Abstract:

As Il'yenkov (1974) said, there is the problem of 'the practical application of knowledge to life'. It is still a serious agenda today. In Japan, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) introduced integrated learning opportunity (called SOGO hours) to elementary schools, junior high schools and high schools in 2002. It requires comprehensive learning of social issues beyond subject based course works. The curriculum is up to each school. But it is not easy to yield successful results.
In this study, a new experimental curriculum was created and modified with teachers to fit it to two public primary schools and a junior high school in Yokohama, suburb of Tokyo, for SOGO hours. In this study earthquake disaster prevention was selected as the theme for 1) the earthquake disaster prevention is a serious community problem in Japan, 2) we need various kinds of knowledge to study this theme, and is related to the many subject based course works in the schools.
With this curriculum the author primarily tried to facilitate subjective learning of the children. Children's activities were examined as outcome of new socio-technical network. As the second purpose the author compared the negotiation processes of the curriculum in primary schools and junior high school. Data were collected with participatory observation of the class rooms, server records of usage of the information sharing system (NOTA), questionnaire to children, parents and interviews with teachers.
As a curriculum it was a great success especially in the elementary schools. In the junior high school, students enjoyed the curriculum very much too, but it seemed they were not so much absorbed as counterparts of elementary schools.
As for the first purpose new subjective learning was observed by designing whole setting of learning environment. It could not be brought into existence if we provided only the syllabus, educational material and tools. But when we observed the course work classes of the same children, their behavior was as it was before. That suggests our arrangement did not change the whole school setting but just the demarcated portion of the school education. In another word, children as active learners was not an essential existence but should be considered as a node of a socio-technical network. Of course by the same token we should not consider a quiet passive learner as essential.
As for the second question, introducing processes of the curriculum into primary schools and junior high school distinctly differed from each other. In Japan teachers tend to control students more strictly in junior high schools than in elementary schools. They also required standardized education for all the classes of the same grade. In the elementary schools, we consulted with children if they would like to choose the disaster prevention as their theme of SOGO hours. But in the junior high school, the theme was given for the students, not a matter of their choice. These differences were inevitable if we would put this curriculum into execution at the junior high school. But these differences might give major impact on the meaning of learning for students even the main curriculum was the same. These findings suggest that we should consider the whole configuration of socio-technical network when we try to introduce and evaluate a new curriculum into institutional education.

Keywords:

Design of learning environment, socio-technical network, Japan.