Book: Teaching and Learning in Japan

LeTendre, G. K., & Rohlen, T. P. (1998). Teaching and learning in Japan (1st pbk. ed). Cambridge University Press.

pg 213

Cultures of mathematics instruction in Japanese and American elementary classrooms

• James W. Stigler, Clea Fernandez, Makoto Yoshida

Whereas previously we were satisfied if our elite received an education of the highest quality, we are now concerned with fairness: that children from all social, ethnic, and economic backgrounds have the opportunity to achieve academically.

Although these goals may be relatively recent in the United States, they correspond closely with the goals of Japan’s educational system.

pg 214

Focusing on achievement in mathematics, we found that Japanese elementary schools, by the time they reach the fifth grade, are so far ahead of their American counterparts that the lowest-scoring school in our Japanese sample scored higher than the highest-scoring school in our American sample.

Cultures of mathematics instruction

pg 215

What, in general, it means to teach and learn mathematics differs across these societies in a way that resembles the distinction drawn in the American mathematics education community between school mathematics and inquiry mathematics (Richards, in press), or between teaching for understanding and not (cf. Cobb et all., in press). Our challenge is to understand how it is that Japanese teachers and students achieve the kid of instruction that leads to such high levels of achievement.

Artifacts of instruction

What transpires in classrooms is partially a function of cultural artifacts that teachers and students use in the course of instruction.

One of the most important aspects of Japanese education is the fact that the curriculum is both highly specified and common across all schools and classrooms in the country. What this means is that even though several companies produce text books in Japan, the books they produce are almost identical throughout the country.

A shared curriculum does not in itself promote high levels of achievement. But it does ensure greater commonality – and thus equality – of educational experiences.

Pg 216

The teacher’s role

Many American teachers would react negatively to the “top down” imposition of a common curriculum, but Japanese teachers rarely complain. the reason, we believe, is that the role of the teacher and the conception of the ideal teacher are quite different in these societies. In the United States, teaching is considered a highly idiosyncratic profession, and the common lore is that one cannot be taught how to teach because a good teacher is born more than made (cf. Stevenson and Stigler, 1992); a teacher must find her own way. Japanese society views teaching more as a craft, as a skill that can be perfected through practice and that can benefit from shared lore or tricks of the trade.

If music were used as an analogy, the Japanese conception of the ideal teacher would be like that of the concert pianist: the great pianist is not expected to write the concerto but only to perform it well. The American teacher, by analogy, is expected not only to teach but also to write the score. An innovated teacher in the United States is one who organizes her own curriculum, makes her own materials, and implements her lessons with independent initiative. In Japan, the innovative teacher is one who skillfully teaches the lesson that is prescribed by the text.

pg 217

the training of Japanese teachers is not thought to begin until they start their first teaching job, at which point they begin a long period of apprenticeship-like training in which they are supervised closely by master teachers.

The common curriculum has an important influence on the interactions that Japanese teachers have with each other. Even if American teachers had time for interaction during the day, without a common curriculum there would be little they could share that was not a general nature. But when all of the fifth-grad teachers have just taught the lesson on how to derive the formula for finding the area of a triangle – which occurs at about the same time each year in Japan – they have much to discuss: Why did my students not arrive at that solution? Did you pose the problem in a different way? Do you think I hurried them through the first part of the lesson? These concrete, specific discussion about teaching can occur only when there is a common experience in the classroom.

Goals and expectations

pg 218

These differing beliefs about the nature of mathematics lead Japanese and American students to construe the purpose of classroom instruction differently from each other. American students tend to focus on getting the answer and attend less to explanations, that may be provided, whether by the teacher or by other students. …American students often construe the goal of instruction to be to learn the procedure for getting the answer, not to understand why the procedure is mathematically valid.

Pg 219

Instructional routines

Japanese mathematics lessons at the elementary level appear almost formulaic, so great is the similarity in routines across classrooms. They almost always begin with a problem, which the teacher poses for the students to think about. She then gives the students 10 or 15 minutes to work at solving the problem, either alone or with peers. After most students have found at least one way of solving the problem, the teacher reconvenes the class and asks students, one by one, to come to the board and explain their solutions. After the class discusses the merits of each solution, the teacher calls on the next student, invariable with the question “Digi someone find a different way to solve the problem?” At the end of the lesson, students may be given a few minute to apply what they have learned to some practice problems in their textbook. The single problem posed at the beginning of the class provides continuity or coherence across the lesson, and rarely does the focus go far astray from the initial problem.

Pg 224

The role of students’ thinking in teachers’ planning

Lesson plans can provide insight into how teachers conceive of and plan their lessons. … The lesson plans provided by the Japanese and American teachers for the lessons … are very different from each other. … The American lessons plans almost always look line outlines or lists of activities that will constitute the lesson; the Japanese lesson plans are far more detailed.

Japanese lesson plans stress coherence of lesson activities

Japanese lesson plan places the current lesson in the context of lessons that precede and follow it an in the context of the mathematics curriculum. The plan begins by stating that this lesson is the third of six lessons in a union the area of quadrangles and triangles. … the next lesson, we are told in the lesson plan, will be on application of the formula for finding the area of triangles.

pg 228

American teachers place little emphasis on coherence across lessons

In the American plan for triangle lesson, the teacher writings down nothing about how this lesson relates to those that precede and follow it. He may be thinking about such relationships, but they are not written down in the lesson plan. In fact, the American teacher does begin his lesson by reviewing the concept of perimeter, which the class apparently covered last time. But because there is no direct link between perimeter and the area of a triangle, this order of events renders the American lesson less coherent that the Japanese one, which begins with a review of the different types of triangles that exist.

Japanese teachers anticipate students’ thinking.

The Japanese lesson plan emphasizes what students will think, not what the teacher will say or do. Using a format that is commonly used for lesson plans in Japan, the teacher devises the lesson into three steps: understanding the problem, investigation, and generalization. For each step she enters, in a chart, four kinds of information: the learning activities that she will lead the students through, the expected student reactions to the activities, the approximate time that will be spent on the step, and the guidance or advice that she might offer in response to the students’ reactions.

pg 229

Opportunities for student thinking during instruction

The concern with student thinking that guides the Japanese teacher’s planning of her lesson also manifests itself in the way she teaches the lesson.

The role of problem solving. … the Japanese teacher… begins by posing a problem and then having students work to solve it on their own. Only after students have worked on their own does the teacher begin the ore directed part of the lesson… the public discussion of students’ solutions’.

pg 230

The American lesson starts with a series of short-answer questions… the lesson consists primarily of a series of these teacher-student exchanges …

American teachers view seatwork as an opportunities to practice what has been learned in the lesson; Japanese teacher view it as an opportunity for students to try solving problems on their own before being exposed to other students’ solutions.

Our Japanese colleagues point out that the Japanese teachers have the luxury of forgoing the use of of seatwork for practice because homework and juku (cram schools) provide ample opportunities for practice outside of class, opportunities that American teachers cannot depend on.

time to think. We have noted before that Japanese lesson appear to move at an extremely slow pace (Sigler and Perry, 1988). Part of this perception is due to the organization of the lesson. … Japanese lessons almost always begin with a single problem, the solution to which becomes the focus of the entire lesson. This concentration on a single problem lends coherence to the lesson and allows a thorough exploration of the problem. American students work many more problems than do their Japanese counterparts and come to emphasize quantity rather than quality of solutions. Again, Japanese students at juku may be drilled to do many problems in order to perfect mental dexterity, but only after first learning the logic of problem solving as described here.

Opportunities to discuss mathematics. Aside from providing time for students to think, the Japanese teacher provides many opportunities for children to describe their own thinking and to hear other students describe theirs. Just as most Japanese lessons begin with a period in which students work to solve a problem on their own, most also follow the problem solving with a period in which students describe and then debate their various solutions to the problem. Students are heard from more, and at greater length, during the Japanese lessons.

pg 234

The goal of asking questions. Japanese and American teachers appear to have different goals for asking questions the American teacher asks a question to get an answer, the Japanese teacher to get students to think (Stevenson and Stigler, 1992).

The Japanese teacher poses a problem, then asks students to explain their thinking about the problem. The explanations she elicits are lengthy and involved. The teacher interrupts as needed to help the student continue or to draw the student out, but never cuts the student off. Incorrect or less efficient solutions are given as much time and focus as correct ones.

The American teacher, in contrast, has a clear idea of where he wants to discussion to go. The kinds of questions he asks are almost all of the “answers known” variety: there is a single correct answer, the teacher knows what it is, and the students’ job is imply to produce that answer.

pg 239

The use of errors

Another indication that American and Japanese teachers have different goals in asking questions comes from the way they deal with incorrect answers. … Japanese teachers treat errors or incorrect answers quite differently than do American teachers (Stevenson and Stigler, 1992). American teachers go to great lengths to keep errors out of the mathematics classroom, and especially out of the public discourse. The may be because behaviorist learning theories that emphasize the importance of success for learning, or because teachers fear damaging children’s self-esteem by exposing their inadequacies. But for whatever reason, American teachers tend to correct mistakes quickly when they do occur, and almost never ask children with incorrect solutions to problems ti display their solutions to the class.

pg 240

Japanese teachers take a very different approach to errors. Instead of seeing errors as indicated lack of ability or potential on the part of the students, Japanese teachers see errors as a natural part of the learning process and as important sources of information about children’s mathematical thinking. They believe that discussion of incorrect solutions can play an important role in children’s developing conceptual understanding of mathematics. Japanese teachers also think errors should be discussed publicly – nor privately, one-on-one – so that all students can benefit by analyzing them.

The use of manipulatives.

… it is fascinating to note the different ways that manipulatives are used by these tow teachers. The Japanese teacher gives students paper triangles to work with from the beginning, then has them continue to use them throughout the lesson as they explain their solutions. The manipulatives in the Japanese classroom are used as tools for thinking and as objects for reflections. The American teacher uses the manipulatives for a demonstrations: when he gest to the point in the lesson where he wants to explain the derivation of the formula, he pulls out two right triangles, fits them together, and shows the resulting rectangle. In this particular lesson, students get no chance to work with, or even touch, the concrete representation.

pg 241

Reference to authority.

Implicit in the way American teachers ask questions is that the teacher knows the answer and is the authority on what is right or wrong. The view that mathematics is a field in which there are definite answers and that someone always knows what the answers are, is communicated to children in these patterns of discourse. This, it is not important what the child thinks, but whether or not the child’s answer is correct. Japanese teachers, in contrast, rarely tell students they are right or wrong, leaving any such evaluation to the childrens’ classmates. (Not that students don’t care how their teachers feel about their work: our Japanese colleagues tell us that Japanese students are very sensitive to their teachers’ implicit evaluation).

Pg 248

The Kumon approach to teaching and learning

• Nancy Ukai Russell

In the early summer of 1954, eight-year-old Kumon Takashi, a second grader in Moriguchi City, Osaka, came home from school with a poor grade on his arithmetic test. His mother was concerned, but his father, Kumon Tōru, a high school math teacher, was not. “In my opinion, his health… was the most important thing during the elementary school years; I planned to put him on a structured course of study after he entered middle school” (Kumon 1981: 186). But prodded by his wife, Mr Kumon began thinking about how to help his son. He reviewed Takeshi’s mathematics textbook and was surprised by the way concepts were introduced and then dropped. He turned to commercial drill books, but they only offered repetition of unimportant material.

Dissatisfied with what he had found available, Mr. Kumon began crafting a home study program. He wrote out individual worksheets of minutely sequenced computation problems, adjusted to Takeshi’s ability level, and assigned one each day. Happily, Takeshi’s grades improved, but when they quit the regimen, his scores slipped again. The family returned to using the worksheets but found that if Takeshi skipped a few days of work, he was loath to restart the schedule. Through trial and error, a useful system eventually emerged: Takeshi did one worksheet each day under Mrs. Kumons’ supervision. Mr Kumon corrected it that night and prepared the next day’s problems, gradually increasing their difficulty. Four years later Takeshi had completed 1,000 worksheets and was solving problems in differential and integral calculus.

Pg 249

Today, Kumon-shiki, or the Kumon method, is the most widely used supplemental system for studying mathematics in Japan.

The Kumon method is controversial and occupies a special niche in the rich, variegated world of Japanese education. Japanese critics disklike the rote-style progression through skill levels. Its most prominent critic is the Japanese Ministry of Education (Monbushō), which emphasizes the development of critical thinking skills in mathematics – while Kumon stresses computation – and which establishes curricular standards for each grade that Kumon then aims to have its students surpass.

The individualized nature of the method runs counter to group-oriented methods, and Kumon is famous for nurturing “genius” children who solve calculus problems at age five in a society renowned for its uniformity.

…several features of Japan’s educational culture have worked in favor of its development. The first factor is the cultural acceptance of repetition, memorization, and mastery as valuable and essential aspects of learning.

Pg 250

The Kumon method

… represents a clear example of what Western educational psychologist term “guided learning” theory. In contrast to “active learning” theories that stress cognition through the manipulation of materials, the exploration of ideas and instructional discovery, “guided”, “reception” or “expository” learning draws on a behaviorist approach.

Pg 251

Mr. Kumon came to believe that all children were capable of solving calculus problems if they were introduced to that material in small steps at their own pace. Mr. Kuon set that objects at the apex of his curriculum pyramid and worked down. This highly sequential presentation is key to the Kumon method and is a key factor in the theory of guided learning, especially as it is applied to mathematics (see Ausbel and Robinson, 1969: 143)

To its sequential presentation, the Kumon method adds the principle of automaticity, or “overlearning”, which is the measure of whether material has bene mastered. Children must practice computation until finding solutions becomes automatic. The progress to a higher level of work only after they show the ability to complete sheets accurately within prescribed time and mistake limits.

The method is put into practice as follows:

1. The newly enrolled child takes a 20-minute diagnostic test. After the score is evaluated, the child is placed at an expremely low skill level in order to enhance his or her early performance and thereby build confidence and motivation.
2. The child is presented with a new plastic Kumon box that contains several stapled packs of 3 to 10 worksheets. One packet is to be completed each day, requiring 15-30 minutes’ study.
3. Twice a week, the child attends a Kumon classroom (kyō-shitsu). The completed homework is turned in, and that day’s packet is done at the classroom.
4. The instructor graphs the child’s progress in a detailed record book and, according to the most recent results, assigns more difficult work or repetition of previous pages.
5. Kumon is praticed every day of the year.

Pg 252

Kumon problems are sequenced to an astonishing minute degree, giving the worksheets the appearance of eye-pleasing order and regulatory, if one is sympathetic to the Kumon method, or mind-numbing repetition if one is not. The reasons are two-fold: (1) so that child is not pressured, since the degree of difficulty increases so gradually, and (2) to help the child discern number patterns.

pg 254

Concepts are not explicitly taught. Rather, through repetition, learners experience insight. For example, the means of solving such problems as 48 / 6 or 132 / 12 will be patently clear, without verbal or written explanation, to a child who has completed several hundred multiplication problems and to whom 6 x 8 and 11 x 12 are operations that have been “overlearned”).

As children become better calculators and as their body of knowledge grows, some discover shortcuts or different strategies for operations, injection “creativity” and intuition into what seems to be merely a mechanical operation.

Event the fastest progressing students… work each 200-page level the equivalent of at least three times (Sherman, 1991: 101)…

I was surprised to learn that my daughter, who started doing animal mazes when she was three and a half years old, completed 2,885 pages in two years, to finish three levels.

pg 256

…Kumon asserts that repetition is fun. Young children enjoy doing the same thing repeatedly; singing a TV jingle or drawing the same picture over and over is satisfying and a crucial part of the learning process )see Montessori, 1964: 357). If the child is solving problems at “just the right” (chodo ii) level, the act of calculating is effortless and rhythmic.

Repeatedly doing calculations can become a much-hated task, however, when the concept is not understood or the skill level is too high.

Holding the child’s interest during these “hump” periods is the ultimate test not only of the quality of the worksheets but also of the teacher’s understanding of the method and skill in applying it.

the company also employs psychological strategies, many embedded in the worksheet structure, to keep children motivated. For example, each 200-page level is designed so that difficult “uphill” sections, which introduce new concepts, are followed by “downhill” slopes of repetition. Tedious problems that require several intermediary steps will be follows by a simple one that can be computed mentally, providing a psychological lift analogous to raising a one-pound weight after a strenuous workout pulling 20-pound weights.

Pg 257

In a minuscule but highly celebrated percentage of cases, children aged five and under gradually progress to solving algebra, geometry, and calculus worksheets.

Kumon’s in-house magazines are filled with disproportionate examples of three- and four-year olds who are doing algebra, which are meant to instruct and inspire.

pg 258

Is repetition and drill productive use of a child’s time? Successful use of an algorithm does not mean that one comprehends the underlying principles. Kumon officials reply that children memorize the alphabet and learn to recognize many letter combinations and words before they begin to read, and that practicing arithmetic skills is the equivalent prerequisite for doing higher levels of mathematics.

The Kumon method is Japan

Kumon has been able to flourish in Japan for several reasons:

1. The Japanese mothers who use it have a positie image of the method;
2. many children seem to enjoy doing it;
3. it is convenient for families
4. society places a high value on edcuation
5. Kumon is seen as a viable after-school program which propels children beyond grade-level work and prepares them successfully for competitive examinations.

pg 262

Expert instructors may be invited by the company to help research a specific topic. “Monitors” (monitā) consider a given problem and make suggestions, such as where improvements can be made in sequencing problems or in break down concepts into smaller parts.

We found that there is a difficult jump to go from doing 8+3 to 9+4 and that more practice is needed on problems that lead up to solving 8+2 … The instructors watch the children and tell us which sports in the worksheets give the children trouble. Sometimes a teacher will say “one little girl cried when she couldn’t do this one”. We have the children do the problems and watch their responses. Another teacher told us, “the child was going along very smoothly until this point, when his pencil stopped.” (Ozaki Kazurori, July 18, 1991)

The experience and expertise of past instructors are used in detailed teaching manuals that offer hints and pinpoint trouble spots.

pg 268

Many traditional Japanese methods of instruction rely on a “guided method” in which a clear goal is set forth with detailed steps that, if closely followed, assure a high level of proficiency.

Observing the Kumon method in new contexts provides insight on how the method functions and how users’ needs different. Due to American resistance to intensive repetition, Kumon has considered developing an abbreviated curriculum for US use without the repetition that Kumon deems necessary for “overlearning.”

It has become clear that without Japanese support mechanisms, such as dedicated parental support, and other technical features, such as the uniform training of instructors, the method functions less evenly and effectively.

Pg 345

The Suzuki Method of Music instruction

• Lois Peak

Talent Education, or the Suzuki Method, as it is better known internationally, is an interesting and highly successful method of teaching young children to play musical instruments.

The method’s very young students have attracted considerable public notice through tehri mass performances of difficult works for violin and piano which were previously the province of professional musicians and occasional child prodigies.

Pg 346

Because the performance ability of students in the method challenges traditional assumptions about the limits of young children’s potential to learn sophisticated skills, it is a striking example of the high level of ability which can be achieved in an optimally structured learning environment.

… the manner in which the Suzuki Method as practiced in America has been modified in the direction of greater consonance with American beliefs and practices may serve as an interesting case study for policy makers who are considering transplanting their own culture’s educational institutions to other countries.

Previous discussion on the transfer of educational institutions have typically focused on the process of adapting western institutions to fit non-western cultures.

pg 347

Description of the Suzuki Method

Suzuki’s mother-tongue approach can be summarized in the following manner (Suzuki, 1974):

1. Structuring the home environment from birth in such a way that the child is inconstant contact with the medium to be learned
2. Beginning instruction with very simple tasks, using imitation and repetition as the basis of the teaching process
3. Arranging for abundant daily practice
4. Encouraging the child’s interst in the midum to be learned by making it an integral part of postivie interaction between the child and the family, especially the mother.
5. Making learning fun by showering praise and affection at each sign of increasing competence, and making lessons and practice sessions challenging and enjoyable.

Ideally, Suzuki recommends that children be exposed daily from birth to many repetitions of a selected number of recordings of great musical works, as well as the instrumental repertoire which they will later learn. More commonly in practice, when a mother decides that her child is ready to begin lessons, usually at around three years of age, the mother and child initially spend a month or two observing other children’s lessons and listening at home to recordings of the repertoire.

When the child’s interest in the instrument has been aroused, the mother begins lessons a few weeks before the child, and continues her lessons for several moths to acquire a basic grounding in the instrument.

pg 349

Ealy education

The Suzuki Method typifies indigenous Japanese folk psychological beliefs in its recommendation that children begin their formal training in the arts well before school age.

Although Suzuki’s recommendation that children begin formal lessons between the ages of two and three (Suzuki, 1982) anticipates common Japanese custom by a year or two, there is a widespread and very ancient belief that children learn many subjects, particularly music, second languages, and complex physical skills, most easily and naturallyduring the pre-school years …

Pg 350

In contemporary Japan, the Suzuki Method is only one of several popular musical training methods for pre-school children.

When attempting to teach sophisticated skills in a form lesson situation to pre-school children, considerable care is required in structing and presenting the lesson material in such a way that the child’s interest and motivation are maintained.

pg 351

Once lessons begin, Japanese teachers recognize the importance of maintaining the students’ initial enthusiasm for the subject by not dampening the beginner’s clumsy but wholehearted attempts through excessively harsh correction. Most teachers believe that teaching is ineffective and the child’s ability will not develop unless the child enjoys the learning process and therefore tries hard to learn the material presented.

Most teachers believe that teaching is ineffective and the child’s ability will not develop unless the child enjoys the leaning process and therefore tried hard to learn the material presented. Six hundred years before Rousseau ushered in an era of child-oriented, humanistic educational practices, [Zeami, a famous Japanese philosopher of the arts,] recommended that teachers approach young students beginning the study of Noh drama in the following way:

Allow children to develop their ability naturally by letting them follow their own inclinations freely. Don’t excessively point out “this is good” and “that is bad.” If children are corrected too excessively, they lose their desire to learn and find Noh tedious and uninteresting. When this happens, their abilities cease to develop. (p. 108)

Pg 352

Suzuki (1981) echoes this twelfth-century predecessor when he urges mothers and teachers of beginning violin students to remember that:

Adults may want to teach numbers or mathematics, but a child wants to be petted and have fun playing. Tasks which are done happily are internalized and in this manner talent is grown carefully. The problem is how to combine interest and training. If a child is always scolded, his ability will not grow. (pp. 21, 23)

In contrast, Americans seem to have a different folk theory of the nature of motivation and interest. Interests are believed to arise primarily from an individuals’ personality and natural propensities, rather than being largely developed by the surrounding environment.

The Suzuki Method as practiced in America rarely requires a substantial period of observation and daily home listening before the child is allowed to begin lessons. … A child’s simple indication of casual interest and willingness is usually sufficient for lessons to begin, without further delay for artificial inflation of the child’s motivation.

Japanese Suzuki teachers believe that without an extremally high level of initial motivation, the child is unlikely to be wiling to reliably produce the effort necessary to sustain the difficult process of daily coaxing the fingers and body to learn new and difficult combinations which constitutes violin or piano practice.

Pg 353

… Japanese folk psychological notions of gradually introducing the child to the subject in a manner carefully calculated to stimulate motivation may be of considerable use. It is wroth of note that a similar process of gradual introduction to the subject matter, designed to elicit the child’s interest and motivation, is common in Japanese pre-schools and first grades (Peak, 1991)

Pg 353

The role of the mother

Suzuki holds parents directly responsible not only for the development of their children’s abilities, but for children’s personality characteristics as well (1981). Stubborn, disobedient children are said to have acquired their parents’ own habits of scolding and intransigence, just as cheerful, obedient children reflect their parents’ happiness and agreeability. He therefore encourages parents to continually examine their personalities, honestly admit their own faults and openly strive for self-improvement as an example to their children.

Pg 354

Contemporary Japanese middle-class mothers are typically heavily involved in their child’s educational activities. … In addition to after-school lessons, most mothers maintain a busy schedule of school oriented activities such as frequent PTA meetings, parent visitation days, and the like.

This habit of studying together with the child is established during the prep-school years. Japanese mothers informally teach their children many quiet games and activities which develop experience with educational materials such as writing and counting games, drawing, origami paper folding, and listening to story books.

Pg 355

Although in the United States mothers also assist their children’s homework, they rearely do so to such an extent. Many parents may believe that it weakens a child’s self-reliance and lessens the value of the child’s achievement if parents are too heavily involved in the daily learning process.

Teaching techniques

…perhaps the most unique aspects of the Suzuki Method’s teaching techniques are the emphasis on group instruction and the practice of having children intially learn to play by ear.

…in Japan, jSuzuki violin sutdents usually receive their lessons as a member of an informal group of approximately ten or fifteen children whose lessons overlap each other on a given afternoon.

Pg 357

To music educators trained in classical western music pedagogy, perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Suzuki Method is that the children initally learn to play by ear from listening to records which they hear daily at home.

Typically Suzuki-trained children do not learn to read music until they are at least seven or eight years old and studying on an intermediate level.

It is significant, however, that traditional Japanese classical music was also primarily an oral tradition in which students learned to play by ear. Although an incomplete and rudimentary notation existed for traditional instruments, musical scores were typically preserved as privilege objects and only the most advanced students were instructed in their use.

Pg 359

Theories of talent and ability development

The Suzuki Method holds that all normal children can develop the ability to give a fin violin or piano performance of concert level repertoire provided they have a conducive home environment and proper training and practice well.

Pg 362

The American Suzuki Method also tends to de-emphasize repetition and sheer volume of practice. Parents and teachers of preschool and lower elementary school age student frequently believe that encourages large amounts of practice (Suzuki recommends one to two hours per day for this age group) is not necessarily good for a child. Rather than building character through training in diligence and persistence, Americans feel that so much practice by such a young child may somehow be vaguely harmful.

Pg 362

The goal of training

Although most Talent Education students develop surprising proficiency at very young ages, Suzuki asserts that the primary goal of the method is not to train children to become professional musicians, but rather to cultivate the qualities of sensitivity, service to others, and nobility of character in its students…

pg 365

The goals of the American Suzuki Method are also not inimical to the pursuit of a musical career. Indeed, in the eyes of many observers, the number of students who go on to pursue careers in music is in some way a measure of the method’s success or failure. Many Americans perceive something wasteful in a child who plays concert repertoire at the age of ten, yet does not go on to become a career musician buy plays only for the enjoyment of family and friends or personal satisfaction.

The Suzuki Method in perspective

pg 367

Rather than stubbornly attempting to urge the ultimately unsuccessful process of changing American mothers’ conception of their own role so that is becomes more Japanese, successful practitioners must modify and readjust the method to compensate for highly resistant cultural beliefs and practices. Bu attempting to modify culturally discrepant demands and introducing new techniques which serve a similar teaching function, the method can adapt itself to the new culture without seriously decreasing its effectiveness.