Historical Background of the Japanese School
There were no public schools in Japan before the Meiji era (1868–1912) other than private schools called “Hanko,” which were feudal clan-owned schools established for educating samurai (warriors), and “Terakoya,” temple-owned schools for educating tradesm
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Historical Background of the Japanese School
Kaname Yanagisawa (Japan) 2.2.1
A Brief History of Japanese School Planning
There were no public schools in Japan before the Meiji era (1868–1912) other than private schools called “Hanko,” which were feudal clan-owned schools established for educating samurai (warriors), and “Terakoya,” temple-owned schools for educating tradesmen and farmers. In these schools, one teacher was responsible for the education of children of different ages, primarily in the subjects of maths, reading, and writing. “Terakoya” tended to be a one-room house, but “Hanko” were more organized in planning, having a main hall and several small rooms. There are no “Hanko” and “Terakoya” nowadays, however, some buildings have survived and are on view to the public. “Shizutani Gakko” (built in 1675), whose plan is shown in Figure 1, is one of the best surviving examples. It used to accept not only samurai (warrior) children but also common people (Murasawa, 1980, p. 97, 156).
Figure 1.
Floor plan of Shizutani Gakko school, Okayama.
R. Walden (ed.), Schools for the Future, DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-09405-8_3, © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 2015
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2.2 – Historical Background of the Japanese School
Figure 2. A model school plan of 1895.
The modern public school system with grades was started in 1872 by the central government in the Meiji era (1868–1912). This system established compulsory education and sorted and grouped children into classes by age and ability. Public schools spread throughout the country very quickly. For example, about 25,500 elementary schools were built within five years. Meiji-era school buildings can be classified into two types: the Japanese traditional style, and the style of combining Western and Japanese planning. At the beginning, many local governments made an effort to build semi-Western-style school buildings as a symbol of a new civilization in the Meiji era, however, this only lasted for a short time because the budget demands were too great. The central government also urged local governments to build cheaper and more simple school buildings in order to provide a larger quantity of schools all over the country. Today, some semi-Western-style buildings are preserved as cultural assets (Nagakura, Ueno, Hara, Mimura, Nomura, Moronuki, et al., 1993, p. 7). In 1890, the central government issued a guideline for elementary school building in order to standardize schools. In this guideline, for example, the number of students per classroom, the size of classrooms, and the style and space of lecture halls for ceremonies were regulated. A few years later, in 1895, a model school plan was issued as shown in Figure 2. In this model plan, classrooms of 65 square meters for 80 students were lined up along a single-loaded corridor to allow for sufficient natural light and ventilation. Most public schools in this period were built using this model plan, so they tend to have similar features. School features from this period, such as classrooms in a row along a single-loaded cor
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