A study on the process of the development of a unit for teaching the history of "Ryukyu Kingdom" in social-studies at the elementary school level

The purpose of t his study was to fi nd a new approach to teaching Japan's history at t he elementary school level while focusing on the possibility of giving various viewpoints on the history based on the development of teaching unit of "The Ryukyu Kingdom" by introducing different perspectives of the history of Ryukyu Kingdom and Okinawa. During the process, we conducted a survey which helped to make it clear that the teaching of the history of Okinawa in elementary school tends to be focused only on the battle of Okinawa during the World WarⅡ. However, Kurayoshi Takara points out that this way of describing the history only gives a very limited perspective of the history of Okinawa by reducing the history of Okinawa to the battle of Okinawa and fails to show a well-balanced image. Our study has proved that, as a result of being taught a revised unit, the pupils have been able to see the history of Okinawa as a successive flow of events from the Ryukyu Kingdom to the formation of Okinawa prefecture, have renewed their understanding of Japan's history in relation to the history of Okinawa and appreciate the history in a new light