Programs

As a mathematics teacher in a secondary school, I wanted to find out why Japanese students score so high against other students in standardized tests, and why Japanese schools turn out such able workers. I chose to research the education of Japanese students in mathematics and compare the education they receive to the education my school's students receive through the Mathematics in Context program. The Japanese government does not lavish money on education. In fact, Japanese schools are unadorned, functional places. The Japanese achieve their various functions in society and their respective status levels through formal classroom achievements, followed by rigorous qualifying examinations for most of the positions of greatest prestige (Reischauer, 1988). The importance of school education is stressed in the home during the preschool years, which helps form the attitude that hard work will lead to progress in learning. Japanese parents, especially mothers, take an active role in their children's education. Because so few Japanese women have jobs once they marry, their primary measure of success becomes the education of their children (Sudo, 1989). In his 1989 research, Sudo surveyed both American and Asian mothers. Whe