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As the bell rang ending my first forty-five minute English lesson I expected the Japanese teacher to switch to the next lesson as would typically happen in an American elementary school. Instead, the third graders I was teaching immediately packed their notebooks into their desks, stood up, slid their chairs under their desks and scrambled down the stairs to the outdoor field as fast as they could. The teacher stayed in his desk and continued grading papers. I was confused. Could it be time for recess at 9:30 am?

I followed the children outside to find that most of the 800 students in the school in urban Tokyo were running around completely rampant, jumping rope, playing soccer, climbing on the jungle gym and walking on stilts. Six teachers stood at designated places around the playground watching the children for injuries, but otherwise hundreds of kids ran around freely.

Fifteen minutes into playtime, another bell rang. The kids hung the jump ropes and the stilts, threw the balls back into bins and ran back to class. My second period was starting in a new class of fifth graders. They shuffled back into the room, saw that English was the next subject on the day's agenda written on the board, quickly seated themselves and focused on the lesson.Again, after I finished my forty-five minute lesson a bell rang and the kids ran back downstairs this time for a twenty-five minute break. Since this was an older group of students, some stayed in the classroom to play board games with friends or read books instead of playing outside.

Japan is known for rigorous classroom teaching, and the schools definitely don't disappoint. Students are focused in class and are expected not to disrupt other classmates. Indeed, several of the math classes I observed in the elementary school I taught in were on par with high school levels in the US.Much is expected of Japanese students, but still, apparently the idea of expecting children to sit all day with only five-minute breaks in between classes is archaic and ridiculous. Japanese schools have learned that children focus better when they are intermittently allowed to run off their energy throughout the day—their international test scores show that the schools are doing something right.

Elementary school students switch classes in the same manner that junior high and high school students do in the US. They have different teachers that specialize in subject areas and have special teachers that rotate schools in a similar fashion to counselors in the US to ensure that students are getting the highest level of education possible. The first and second grade math teacher, for example, visited three schools to give math lessons to different classes. She was a full-time math teacher without a classroom.There is only one period in which students get five minutes to rotate to the next lesson. Otherwise, the other five periods of the day are interrupted with a fifteen or twenty-five minute break, or cleaning break after lunch.

As a middle school teacher in Florida, the classes after lunch were always the most rambunctious. By the afternoon, my students had already been sitting for six hours and were practically delirious; I constantly had to divert their attention back to the lesson at hand. With fifteen and twenty-five minute intervals to run and socialize with friends I don't have to imagine how much more effective my students would be academically; I saw the positive effects first hand in Tokyo, Japan.

Published February 4, 2009