I just watched a 研究授業 (kenkyuu jugyou), a special observation lesson where a teacher-in-training taught a class. It was a P.E. class, and it was so cool! I had never in my two years here actually watched an entire P.E. class, and now I have an example of great physical education. I wish my gym classes had been like the ones they have here in Japan.
Okay, lemme 'splain.
First, a little context. As I've seen, gym classes are generally split up by gender so only girls have classes with girls and boys with boys. Also, P.E. is a serious class here treated like any other class, and P.E. teachers get a lot of respect. Often, P.E. teachers are the ones who are given the role of disciplinarian and are seen as moral role models for all the students. They usually are super involved in students' lives and scold them when they act out whether or not it's during their class and praise them for the good they do, again, whether or not it's during their class. It's really nice. And, I feel like students here are very well-rounded since they are educated in the basic subjects, a foreign language, physical education, music and art, and morality. Very "Renaissance Man" or polymath. I think it's an ideal we humans should really all strive for.
Anyways, so the lesson I went to.
