. I credit my time in Japan for a lot of the skills that help me the most as an Early Childhood teacher: patience, projecting interest, encouragement, and respect, using my face and body as a communication tool, non-linear thinking, and facing frustration with a sense of humor. In EC we’re often teaching how to learn, and I thought that the best way to refresh my excitement for teaching and bring back a renewed sense of purpose was to get back to that space of electric, connective learning and empathy.
A few months before going over, I was able to connect with Saeko Webb, the founder of Children’s Foundation Okinawa, and make a plan to spend some time at her school. CFO is a small pre-school/kindergarten with a focus on child-driven, Reggio-inspired learning, much like our own EC program. I had been curious about EC programs in Japan, having never spent any time with one, and doubly curious about a Japanese Reggio program, since their public school education tends to lean very heavily on a pre-set curriculum. In the weeks leading up to my trip, the Oak and Ginkgo classrooms exchanged photos, drawings, and messages with the CFO children. We’ve continued this exchange since I’ve returned, and I hope we can maintain this friendship between our schools for years to come.
CFO runs its mixed-age classroom very similarly to any of Lincoln’s EC rooms, with one very interesting difference: a very fluid mixing of English and Japanese. Instead of compartmentalizing the use of English into a specific time or lesson, the teachers use regular classroom routines as a time to practice; morning greetings, songs and games, days of the week, and many other parts of a classroom meeting time all become things that the children get used to hearing and saying in both English and Japanese. Instructions during a project or activity might come in either language. To me, it felt like this approach was taking the pressure off of language learning. English wasn’t any big deal, just another classroom tool or set of familiar sounds to be played with in a casual way. The children seemed comfortable hearing words they didn’t fully understand, practicing decoding their teachers’ messages with clues from context, tone, body language, and other communicative intangibles. This laid-back attitude permeated the entire classroom, showing the CFO faculty’s strong grasp on an important concept– that young children’s focus and genuine engagement cannot be demanded, it has to be invited and supported by the environment. The gentleness and patience of the CFO teachers reminded me that you can’t force learning, and the harder you try, the more likely you are to meet resistance.
Okinawa is the birthplace of Karate and a number of other martial arts. Through another Rhode Island acquaintance, I was connected with Tetsuo Takamiyagi, a master of both Shorin-Ryu Karate and Motobu Udundi. Now in his 80s, Takamiyagi-sensei has a unique perspective on both teaching and learning, having spent time working as a preschool teacher, counselor, martial arts instructor, and motivational speaker. A true model of interest-driven learning, Takamiyagi-sensei has explored everything from hypnosis to speed-reading. He applies what he’s learned to his understanding of martial arts, and by extension, the whole of the world around us. Since closing the doors to his dojo in 2020, he has continued to teach and practice wherever the mood strikes: public parks, parking lots, quiet neighborhood streets. Spending a few days in the Takamiyagi meandering open-air dojo learning Motobu Udundi basics and the philosophy behind them was a one-of-a-kind experience that resonated strongly with what I was learning at CFO.
The first lesson he gave was also the most repeated: “Relax!” he said. “Become an idiot!” This became the tongue-in-cheek mantra for our exploration of focus, learning, and strength. Focus, Takamiyagi-sensei said, can sometimes be an enemy of learning– as it is so closely related to tension. When you think of the proverbial Karate chop, or a strong punch, you might think of a fist held tight, a stiff arm, unbending. But it’s the relaxed limb that can extend to its full range of motion, swing at its full speed, and have the hardest impact in the end. Too much tension in the body can block us from accessing our full strength. Working with Takamiyagi-sensei was a clinic in the counterintuitive cycle of relinquishing strength to use strength– shifting the focus (and tension) away from the fist I was throwing in order to throw it better. It made me think strangely of working with a frustrated child on something difficult. If relaxing my body was the key to helping myself learn, why wouldn’t the same be true for a child?
I couldn’t help but think about Takamiyagi-sensei’s lessons while I watched the way the teachers worked at CFO. In response to a disruptive child, where I once might have raised my voice or brought activities to a halt, the CFO teachers were practiced in deftly shifting focus, decreasing tension, and gently returning the child to a place where they were ready to learn. This didn’t necessarily look like stillness, or obedience, or even focus. While sitting still and holding eye contact was something some children could do with little to no effort, for some it was a task that took up so much focus they had nothing left to learn with. Getting to know each child as an individual, and learning what they had to let go of in order to release tension, was a fascinating experience. I feel like I’ve come back to Lincoln ready to ask not “is this child quiet and still enough to learn,” but “is this child relaxed enough to learn?” What does that look like? How can I carry myself and use my body and voice in ways that ultimately support the learning state? I may not have all the answers right now, but I do at least have the first step: RELAX!