Lesson Study for Learning Community

A guide to sustainable school reform

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LESSON STUDY FOR
LEARNING COMMUNITY

Lesson Study has been actively introduced from Japan to various parts of the world,
starting with the US. Such introduction is strongly connected with a focus on
mathematics education, and there is a strong misconception that Lesson Study is
only for mathematics or science. Introduction is usually done at the department or
form level, but some question its sustainability in schools.
This book comprehensively explores the idea of Lesson Study for Learning
Community (LSLC) and suggests that reform of the culture of the school is needed
in order to change learning levels among children, teachers and even parents. In
order for this to happen, changing the ways of management and leadership are also
objectives of LSLC, as are practices at the classroom level. The book argues that
LSLC is a comprehensive vision and framework of school reform and needs to be
taken up in a holistic way across disciplines. Chapters include how to:

• create time
• build the team
• promote reform
• reform daily lessons
• conduct a research lesson
• discuss observed lessons
• sustain school reform based on LSLC.

Strong interest in LSLC is already prevalent in Asian countries like Japan, China,
Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore and is now being more widely
adopted in the west.This book will be of great interest to those involved in education
policy and reform, and practitioners of education at all levels.
Eisuke Saito is an assistant professor in the department of Curriculum, Teaching
and Learning at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore.

Masatsugu Murase is an educational consultant with the Azabu Institute of

Education. Prior to that, he was a lecturer and associate professor at Shinshu
University, Japan.

Atsushi Tsukui is a researcher at the International Development Center of Japan.

He has also worked in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines.

John Yeo is a lecturer in the department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at

the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
LESSON STUDY
FOR LEARNING
COMMUNITY
A guide to sustainable
school reform

Eisuke Saito, Masatsugu Murase,

Atsushi Tsukui and John Yeo
First published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Eisuke Saito, Masatsugu Murase, Atsushi Tsukui and John Yeo
The right of Eisuke Saito, Masatsugu Murase, Atsushi Tsukui and John Yeo to be
identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this title has been requested

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CONTENTS

Foreword vi
christine lee
Preface ix
manabu sato
Acknowledgements xi

1 What is Lesson Study for Learning Community (LSLC)? 1

2 What kind of school can be created by reform under LSLC? 13

3 How to create time 25

4 How to build the team 31

5 How to promote reform 41

6 How to reform daily lessons 51

7 How to conduct a research lesson 61

8 How to discuss observed lessons 71

9 How to sustain school reform based on LSLC 79

References 87
Index 93
FOREWORD

I am deeply honoured to be invited to write a foreword to the first book written

in the English Language on Lesson Study for Learning Community: A guide to sustai-
nable school reform co-authored by Eisuke Saito, Masatsugu Murase, Atsushi Tsukui
and John Yeo. I know each of these authors personally and have observed their
interactions with schools, teachers and students in the contexts of lesson study in
Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore. All of them are driven by a passion to bring
about deep lasting change in schools, teachers, students and the community through
Lesson Study for Learning Community (LSLC). They spent inordinate amounts
of time observing research lessons and learning together with teachers on how
students in these classrooms learn or are not learning in their search for ways on
how to bring about quality learning in classrooms.
The authors are also driven by their compassion and care for the children
in schools, paying careful attention to those who are marginalised and often
not noticed in the crowdedness observed in schools and classrooms as school
and class sizes are usually large in Asian countries. Their skilful use of the video-
camera brings these ‘forgotten’ children to the fore to be noticed by their teachers
during post research lesson discussions. This book is the product of the collective
wisdom among the authors derived from many hours of observations, reflection
and dialogue among and between each of them. It is written with the intent of
sharing this collective wisdom with schools and teachers who intend to embark
on the journey of LSLC. The book provides the philosophy behind LSLC as well
as practical tips for observing research lessons and discussing research lessons. The
authors have shared ways of creating time for teachers as the lack of time to be
engaged in lesson study is an often heard cry from teachers. The authors have also
tackled pertinent questions often raised by teachers, such as how to build teacher
teams beyond subject boundaries, how to observe and discuss research lessons,
how to bring about reforms in the daily practice of teachers and how to work
 Foreword vii

towards sustainability of LSLC in a school highlighting the important role of school

leadership.
I also have the privilege of knowing Professor Manabu Sato whose vision and
ideas behind this movement of Lesson Study for Learning Community (LSLC)
have fired the spirit of many educators in Japan and beyond the shores of Japan
to China, Indonesia, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. I followed Professor Sato
to schools, to the first pilot school in LSLC, Hamanogo Elementary School in
2004 when I was first exposed to Lesson Study and its variation in the form of
LSLC and to other schools in Japan in 2011. What is Professor Sato’s vision for
LSLC? What are the ideas that form the substance of the book co-authored by
Eisuke Saito and his colleagues? The LSLC movement embodied in this book has
brought us to reconsider once again what the purpose and meaning of education
is as well as the purpose of schooling. It has made us re-examine our assumptions
about how classrooms should be like as a collaborative community, how we view
students and how they learn, how we observe lessons which are often done with
an evaluative stance, how we discuss research lessons not as feedback but as a way
of learning together and understanding our students better, how we view teachers
not as teaching professionals but as learning professionals, how we view parents not
as outsiders to the educative experiences we have designed for their children but
as partners in their learning. LSLC is about learning communities at so many levels
– teacher communities, student communities, parent communities and the interfaces
between and among them. And the heart of these communities is dialogue and of
developing a listening relationship within and among these communities.
I have asked Professor Sato why in his model of LSLC, joint planning of
lessons among teachers do not occur and the planning is often done informally.
He was concerned about the power relations among teacher teams comprising
novice teachers and experienced teachers. Whose ideas would finally prevail in the
enactment of the research lessons? This issue will be an ongoing debate among
lesson study advocates as well as in teachers in schools. Similarly the issue of whether
to form lesson study teams by subjects or levels will continue to be an ongoing
debate. Should we not allow teacher teams to decide for themselves how they want
to form their own teams or whether to engage in joint planning or to discuss their
lessons informally?
The implementation of LSLC in any school is fraught with challenges. It is never
easy to go against the tide of organisational as well as social routines that are deeply
embedded in any school culture. Making classrooms a public space and having each
teacher open one lesson to others resulting in about 80 research lessons for a large
school in one school year is mind-boggling for many unaccustomed to making
their classrooms public. Moving from teaching as telling to listening to students is
another. It involves a mindset change and a belief in the philosophy behind LSLC.
In one dialogue I had with Professor Sato, he shared that it would take about five
to seven years for a shift in a school culture for LSLC to take root and bear fruits.
For those reading this book and intending to initiate LSLC in your school, do not
expect instant results within one to two years but persist in bringing into action the
viii Foreword

vision and spirit behind LSLC. It is a call to move beyond the procedural aspects
of observation and discussion to deep dialogue and redesign that will really bring
about lasting impact on the learning of the students.

Christine Kim-Eng Lee

President, World Association of Lesson Studies (WALS), 2011–2014
Head, Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Academic Group,
National Institute of Education
Nanyang Technological University
PREFACE

Analysing national curricula of the advanced countries, I depict four main

agenda items of school reform and three main features of educational practices of
the twenty-first century. The society of the twenty-first century requires school
education to correspond to: (1) the knowledge-based society; (2) multi-cultural
education; (3) risk society and disparity society; and (4) citizenship education.
School education in the twenty-first century is characterised by changes (1) from
a programme-oriented curriculum to a project-oriented one, in other words, a
thinking curriculum; (2) from lecture style teaching and isolated individual learning
to learner-centered teaching and collaborative learning; (3) from a teaching
profession to a learning profession. In addition, the curriculum of the twenty-first
century is composed of four main cultural areas of language, scientific inquiry, art
and citizenship. These new features and modes of education are summarised as the
pursuit of both ‘quality and equality’.
Schools of the twenty-first century should be ‘learning community’ where
students learn together, teachers learn together for professional development, and
even parents learn together through participation in school reform. This definition
corresponds to the public mission of realising the human right of learning for all
children.
This idea, which I proposed about 20 years ago, has deeply captured teachers
in Japan, and then, the grassroots school reform movement has rapidly spread
nationwide. Today, about 1,500 elementary schools, 2,000 junior secondary schools
and 300 senior secondary schools are attempting to reform themselves from within,
according to this idea, and forming a grassroots network. About 300 pilot schools
are active as leading agents for such innovation. They present more than 1000 open
conferences per year for neighbouring teachers.
The proposal of ‘lesson study for learning community’ is not a technical
approach but a set of three integrated components of a vision, philosophies and
x Preface

activity systems. It delegates three philosophies: public philosophy, which demands

teachers open their classrooms; democratic philosophy, which introduces ‘a way of
associated living’ (John Dewey) for all the members to be protagonists of the school;
and philosophy of excellence for doing their best both in teaching and learning. In
addition, the activity systems of ‘lesson study for learning community’ have three
constituents: collaborative learning in the classroom, collegiality in the staff room
through promoting lesson study, and learning participation by parents. This idea has
deeply captured teachers. Miraculous success at the ‘hard schools’, which ‘at risk’
children in poverty attend, has fired democratic professionalism of teachers.
During the past 15 years, the grassroots movement has spread its wings to Asian
countries, especially Korea, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia and Vietnam. In
all of these countries, as well as in Japan, the movement is recognised as the most
powerful school reform for innovation in Asian countries in correspondence to the
twenty-first century.
The authors of this book are all thoughtful educators who have been involved in
enhancing the lesson study at the schools of learning community. All the chapters
are keystones for establishing deliberative learning community within schools. I am
sure that this guidebook will be a strong vehicle for wiring a network for reflective
collaboration among democratic teachers by border crossing beyond nations.

Manabu Sato, Ph.D.

Professor, Gakushuin University
Professor Emeritus, The University of Tokyo
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This small book is a product of interactions and collaborations among various

people. As discussed in the upcoming chapters, all of the authors are indebted to
Manabu Sato, advocate and pioneer of LSLC, for his dedication for practitioners
and for academic works that led us to working on LSLC, and for providing an
introduction to this book. We also wish to thank Christine Lee for her support
and for providing a foreword to this book. All of the authors likewise extend their
gratitude to Masaaki Sato not only for his expertise and insight on LSLC but also
for his encouragement in writing this book.
We also sincerely thank the collaborating teachers, teacher educators, and
researchers: Christina Ratnam, Lucy Fernandez, Fang Yanping, Ng Siew Ling
Connie and Julie Tan from the National Institute of Education, Singapore, as well
as our former colleagues, Fong Lay Lean, Elaine Gonda Maddatu, Deirdre Lim and
Sharifa Syed Haron; Nguyen Van Khoi, Phan The Si,Vu Tri Ngu, and Ha Huy Giap
from Bac Giang Province, as well as Vu Thi Son from Hanoi National University
of Education; and Sumar Hendayana, Harun Imansyah, Tatang Suratno, Ibrohim,
Ridwan Joharmawan, and Yosaphat Sumardi from Indonesia. Further, we would
like to acknowledge the valuable contribution of Naomi Takasawa, Ryo Suzuki,
and Isamu Kuboki in working with the participating Indonesian and Vietnamese
teachers. Matthew Atencio, from California State University, East Bay, deserves
our special thanks as well for his conceptual collaboration and contribution to the
development of studies on LSLC.
Moreover, we wish to acknowledge the support given by Pauline Goh, whose
comments on the chapters of the book helped improve the quality of the outcome.
We also especially acknowledge Dyah Intan, Eka Koesma, Pitriawati, Siti Mahrifah,
Nguyen Ngoc Thu ‘Aki’, Mikiko Tsuboi, Tran Hieu Thuy, Vu Mai Giang, Tong
Thi My Lien, and Nguyen Thu Hang. On behalf of all the authors, I would like
to take this opportunity to thank Khong Thi Diem Hang for her great support
xii Acknowledgements

and indispensable friendship to all of us. Ms Hang tirelessly accomplished daily

coordination work with the Vietnamese teachers as well as commented on the
manuscripts, and we would like to express our deepest appreciation for her devotion
to work and to educational development and justice in Vietnam. Further, as a
personal acknowledgement on my part, I would like to thank Shinichi Ashikawa, a
philosopher in the wilderness, for his encouragement and teaching, which spiritually
guided my commitment to LSLC.
This book is an outcome of two research funds: one by the National Institute
of Education, Singapore (SUG 25/12 ES, Theoretical and Case Studies on Lesson
Study for Learning Community), and the other by the International Development
Center of Japan (twenty-first Century Fund, Lesson Study in ASEAN countries for
the twenty-first century).

Eisuke Saito
January 2014
1
WHAT IS LESSON STUDY FOR
LEARNING COMMUNITY (LSLC)?

Lesson Study for Learning Community (LSLC) had a humble beginning in a single
man’s vision to defend public school against a quick succession of top-down school
reforms across Japan (Sato, 2008). Professor Manabu Sato believed firmly in the
urgent need to revitalise education and started a grass-root initiative against the
hegemony of neoliberal educational policies in the early 1980s that eventually led
to the creation of learning communities among educators. Anchored in the vision
that the school must be made of communities of learners at all levels with every
other agenda organised around this and a doctrine that brings learning to the fore,
LSLC promotes an environment where children learn together, teachers are
respected as professionals modelling learning, and parents within the larger com-
munity come together and participate in the restoration of education. Such a learn-
ing community requires collaborative learning in all classrooms and encourages
collegiality in the staffrooms with partnership among teachers being a critical
component of success.
This book captures the experience and the unrelenting efforts of those pioneers
who have successfully proven that LSLC can be an excellent vehicle to transform
schools. This book explicates comprehensively the way LSLC restores the meaning
of education in schools by systematically building the learning capacities of students,
teachers, administrators, and even parents and other stakeholders. Such a trans-
formation may sound too good to be true but the progress of reform in more
than 3,000 Japanese schools (Sato, 2012), in addition to schools in China, Korea,
Indonesia and Vietnam today, is testimony that it is possible. These schools have
gradually moved from merely imparting skills and content to being active commu-
nities that live out the experience of true learning. In a keynote presentation in
2008, Professor Sato exclaimed, ‘the school is a miracle place where every child and
every teacher can find his/her best way of learning’ (Sato, 2008).
2 What is LSLC?

Why LSLC?

International attention on lesson study

Effective professional learning is a long-term commitment and it is best conducted
in a school community that promotes learning for all. Lesson study as an approach
to teacher professional development emphasises both these elements: long-term
practice and an implicit belief in the efficacy of learning. It therefore resonates with
the emerging consensus that programmes should be based on the understanding
that professional development is continuing, active, social and related to practice
(Webster-Wright, 2009). Darling-Hammond (1997) has pointed out that profes-
sional development linked to student learning and curricular reform must be deeply
embedded in the daily life of schools. This requires an examination of the teachers’
practices on a daily basis. Cochran-Smith and Lytle (2001) reported that communi-
ties supporting inquiry would develop their own histories, and in a certain sense,
their own culture in which teachers would share discourses, experiences and a set
of procedures to lend structure to their shared experiences.
In order to develop such a community or culture, it is increasingly important for
teachers to mutually observe and jointly reflect on practices at the classroom level.
This is because teachers tend to obtain most of their ideas through actual practice
– both their own and their colleagues’ (Barth, 1990; Joyce and Showers, 2002;
Grierson and Gallagher, 2009). Further, observations and reflections on teaching
practices, if appropriately performed, would help teachers to jointly pose questions
regarding the problems they face, identify discrepancies between theories and
practices, challenge common routines, draw on the work of others to develop
generative frameworks and attempt to make visible most of what is taken for granted
about teaching and learning (Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 2001).
In 1999 Stigler and Hiebert made a phenomenal international impact on educa-
tors, especially in the US, with the publication of their book, The Teaching Gap.Their
findings showed how LS helped to enhance teachers’ learning and provided a
possible clue to understanding the substantial gap between the US and the Japanese
mathematics achievement scores in the Third International Mathematics and
Sciences Study (TIMSS).They claimed that despite the introduction of group work
and the apparent belief among American teachers that they had adopted a social
constructivist pedagogical approach, in reality few changes were noted in the style
of children’s learning (Hiebert and Stigler, 2000). In addition, they found few
changes in teachers’ goals toward deeper mathematical understanding (Hiebert and
Stigler, 2000). Educators and policy makers thought that perhaps LS might be the
key to explaining this disparity and useful to the design of curriculum reform in
schools (Council for Basic Education, 2000; Fernandez and Yoshida, 2001; Lewis,
2002). This was during a period when national education in the US was in crisis
with many pressing issues needing to be addressed. LS began to make inroads into
teacher education programmes and serious attention was paid to testing it on an
academic level.
 What is LSLC? 3

Under these circumstances and in combination with the call for professional
development that is more school-based and grounded in daily realities, scholars
introduced lesson study as a Japanese professional development method, denouncing
conventional one-time professional development activities and emphasising the
importance of a sustained and practical approach (Lewis and Tsuchida, 1998; Stigler
and Hiebert, 1999).
Lesson study is described as a process consisting of the following steps:
(1) collaboratively planning the study lesson; (2) implementing the study lesson;
(3) discussing the study lesson; (4) revising the lesson plan (optional); (5) teaching
the revised version of the lesson (optional); and (6) sharing thoughts about the
revised version of the lesson (Fernandez and Yoshida, 2004). In the US and other
developed countries, the development of knowledge in teachers is usually taken as
the major reason for the introduction of LS and there is a tendency for small groups
of teachers to start up LS (Fernandez, 2005; Fernandez and Yoshida, 2004; Wang-
Iverson and Yoshida, 2004; Wiburg and Brown, 2007) but not necessarily to involve
the entire school in the process (Saito, 2012). Joint planning has been richly discussed
in US LS literature but not very much has been said about how to capture children
and their learning (Saito, 2012). However, since the 1980s, educational environments
in the US have become increasingly challenging and troublesome. In fact, such
problems had actually necessitated the emergence of LS in Japan too. We will now
move on to discuss these problems that have captured the attention of educators
around the world, the limitations of subject-oriented LS, as well as the background
to why LSLC was started in Japan as a countermeasure to these challenges.

Teachers’ challenges: dealing with motivational issues

Since the 1980s, a safer environment to assure learning has become a need around
the world. Children’s problematic behaviours have been a major issue in education
in developed countries and the responses towards such behaviours taken by the
school managers are likely to be punitive ones (Utley et al., 2002). In such schools,
obviously, children’s learning is likely to be disturbed and to result in lower
performance (Leithwood, Harris and Strauss, 2010). In response to such a situation,
the authorities in many Western countries have established more neoliberal reform
to let schools compete in a ranking system with the expectation that such
competition would push schools to satisfy conditions and standards set by the
authorities (Hargreaves and Shirley, 2009).
At the same time there is a concern for an alternative to punitive approaches
towards problematic behaviours of children. There are increasing numbers of
practices and knowledge bodies that demonstrate the importance of proactive and
preventive interventions, with emphasis on reciprocal, caring and positive school
behaviours (Lassen, Steel and Sailor, 2006). Questions were asked about the
overemphasis on ranking based on academic achievement and how that influences
teaching and learning processes. Wrigley (2003) points out that direct instruction
for merit only does not help children become interested in nor motivated about
4 What is LSLC?

learning – successful learning should take more collaborative forms based on group
learning.
This move is pertinent because one-way instruction in traditional modes does
not benefit children. Such a style of education – called the banking concept of
education by Freire (1970) – forces learners to memorise items. The alternative
approaches suggest the importance of collaboration among children and between
children and teachers (Webb, 2013), based on mutual engagement of participants in
a coordinated effort to solve the problem together (Roschelle and Teaseley, 1995).
Further, it is important to note that it is not only children in lowly performing
schools that need a change of instruction. Those in highly performing schools are
just as alienated by traditional classroom practices for they find no meaning in
memorisation (Sidorkin, 2004).
Leithwood et al. (2010) claim that when children with lower socio-economic
status (SES) form the majority in a school their achievements tend to be lower. Such
children are victims of the pressure of socio-economic gaps. There is a greater risk
for such children to experience poverty, malnutrition, domestic violence, or divorce
of parents (Wong et al., 2013). Ethnic discrimination can be another factor to con-
sider in multi-cultural societies. In New South Wales, Australia, for example, there is
a spontaneous tendency for Western and non-Western students to segregate them-
selves in the choice of schools to attend. This is mainly due to neo-liberal policies
of school choice which sadly mitigates against the building up of mixed com-
munities (Sweller, Graham and Bergen, 2012). Such a tendency further produces
and reproduces segregation and labelling, an insidious social stigma upon children
and their schools. Likewise, as the competition under neo-liberal economic reform
intensifies in general and the gap between the haves and have-nots widens, more
people would experience severely deprived life situations. This means there will be
more children with such difficulties coming to schools. Again, the question is how
to turn children’s attention to learning under such difficult circumstances?
Furthermore, the other question is how much have academics responded to such a
need – particularly in connecting the details of the learning situation of children
with daily classroom practices?

Issues of subject-oriented lesson study

From such a perspective, we notice there are some issues in the way previous
research in LS was done. First, their research was likely to be conducted in schools
where disruptive issues as demonstrated above do not arise, or researchers would not
have much interest in such issues. In previous research, much attention was paid to
the knowledge of teachers in subject matter and teaching (Fernandez, 2005;
Fernandez and Yoshida, 2004; Wang-Iverson and Yoshida, 2004; Wiburg and Brown,
2007). In the situation of schools where children escape from learning, teachers
need to start by struggling with the problem of keeping such children inside the
classrooms and getting them ready for lessons.Teachers in such schools can be worn
out simply trying to keep children quiet and making them pay attention to what
 What is LSLC? 5

teachers say. However, in the literature on subject-oriented LS hitherto, such kinds

of disruption issues and the measures taken to remedy them have seldom been
discussed. All of them do discuss how to teach a particular subject as communities
(Fernandez, 2005; Fernandez and Yoshida, 2004; Wang-Iverson and Yoshida, 2004;
Wiburg and Brown, 2007) – yet there are so many problems to be faced before one
can reach that stage.
Secondly, in a subject-oriented LS framework, the participation of teachers is
confined at a partial level and not the entire school. Lim et al. (2011) find that in the
66 per cent of Singaporean schools where teachers conduct LS the participation
rate of LS is less than 40 per cent of the entire school teachers. Furthermore, much
research focuses on certain subjects only, mathematics being the usual one
(Fernandez, 2005; Fernandez and Yoshida, 2004; Wiburg and Brown, 2007). So
there is a great possibility that there is a gap between teachers who are engaged in
LS and those who are not.
The need to engage the entire school in order to change classroom practices has
been pointed out by academics. Hargreaves calls the schism inside the school
‘Balkanisation’ and says that it hinders the process of school reform. Ainscow, Barrs
and Martin (1998) claim that it is likely to be difficult to collaborate and share
innovation across subject departments. Kyriakides (2005) points out that a difference
between effective schools and non-effective schools is that there is a smaller variance
in practices in effective schools. So within the framework of subject-oriented LS, it
is hard to address these issues.
Thirdly, there is the question of how to deprivatise practices under the framework
of subject-oriented LS. It is inevitable, from a systemic perspective, that under this
type of LS framework joint planning is conducted and mutual observation of each
other’s practices is not frequently done (Saito, 2012). However, Leithwood et al.
(2010) underline the importance of mutual observation and reflection to change
the situation in badly performing schools. There is a strong need for teachers to
actually know what children are like and how they learn in different subjects.
Teachers need to modify their teaching strategies impromptu when faced with
unexpected responses from children. The more professional teachers can do this
instantly (Sato, Akita and Iwakawa, 1993) but skills need to be sharpened through
observation and mutual reflection as often as possible. Particularly, as Kitada (2007)
points out, teachers hone their skills through listening to expert teachers’ narratives
and reflection as often as they can. In the subject-oriented LS framework, there is
likely to be a scarcity of such opportunities.

History of LSLC

The beginning of LSLC in Japan

Since the 1980s the situation in schools has gradually grown violent and Manabu
Sato realised that there would be a huge backlash against school education and
teachers (Sato, 2005). He intuitively sensed that it would become a question about
6 What is LSLC?

democracy in schools and there would be a strong demand for reorganising and
reforming schools as democratic communities but this could only come from
within (Sato, 2005).Thus he kept doing action research with teachers and eventually
in 1996, published a book, entitled Critique on Curriculum, which sets out the vision
and philosophical foundation of LSLC.
In response to Sato’s vision and philosophy of LSLC three pilot primary schools
pioneered the approach: Hamanogo, Ojiya and Hiromi. However, before going into
detail about the trials in these schools, we need to understand the background to
that period.
Japanese society was undergoing a particularly tough time as the nineties drew
to a close. In the 1980s, the Japanese economy had been very strong; it gave rise to
what was called the ‘Bubble Economy’. Japanese products were in great demand
and sold well abroad. The yen grew in strength. The employment rate was high and
graduates could find jobs very easily. Life-long employment was regarded as almost
guaranteed and few people had any doubts it would always be there. It would have
been hard for anyone to imagine being sacked in the middle of his career if he had
not done anything wrong.
However, the Bubble Economy ended in 1990 and the Japanese economy began
to slow down from the very beginning of that year. At the start, it was still not very
widely felt but by the middle of the 1990s there was no escape from the obvious.
When the Asian financial crisis struck in 1997 it made a great impact on people’s
lives. Even white collar workers who had always been assured of employment until
they came to retirement age were subjected to retrenchment and early dismissal.
This traumatic change in socio-economic realities had an immense impact on
the educational aspirations of the times.Within Japanese society the chief motivation
or justification for the pursuit of education had been the assurance of financial
stability in later life.The assumption was that if one studied hard one would make it
to a good high school and then later, to a well-known university, and of course,
following graduation, one would get a job with a renowned company. Teachers and
parents encouraged children to succeed by memorising the contents of textbooks
and by practising a lot of drills.Those who gave up learning would be that minority
who could not cope with such mechanical learning for various reasons and
consequently exhibited juvenile delinquency problems.
However, with the recession that came after the Asian financial crisis, even the
children of white collar workers started to become problematic because their
parents became unemployed. The result of this phenomenon was that children
began to lose the motivation for rote learning since it was not longer clear why they
had to do this (Kariya, 2001). All their best efforts would not guarantee them good
jobs. Naturally they began to think that it would be better to enjoy their present
lives and certainly rote learning was pushed down to the bottom of their priorities.
At the same time unemployment bringing about stress to the family and relationships
became problematic. Consequently, divorce rates increased sharply. In 1998 it was
1.94 percentile and in 1999, 2.00 percentile as compared with 1.26 in 1988 (Ministry
of Health, Labour and Welfare, 2013). At the same time the number of suicides
rapidly increased to 30,000 cases in 1998 and has continued at this rate until today
 What is LSLC? 7

(Cabinet Office, 2012). Children were forced to live under such hard circumstances
and found themselves in a very vulnerable position.
The stressful lives of children and their loss of hope in learning led to a new
problem for schools: many children began to avoid learning, the Japanese term for
it being ‘escape from learning’ (Sato, 2000). Escape from learning means the rejec-
tion of learning or rejection of participation in learning during lesson time or a
reluctance to study. Escape from learning is a broad concept and it means basically
negative attitudes towards learning but it can also take concrete forms of day-
dreaming, putting their heads on the desks or chit-chatting during lesson times and
some may even be excusing themselves from classrooms without any justifiable
reasons (Sato and Sato, 2003). Sato (2000) points out that despite the widespread
belief that Japanese children are eager students, busy studying hard and going for
extra tuition after school hours, the majority of them actually reject learning
starting from the upper graders in primary schools and the amount of time they
spend in study is the least in the world (National Institute of Educational Policy
Research, 2000).
Sato (2000) situates the emergence of escape from learning in the wake of
the collapse of the East Asian Educational Development Model (EAEDM) which
was associated with the end of the Bubble Economy. Sato (2000) claims that
EAEDM is found in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, North Korea
and China. He lists the characteristics of EAEDM as: (1) compressed modernisation
to enable upward social mobility through provision of educational opportunity to
the nationals; (2) emphasis on competition; (3) slant towards industrial develop-
ment; (4) centralised bureaucratic control; (5) strong emphasis on nationalism;
and (6) immaturity of collaboration and association in educational system and
practices.
In EAEDM, competition among children is emphasised because the purpose of
schooling is reduced to achieving high scores in examinations. Such a view of
education is represented in Figure 1.1, where schooling is perceived and constructed
in a hierarchical manner. It is revealing that interests of the children are located at
the bottom of the structure and are described as ‘outcome and assessment’.
EAEDM functions well when the national economy is undergoing a rapid
industrialisation process. However, if such a process stops, then EAEDM loses its
positive impact. In Japan, its end was signalled by an emergence of increased school
violence beginning in the early 1980s. Basically the cause of this dysfunction can be
attributed to the transformation of the function and meaning of the school system.
Schooling was no longer able to ensure social mobility; rather it became a divisive
agent, stratifying children in two groups, a minority of ‘winners’ and a majority of
‘losers’. The sad truth was that for the majority of Japanese children, the school
system was a place for them to fail (Sato, 2000).
The birth of LSLC began when Manabu Sato proposed a different approach to
reforming schools – not by implementing educational policies in a hierarchical
structure and order but based on children’s needs for learning (Sato, 1996). He
was an educational scholar who was most acutely aware of the realities of Japanese
schools. By the end of the 1990s he had visited Japanese classrooms close to
8 What is LSLC?

Discipline/culture

Social demands

Curriculum development system

Educational goal

Developing material package

Lesson Practice

Outcome & assessment

FIGURE 1.1 Hierarchical View on Education (EAEDM)

Source: Sato (1996)

10,000 times. In 1998, against such a backdrop of social, economic and educational
pressures three pilot schools of LSLC were established: Hamanogo Primary School,
Ojiya Primary School and Hiromi Primary School. Today, there are 1,500 primary
schools, 2,000 junior high schools, and 300 senior high schools running LSLC in
Japan (Sato, 2012). The large numbers are all the more remarkable when we
remember that the movement started with only three schools in 1998. These three
schools were at the primary level, but in 2001 when Mr Masaaki Sato, the principal
of Hiromi, was transferred to Gakuyo Junior High School he initiated reform there.
Gakuyo was one of the most problematic schools in the city but by applying LSLC
Mr Massaki was able to achieve a dramatic turnaround within just a couple of years.
This was the first pilot school at the secondary level and it showed the way for
teachers at the secondary level to run LSLC. The start of LSLC might have been
humble but it spread gradually all over Japan by word of mouth at the beginning
and later, through the influence of various publications (Ose and Sato, 2000; Ose
and Sato, 2003; Sato, 2003; Sato, 2005; Sato and Sato, 2003).

Further development?
What, then, has been done under the name of LSLC? LSLC has a unique vision and
philosophy quite different from the usual lesson study approaches. The most
important vision under LSLC is to establish democracy – the associated ways of
living (Dewey, 1916; Higgins, 2010). It means that regardless of their backgrounds
people can live and learn together at the best quality level. To achieve this, it is
necessary to ensure that there are learning opportunities and rights for all children,
all teachers and for as many parents and local people as possible. When this is done
 What is LSLC? 9

the philosophies of publicness, equality and excellence are underlined. So, first, all
teachers need to participate in LSLC beyond the boundaries of their subject areas.
Second, regardless of their status, experiences or factions, teachers need to participate
with other teachers in LSLC. Third, there should not be any compromise – teachers
need to keep seeking improvement in their practices.
In order to translate such convictions into reality in the Japanese experience the
activity system in the school was organised with three major emphases: first,
the basic unit for activities resided in groups on their form level. Second, observation
and reflection constituted the central official activities for teacher learning.Third, in
addition to the second point, lesson observations and reflections were done at a high
frequency, at least every two weeks in each form group.
Regarding the first point, graders’ groups or form groups need to be the unit of
activities in LSLC which are, namely, observation and reflection. This is to make it
easier for teachers to discuss children and their learning first. Quality of learning is
important and needs to be discussed but teachers have to be able to understand how
children are and whether they can learn or not. This is because teachers need to
improvise their design of learning on an impromptu basis in response to the situation
of children and without that capacity it is difficult for them to provide the best
learning opportunities for children.
In conventional LS, in contrast, there is a tendency for subject departments to be
units of lesson study at the secondary school level and even at the primary levels the
focus would often be on particular subjects. Such an organisation of lesson study is
unlikely to help teachers pay attention to the realities of children and their learning.
Rather, it tends to confine them to discussion only about subject matters or
preparation of tasks. It also invariably leads teachers to develop departmental schisms
in vision, vocabularies and practices in the schools and to a separation between daily
practices and research lessons.
With regard to the second point, in conventional lesson study, there is a strong
emphasis on activities prior to observation and reflection.This means that much time
is spent on curriculum research, study of the content, joint planning and so forth.
However, the reality is that there is no perfect plan. Furthermore, there is a great likeli-
hood that children would respond very differently from what teachers expect. For
example, there might be children who give up learning and start to sleep. In other
cases, children may catch teachers off-guard by revealing an unexpected misconcep-
tion that is fundamental to learning the given topic. Then again children might not
work as nicely in groups as teachers would have expected. Under such circumstances
what would you do? What is the best way for teachers to bring such children back
into the world of learning? What we need to do is to face the realities first and then
to think about possible alternatives or solutions to the issues and problems. Actually,
one of the most important learning points in LSLC is how to respond to unexpected
realities demonstrated by the children. If we slant too much on the side of joint plan-
ning or prior activities, we keep missing this important part of learning.
As for the third point, it is obvious that if we conduct observation and reflection
just once or twice in a year, few things would change. Teachers would tend to show
10 What is LSLC?

up and ‘demonstrate’ ‘unusual’ lessons to other teachers. This is inevitable because

opening practices is rare. It is necessary to make it a habit in a school to observe and
learn from the practices of each other. More importantly, significant professional
learning is likely to happen during observation and joint reflection and it is necessary
to maximise this opportunity. Sato (2006) says that it is only after around 30 times
at the entire school level that the culture and practice of that school will start to
change.
What has happened in Japan was that LSLC started in a quiet way but quickly
caught the attention of educators around the country. Today there is at least one
pilot LSLC school in each prefecture. So within 15 years the educational landscape
of Japan has been influenced or touched by LSLC in a positive way. Teachers have
been able to find a way out of their struggles and problems in their daily practices.
It is not only about teaching techniques or skills; rather, it is a serious matter
concerning the existential problems of teachers, children, schools and society.
What has been described above about LSLC is visually represented below
(Figure 1.2). Teachers conduct their practices based on the needs of children and
their learning; then they critique and reflect on these practices. Such critiques and
reflections would promote both professional and curriculum development, would
inform discipline and culture which would in turn impact children, leading to
change in the practices. It can be clearly seen that the biggest difference between
this model and that of the hierarchical one shown in Figure 1.1 is that each factor
is connected and networked as a rhizome with no particular finishing point. This
means that it is a never-ending process and teachers, children and schools continue
to grow, even if slowly and gradually, without an end point.
As we have discussed earlier, the socio-economic problems in Japan have
persisted for more than two decades and circumstances for children have been
growing increasingly severe. Inevitably, it has become more difficult for children
to be engaged in learning and many of them have been led into juvenile
delinquency because of the increase in family and community breakdown caused

Practice Discipline/Culture

Curriculum

Curriculum Curriculum Development

Critique
Lesson (Reflection) Professional Development

Demands of children/society

FIGURE 1.2 Rhizome Model of Educational Reform (LSLC)

Source: Sato (1996)
 What is LSLC? 11

by socio-economic issues such as poverty or unemployment. At the same time,

there has been an increase in political manipulations and pressures on schools
and teachers: more right-wing and ultra-conservative politicians with power and
popularity are using their status to bash teachers, schools and the boards of educa-
tion, pressing them for ‘accountability’ (Saito and Murase, 2011). Such politicians
create a public sense of temporary euphoria by penalising teachers and accusing
them of being lazy or not doing a proper job from neo-liberalistic and fanatically
nationalistic points of view.
Under the weight of all these pressures, many teachers have come to see LSLC
as one of the very few solutions available to make schools and classrooms more truly
school-like and classroom-like: that is, giving a place for every child to learn
meaningfully with a sense of security. Through LSLC, both children and teachers
feel there is an increase in the pleasure of learning. Then, because of the success of
Gakuyo Junior High School (Saito and Sato, 2012; Sato and Sato, 2003) in turning
around one of the most problematic schools in the country to one of the best
performing schools, more teachers, even at the secondary levels, have started to pay
attention to LSLC.

Expansion to other parts of the world

LSLC is an attempt to revisit, translate and re-vitalise a Western educational vision
and philosophy according to educational practices for the Japanese context. In the
same way as the philosophy of Aristotle had been preserved and developed in
Islamic countries before the West ‘discovered’ it, the scholars and practitioners of
LSLC aim to develop and activate democracy in education in Japan, as well as
around the world at a time when neo-liberalism and ultra-conservatism are popular
trends. More recently, especially after the 2000s, LSLC is being introduced to other
Asian countries: China, Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore. The
authors of this book have been involved in such an introduction to South East Asian
countries, in particular, to the latter three countries. In some cases, the national
ministries have become agencies in disseminating LSLC in their countries. It
remains still to be seen what sort of roles these ministries will play and how they
might adjust LSLC visions and philosophies in the long term. For now, attention
from other countries around the world continues to grow.
However, still there is a huge need to explain what LSLC is about to international
practitioners outside Japan. This book provides the whole picture of LSLC in
English. The next chapter is about the vision and philosophy of LSLC. The vision is
higher quality learning opportunities for every single child, professional learning
opportunities for every single teacher and opportunities for as many parents and
local communities as possible to participate in learning at schools. The philosophy
of LSLC is to deprivatise practices to the school community, to establish equality
inside the school and to strive for excellence in learning together.
The third chapter will discuss how to create more time for teachers. School
reform, in general, is a time-consuming activity. LSLC is a professional and
12 What is LSLC?

community-oriented school reform, so time is a crucial factor. In this chapter, there

will be an explanation of general principles involved in creating more time and the
introduction of some cases where this has been achieved.
Then there will be a discussion on management and leadership issues in
Chapter 4. How to organise teachers within and how to work with external resource
persons will be discussed. For internal stakeholders, there will be discussion on
what kinds of roles managers, teachers and children should take up. Then, turning
to external stakeholders, parents and local communities, local educational authorities
and resource persons are the focus of discussion.
The aim in Chapter 5 is to discuss the procedure and framework of LSLC: units
of activities, focal points of LSLC and informal activities will be introduced. Then,
since the entire school is involved, setting up a schedule for regular activity becomes
extremely vital. Thus in the latter half of this chapter, there will be a discussion on
regular time slots, annual plans and conducting research lessons.
Chapter 6 focuses on how to reform daily lessons. Although this book is about
LSLC, the actual goal of LSLC is not merely doing observation of and reflection on
lessons but, more importantly, reforming daily practices at classroom levels and the
culture of a school. Without daily effort to change practices, LSLC cannot produce
any results. In other words, daily effort is most important and LSLC is a venue to
share issues and discuss problems as well as to make breakthroughs together in
learning how to put the vision of LSLC into daily practices. In this chapter,
pedagogical reform on daily basis will be discussed.
In Chapter 7, we deal with what has to be done in conducting and observing
a research lesson. In the first half, there will be points that teachers conducting a
research lesson should keep in mind – keeping a lesson simple and ordinary, taking
turns with each other and ensuring growth as professionals.Then in the second half,
what observers have to do will be explained, such as: perspectives and positions,
recording observations and etiquette as observers.
Chapter 8 is about how to discuss observed lessons in case conferences for joint
reflection. Joint reflection in case conferences is the core in the process of LSLC. In
order to make it most fruitful, there are some issues for participants to keep in mind,
namely two-phased discourses and the use of video. Then in this chapter, how to
moderate and facilitate discussion will be covered too.
Finally, in Chapter 9, we look at how to sustain LSLC and how to hand it over
to a new generation in the school. It should be pointed out that people cannot
change immediately so patience is most important when promoting LSLC. Issues
requiring patience will be discussed in the first half. Then in the second half of the
chapter, how to respond to turnover of staff, namely teachers and principals, will be
discussed. Turnover of staff is certainly a loss to their schools. However, at the same
time, it is also a good opportunity to renew understanding and reconfirm the vision
and philosophy of LSLC. There will be discussions on how to go through such
periods and how to make them more positive.
2
WHAT KIND OF SCHOOL CAN BE
CREATED BY REFORM UNDER LSLC?

In this chapter we will reflect on the kind of school that LSLC will enable us to
create. There are two parts to it: first, the LSLC vision for reform, and next, its
philosophy.You may think that these are vague and abstract matters but vision and
philosophy are important in promoting reform since they tell us where we are
going. School reform is not only a matter of ‘how’ – this is actually secondary. If you
wish to take up a leadership role in your school, people will start to ask you what
they should do and why. In order for your colleagues to properly understand the
nature of the desired reform and the reasons for it, it is crucial that you have a deep
understanding of the vision and philosophy of LSLC. Essentially, it is to build up a
school that ensures high quality learning for every child, learning opportunities for
all teachers to grow as professionals, and avenues of participation for parents and
local community in learning. Further, LSLC results in creating public space in the
school by opening up its processes, establishing equality and striving together for
excellence.

Setting up a vision for reform

What does it mean to set up a vision for reforming your school? In order to get
our heads around this question, let us consider who the protagonists are in
schools. They are the children, of course. It is crucial that children have an
environment in which they can maximise their learning experience. But are they all
currently doing so? No. Thus, we have the first reason to set up a vision. We must
also not forget you, the teachers: you are also protagonists of a school. Then too,
parents and people in the local community are important characters in the life of
your school. Under the vision of LSLC, each of these groups of people should be
‘main characters’. Let us consider this goal in detail below.
14 What kind of school can be created under LSLC?

Assuring access to higher-quality learning

opportunities for every single child
Children come to your school to learn. This is a very simple and obvious fact.
However, is every single child, in a real sense, assured of adequate opportunities for
learning? What are the assumptions of learning? Do we know how students learn?
Who are our students? Are there biased views of who our students are? Do we
‘classify’ students based on ill-constructed ways of ‘banding’ them? Are students’
performances the best way to stereotype how students learn? LSLC challenges these
notional unexamined assumptions or falsified teachers’ beliefs and personal theories.
We must stop and consider what has to be done in order to ensure higher-quality
learning opportunities for every single child – this is what we must set as our vision.
Teachers have a tendency to divide children into groups and treat them differ-
ently. This is because of the belief that different treatments are inevitable, more
natural and more efficient: it seems more logical that teachers organise different
tasks for different groups because their pace of learning apparently differs. However,
if teachers hold such beliefs and tendencies, it will be extremely hard to achieve any
assurance of equal educational opportunity for every child. Behind such beliefs is a
huge ignorance about a simple fact: children can grow and change. Their current
state will not necessarily always remain the same. Change can happen through
mutual interaction and collaboration among children and with teachers. An impor-
tant part of a teacher’s job is to help children realise this change for good and not to
stigmatise them so early in their lives.
What we have to keep in mind as teachers is the need to accept all kinds of chil-
dren. This is because every child is a protagonist in his or her own life. However
poor and challenging their circumstances or even academic performance may be,
they must be regarded and respected as citizens. It is all the more crucial that they
be received in such a light because school invariably has the greatest impact on their
young lives outside of their families. If a school upholds a high view of the place of
the child (and hopefully, all schools do) it must accept children of whatever back-
ground without exception. Whether or not they are high achievers we, as teachers,
should always accept them.
To be more concrete, during lessons when a teacher calls on a child, his or her
intention is to see whether the child’s response is correct or not. However, if a
mistake is made, there is always a reason behind it. So the fundamental thing for
a teacher is to listen – listen to why and how the child has come to this conclusion.
If children start to perceive you as a person who listens, they will start to feel secure
learning with you and settle down to their work.
Another important point here is that we can learn a lot from children’s mistakes
or misconceptions. By transforming mistakes into a text that we can share and
enquire into together, both children and teachers can learn much more deeply
about the concepts or theories presented than if they are seeking right answers only.
In other words, children are connected to curriculum via their experiences (Dewey,
1990) and their mistakes and misconceptions can be the mediator between
 What kind of school can be created under LSLC? 15

themselves and what is taught as curriculum. If many children make the same
mistake, then by unpacking the process of the misconception together, we can show
them what has gone wrong and stop other children from falling into the same trap.
If we take this perspective, it becomes nonsensical to classify children into those
who can answer correctly and those who cannot. Every child is precious, and
every remark or idea of his or hers is also valuable as a springboard for learning.
What is most important is that a teacher creates an environment where everyone
can be at ease saying anything, seeking help and learning together (Webb and
Mastergeorge, 2003).
The role of teachers is to set up learning opportunities where everyone can be
engaged, as we have already noted. There are various types of children with various
sorts of issues related to family problems, academic failure, past traumatic experiences
in the classroom, relationships with friends, and so forth.Whatever their backgrounds
or contexts, whoever they are, if they feel supported, they will learn and grow in a
healthy way. It is therefore crucial that we foster a culture in the classroom and
school that allows for a caring interdependence and fallibility in learning. Children
and teachers need to support each other and work towards high quality learning
through collaboration. To do this, what they need is not evaluation or assessment,
not to be told ‘This is what you are’, but instead, empathy and friends who say ‘I am
here for you’. Such a relationship can be developed even at the lower grades in
primary schools (see Figure 2.1).
By creating classrooms where everyone can depend on and learn from each
other with full confidence, we can help troubled children open up both to other
children and to teachers. In this way they can develop a sense of trust of others, and
gradually begin to change their relationships with other people, with learning, and
with themselves.

FIGURE 2.1 Caring for another pupil’s learning

16 What kind of school can be created under LSLC?

As we come to realise that caring and learning are closely linked under LSLC we
also begin to see how ‘learning’ in this context is complex. As Cazden (2001) points
out, there are three aspects to learning: cognitive, social and ethical. Many people
automatically identify learning with cognitive activities, a definition which is not
wrong, but which is incomplete. In learning, even in an ordinary lesson, there are
also social aspects that concern the establishment of relationships with others.
Likewise, ethical aspects also exist, related to internal matters such as the identity or
moral code of the learner. So the question pursued under LSLC is how to ensure
that each child has the opportunity to engage with learning in a complex way.
Through daily lessons, teachers are expected to provide every single child with
intelligent challenges and the opportunity for collaboration with classmates as well
as for personal inner reflection.

Assuring the availability of learning opportunities

for every single teacher to grow
Under LSLC, teachers pursue two concerns: ensuring care between children and
between children and themselves as well as maintaining a high quality of learning in
their daily practice. This sounds simple, but you may find that it is actually not so
easy. It requires professional capacities because setting up challenging tasks requires
a teacher to be strong in both subject knowledge and pedagogical understanding.
He or she must be able to add to these skills other wider liberal arts knowledge and
implement this in the curriculum and in daily lesson plans. Then, the teacher needs
to tailor tasks that will challenge children intelligently at the level of understanding
that they demonstrate. Furthermore, she or he needs to provide opportunities for
children to collaborate, and to facilitate their interaction if necessary. On top of all
this, the teacher has time limitations, both daily and in terms of the progress of the
year as a whole. What a complex job! The demands are significant and the overall
talent and capacity expected are high.
It is not a matter of mere pedagogical techniques to meet these needs, as mis-
understood by many teachers or bureaucrats (Bjork, 2005; Saito et al., 2008). An
internal shift is needed – from that of ‘endpoint bureaucrats’, who believe their job is
to finish the curriculum in time for examination, to that of ‘autonomous professionals’,
who attempt their best to maximise quality of learning of children each time (Bjork,
2005; Karakaya, 2004; Saito et al., 2008). An ‘endpoint bureaucrat’ does not have to
worry about whether children are actually learning and whether they are satisfied
with their learning. Without any change in instructional methods mandated by the
higher authorities, she or he does not feel any necessity to change her or his practices:
even if such change is expected, she or he, in some cases, may hardly respond.
A professional, in contrast, always reflects on her or his practices as a habit of
mind, and tinkers with them on a daily basis in a process of continuous improvement.
Why? To provide children with a better education! To achieve that purpose, a
teacher always needs to keep learning. Learning can take place in self-reflection,
study, or conversations with colleagues.
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corrections table in the note at the end of the text.
 MEMOIRS

OF THE LIFE

OF

DAVID RITTENHOUSE, LLD. F.R.S.

LATE PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, &c.

INTERSPERSED WITH

VARIOUS NOTICES OF MANY DISTINGUISHED MEN:

WITH

AN APPENDIX,
CONTAINING

SUNDRY PHILOSOPHICAL AND OTHER PAPERS,

MOST OF WHICH HAVE NOT HITHERTO BEEN PUBLISHED.

BY WILLIAM BARTON, M. A.
COUNSELLOR AT LAW;

Member of the American Philosophical Society, the Mass. Hist. Society, and the
Royal Economical Society of Valencia, in Spain.

PHILADELPHIA:
 PUBLISHED BY EDWARD PARKER, NO. 178, MARKET-STREET.

W. Brown, Printer, Church-Alley.

1813.
DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA, TO WIT:
BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the ninth day of October, in the
thirty-eighth year of the independence of the United States of
America, A. D. 1813, William Barton of the said district, hath
deposited in this office the Title of a book, the right whereof he
claims as Author, in the words following, to wit:
“Memoirs of the Life of David Rittenhouse, L. L. D. F.R.S, late
President of the American Philosophical Society, &c. Interspersed
with various notices of many distinguished men: with an Appendix,
containing sundry philosophical and other papers, most of which
have not hitherto been published. By William Barton, M. A.
Counsellor at Law; Member of the American Philosophical Society,
the Mass. Hist. Society, and the Royal Economical Society of
Valencia, in Spain.”
In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States,
intituled, “An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the
copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of
such copies during the times therein mentioned.”—And also to the
act entitled, “An act supplementary to an act, entitled, “An act for the
encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts,
and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the
times therein mentioned,” and extending the benefits thereof to the
arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints.”

D. CALDWELL,
Clerk of the District of Pennsylvania.
 PREFACE.

Agreeably to the plan on which the following memoirs have been

conducted, it will be perceived, that they contain a great variety of
matter; of which, some particulars have a remote, others merely an
incidental connexion, with the chief object of the work. There may
perhaps be some readers, to whom the introduction of such matters
as the University of Pennsylvania and the Medical School connected
with it, the Pennsylvania Hospital, the Philadelphia Library, and the
like, into the Life of Rittenhouse, will, on a cursory view, seem to
have little or no affinity to that object. But when it is considered, that
this work is designed to comprehend Memoirs, not only of
Rittenhouse personally, but of several literary, scientific, and other
public institutions, as well as of many eminent men, with which his
individual history and the annals of his time were in various ways
associated, it is presumed, that the slight sketches which have been
taken of those matters, in passing along, will neither prove foreign to
the nature of the present undertaking, nor uninteresting in
themselves. As a citizen of Pennsylvania; as an inestimable public
and private character; as a distinguished son of science, of great
probity and extensive usefulness in society; in all these points of
view, the History of Dr. Rittenhouse may be contemplated, as holding
a relationship with almost every object connected with science and
the arts, in his day, that could in any wise contribute to the well being
of mankind in general, and his native country in particular.
Conspicuous and eminently meritorious as he was, yet an insulated
account of his talents, his virtues, and his personal services,—a bare
specification of such qualities and merits as he possessed,
abstracted from a due consideration of the state of society and
circumstances resulting from it, taken in connexion with them, during
the same period,—would not be equally intelligible and instructive;
and, consequently, must prove less useful. For these reasons, the
Memorialist has pursued that course which he conceives to be
perfectly congenial with the main design of his work; as best
calculated to promote its general usefulness, and most suitably
adapted to render it interesting, even to those who read for
amusement solely.

In the adoption of this plan, the writer has been chiefly influenced
by a desire to illustrate the history, genius and character of the times,
which his Memoirs embrace; together with the progress and
improvement of literature, science and the arts, within the same
compass, more especially in this country; and this consideration has
obviously led him to introduce, in conjunction with those objects, as
well as with the Life of the great American Philosopher, various
notices of many persons distinguished for their talents and merit, not
only in our own time, but at different periods in the annals of science.
He has thought it right to rescue from oblivion—to commemorate in
this way, if not to consecrate, the names of some men in this country,
more especially, who deserve to be ranked among the worthies of
America. All this the writer has done, too, in conformity to the mode
prosecuted by some of the most judicious biographers and
memorialists, together with other writers of the same class: It is
believed to be a manner of treating the interesting subjects, on which
the pens of such authors have been employed, which, while it
renders their works more pleasing, greatly increases their
usefulness.—If, therefore, some of the matter which has been
introduced into the present work should, at first sight, appear
irrelative, and even unimportant, the Memorialist nevertheless
flatters himself, that, on reflection, nothing will be deemed really so,
how remotely soever it may seem, on a transient view of the subject,
to be connected with the principal design of the undertaking;
provided it has a tendency to illustrate the great objects he was
desirous of accomplishing.[I1]

The diversity of the materials which are, by these means, blended

with the biographical account of Dr. Rittenhouse, in the Memoirs now
presented to the world, made it expedient, in the opinion of the
writer, to have recourse to the free use of notes, for the purposes of
illustration, reference, and explanation. In a work of such a
complexion—constituting a book composed of very various
materials, designed to elucidate and inform, as well as to please—it
became, in fact, necessary to throw a large portion of that matter into
the form of notes; in order to avoid, by numerous digressions on
subjects arising out of the primary object of the work, too much
disjointing of the text. There are persons, no doubt, by whom this
course will be disapproved. The able and learned author of the
Pursuits of Literature has been accused by some critics—while
others, who have no pretensions to those qualifications which entitle
a man to exercise the functions of a critic, have even affected to
laugh at him—for the multiplicity, the variety, and the length of the
notes, which he has appended to that poem. But its being a satirical
poem, is the circumstance to which may be fairly attributed the
censorious cavils which his work excited: his satire was felt; and it
roused the spleen of those who were its objects, and their partizans.
The present work, however, is far from being intended to satirise any
one; its author has no such object in view: for, although he has, in
some instances, expressed his disapprobation of certain principles,
theories, and even measures, which he believes to be not only
repugnant to true science, but destructive of both private and social
happiness—he has refrained as far as possible from personal
censure;—he would much rather be engaged in the functions of an
eulogist, than those of a censor. The numerous notes the
Memorialist has employed—many of them, too, pretty long—will not
therefore, he presumes, be objected to, on the ground of personality
or supposed ill-humour. He has introduced them into his Memoirs,
because he believed them to be not only useful, but peculiarly well
adapted to a work of this nature, and suited to answer the general
scope of its design. The author may then say, in the words of the
poetical writer just mentioned—as an apology for the frequency and
copiousness of the notes annexed to these Memoirs;—“I have made
no allusions which I did not mean to explain. But I had something
further in my intention. The notes are not always explanatory; they
are of a structure rather peculiar to themselves: many of them are of
a nature between an essay and an explanatory comment. There is
much in a little compass, suited to the exigency of the times. I
expatiated on the casual subject which presented itself; and when
ancient or modern writers expressed the thoughts better than I could
myself, I have given the original languages. No man has a greater
contempt for the parade of quotation (as such) than I have. My
design is not to quote words, but to enforce right sentiments in the
manner which I think best adapted to the purpose, after much
reflection.”

The method of disposing of the notes, in this work, may be thought

by some to impair the symmetry of the page: but so trivial a defect as
this may be, in the typographical appearance of the book, will, it is
supposed, be amply compensated by the convenience the reader
will experience, in having the annotations, almost always, on the
same pages with their respective references.

In the arrangement of the Memoirs, the author has placed the

incidents and circumstances relating to the Life of Dr. Rittenhouse, in
their chronological order, as nearly as could be conveniently done.

An Appendix,—containing sundry letters and other papers, which

could neither be incorporated with propriety into the text, nor inserted
in marginal notes,—is placed after the conclusion of the Memoirs. In
this part of the work the reader will find, among other interesting
documents, Dr. Rittenhouse’s Oration on the subject of Astronomy,
pronounced before the American Philosophical Society, in the year
1775. The addition of this treatise to the Life of our Philosopher, was
rendered the more proper,—independently of the intrinsic merit of
the performance,—by reason of the pamphlet having had, originally,
a very limited circulation, and its being now out of print. The Notes,
added to this little tract, as well as to some other papers in the
Appendix, by the Memorialist, are designated by the initials of his
name; in order to distinguish the annotations from either the notes
originally attached to them,—or from other matter, in the Text, not
written by himself.
 The author has embellished his work with an elegantly engraved
likeness of Dr. Rittenhouse, executed by an able artist, from a
portrait painted by Mr. C. W. Peale, in-the year 1772,[I2] when our
Philosopher was forty years of age. At that time he wore a wig,—and
was so represented in the picture: but afterwards, when he resumed
the wearing of his own hair, (and which he continued to do during the
remainder of his life,) the portrait was altered accordingly, by Mr.
Peale. The original picture (now in the possession of Mrs. Sergeant,)
bore a strong resemblance to Dr. Rittenhouse, at that period of his
life in which it was taken; and the engraving, prefixed to these
Memoirs, is an excellent copy.

To a portion of the readers of this work, some of the matter it

contains may be thought superfluous,—because already familiar to
them: and, to men of extensive learning and research, much of the
information herein collected may really be so. But to persons of less
erudition and science, the knowledge thus communicated it may be
presumed, will prove in some degree useful; and the writer indulges
a confident belief, that the greater number of his readers will derive
both instruction and gratification, from a perusal of the Memoirs now
offered to their attention.

The favours which the Memorialist has received, in the

communication of sundry papers and some information for this work,
demand his thankful acknowledgments to the contributors. Among
these,—besides those gentlemen occasionally mentioned in the
Memoirs,—the writer returns his thanks to his worthy relatives, Mrs.
Sergeant, Mrs. Waters, and Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton; and also to
the Rt. Rev. Bishop White, Andrew Ellicott, Esq. John Vaughan, Esq.
the Rev. Dr. Samuel Stanhope Smith, Charles Smith, Esq. and the
Rev. Mr. Cathcart. To the friendship and politeness of these very
respectable characters, he holds himself indebted, on this occasion.
[I3]

It has been the earnest desire of the writer, to adhere strictly to

Truth, in every part of his narrative: he has not, therefore, introduced
into his work any thing, as a matter of Fact, which he did not believe
to be well founded. Wherever he has ventured to express an Opinion
of his own, on any subject of importance, it must be left to the
judgment and candour of others to determine, what weight it may be
entitled to.—In the various quotations which appear in his Memoirs,
the writer has endeavoured to observe the utmost fidelity, with
respect to the originals; and all his translations into the English, from
other languages, have been made with a like scrupulous attention to
correctness.—Some errors and inaccuracies have nevertheless, it
may be readily supposed, found their way into the following work;
though the writer trusts they are neither numerous nor very
important: and, as they are wholly unintentional, of whatever
description they may be, he hopes it will not be deemed
presumptuous in him, to claim for them the indulgence of a candid,
liberal, and discerning public.

Lancaster, in Pennsylvania,
April 11, 1813.

I1. The biographer of Rittenhouse entirely coincides with the

compilers of the Encyclopædia Britannica, in opinion, respecting the
utility and propriety of giving an account, in such Memoirs as the
present, of things as well as persons, connected in various ways with
the main object of the work.

In the preface to that useful dictionary of arts, sciences and

miscellaneous literature, are the following observations: the
consideration they merit; is submitted to the good sense of the
reader.

“While one part of our readers,” say the encyclopedists, when

referring to the biographical department of their work, “will regret that
we have given no account of their favourite philosopher, hero, or
statesman, others may be disposed to remark, that we have dragged
from obscurity the names of many persons who were no proper
objects of such public regard. To these we can only reply, that, with
the greatest biographer of modern times, we have long thought that
there has rarely passed a life, of which a faithful narrative would not
be useful; and that in the lives of the most obscure persons, of whom
we have given any account, we saw something either connected
with recent discoveries and public affairs, or which we thought
capable of affording a lesson to great multitudes in similar
circumstances.”—“Between eminent achievements and the scenes
where they were performed, there is a natural and necessary
connexion. The character of the warrior is connected with the fields
of his battles; that of the legislator, with the countries which he
civilized; and that of the traveller and navigator, with the regions
which they explored. Even when we read of the persons by whom,
and the occasions on which, any particular branch of knowledge has
been improved, we naturally wish to know something of the places
where such improvements were made.”

I2. Mr. C. W. Peale painted at the same time another portrait of

him, for himself; which is likewise altered from the original painting. It
has a place in Mr. Peale’s Gallery of Portraits. There is a third, by the
same hand, in the possession of the American Philosophical Society.

Another good picture of Dr. Rittenhouse was also then made, by

Mr. James Peale, for the Rev. Mr. Barton. This (which represents him
with a wig) is now in the possession of John Moore White, Esq. of
New-Jersey, who married Mr. Barton’s youngest daughter.

A pretty good mezzotinto, in a large size,—done from Mr. C. W.

Peale’s painting of our Philosopher,—was executed by Mr. E.
Savage, in the winter of 1796: and since that time, some small
engravings have been made from different pictures of him; but these
do not so well preserve the likeness.

I3. Some interesting information was likewise communicated by

the late Professor Rush. The death of that gentleman having
occurred since the completion of the present work, the author has
inserted a concise biographical notice of him, in the Appendix, in
place of the mention originally made of his name in this preface.
 INTRODUCTION.

The individuals in society, who present to the view of their

cotemporaries, and transmit to posterity, Memorials of illustrious
men,—more especially those of their own country,—discharge
thereby a debt of gratitude: because every man is, directly or
indirectly, interested in the benefits conferred on his species, by
those who enlarge the sphere of human knowledge, or otherwise
promote the happiness of mankind.

But the biographer of an highly meritorious character aims at more

than the mere performance of that duty, which a grateful sense of
obligation exacts from him, in common with every member of the
community, in commemorating the beneficence of the wise and the
good: he endeavours to excite in great and liberal minds, by the
example of such, an ambition to emulate their talents and their
virtues;—and it is these, that, by their union, constitute true
greatness of character.

The meed of applause which may be sometimes, and too often is,
bestowed on meretricious worth, is ever unsteady and fleeting. The
pseudo-patriot may happen to enjoy a transient popularity; false
philosophy may, for a while, delude, if not corrupt, the minds of an
unthinking multitude; and specious theories in every department of
science,—unsupported by experience and untenable on principles of
sound reason,—may give to their projectors a short-lived reputation:
But the celebrity which is coveted by the man of a noble and
generous spirit,—that estimable species of fame, which alone can
survive such ephemera of error as are often engendered by the
vanity of the individual and nurtured by the follies or vices of the
many,—must ever rest on the permanent foundation of truth,
knowledge and beneficence.

Virtue is essentially necessary to the constitution of a truly great

character. For, although brilliant talents are sometimes found
combined with vicious propensities,[1]—the impulse given to men of
this description, often renders their great abilities baneful to society:
they can seldom, if ever, be productive of real public good. Should
eminent talents, possessed by a man destitute of virtue, even take a
right direction in their operation, by reason of some extraordinary
circumstance,—such an event ought never to be calculated on: It is
not the part of common sense,—much less of a cautious prudence,
acquired by a knowledge of mankind,—to expect praise-worthy
conduct from any one, whose predominating passions are bad,
however great may be his capability of doing good.

While, therefore, the mind may view, with a sort of admiration, the
achievements of a magnanimous soldier, it turns with indignation
from the atrocities of a military tyrant: and at the same time that it
may be induced to contemplate even with complacency, at the first
view, the plausible, yet groundless speculations of ingenious
theorists, in matters of science,—still the fallacy of their systems,
when developed by experience, strips them of all their tinseled glare
of merit. Thus, too, the applause which the world justly attaches to
the character of a patriot-hero, deserts the unprincipled ruffian-
warrior, however valiant and successful he may prove: In like
manner, reason and experience expose to the censure of the good
and the derision of the wise, the deleterious doctrines of
metaphysical statesmen and philosophers.[2] Such estimable
qualities as they may possess, in either character, are merged in the
mischievous or base ones, with which they are combined: thus,
infamy or contempt eventually become the merited portion of crime
or of folly, as either one or the other may prevail. A Cæsar,[3] a
Cromwell and a Robespierre, with other scourges of mankind, of like
character, will therefore be viewed as objects of execration by
posterity, while the memories of an Alfred, a Nassau, and a
Washington—a Chatham, a Burke, and an Ames,—will be
venerated, to the latest posterity.

Much of the glory of a nation results from the renown of illustrious

men, among its citizens: a country which has produced many great
men, may justly pride itself on the fame which those individuals had
acquired. The community to which we belong is entitled to such
services as we can render to it: these the patriot will cheerfully
bestow; and, in promoting the honour and prosperity of his country, a
large portion of the lustre which the exertion of his talents shall have
shed upon it, are again reflected on himself.[4]

The cultivator of those branches of natural science which

constitute practical and experimental philosophy;—equally with the
teacher of religion and morals,—extends the beneficial effects of his
researches and knowledge beyond the bounds of his particular
country. Truth is every where the same; and the promulgation of it
tends, at all times and in all places, to elevate to its proper station
the dignity of man. The more extensively, then, true science can be
diffused, the greater will be the means—the fairer will be the rational
prospect, of enlarging the sphere of human happiness. The
philosopher may, pre-eminently, be considered as a citizen of the
world; yet without detracting in any degree from that spirit of
patriotism, which ever stimulates a good man to contribute his
primary and most important services to his own country. There are,
indeed, some species of aids, which are exclusively due to a
community, by all its citizens; and, consequently, such as they are
bound to withhold from other national communities, in certain
contingencies and under peculiar circumstances. But a knowledge of
those truths which lead to the acquisition of wisdom and practice of
virtue, serves to meliorate the condition of mankind generally, at all
times, and under all circumstances;—inasmuch as they greatly
assist in banishing error, with its frequent concomitant, vice, not only
from the more civilized portions of the world, but also by their
inherent influence, from among nations less cultivated and refined.
 The truths promulgated by means of a natural and sublime
philosophy—corresponding, as this does, with the dignity of an
enlightened spirit—must ever emanate from a virtuous heart as well
as an expanded intellect. Hence, the real philosopher,—he whose
principles are unpolluted by the sophisticated tenets of some modern
pretenders to the appellation,—can scarcely fail to be a good man.
Such was the immortal Newton; such were a Boyle, a Hale and a
Barrow,—a Boerhaave, a Stephen Hales and a Bradley; with many
worthies equally illustrious,—whose glories will, for ever, retain their
primitive splendour.

Even the most celebrated sages of antiquity, extremely imperfect

as we know the philosophy of the early ages to have been,
elucidated, by the purity of their lives and the morality of their
doctrines, the truth of the position,—that the cultivation of natural
wisdom, unaided as it then was by the lights of revelation, encreased
every propensity to moral virtue. Such were Socrates, Plato his
disciple, and Anaxagoras; who flourished between four and five
centuries before the Christian era.

The life of Socrates, who is styled by Cicero the Father of

Philosophers, afforded a laudable example of moderation, patience,
and other virtues; and his doctrines abound with wisdom.
Anaxagoras and Plato united with some of the nobler branches of
natural science, very rational conceptions of moral truth. Both of
them had much higher claims to the title of philosophers, than
Aristotle, who appeared about a century afterwards. This
philosopher, however,—for, as such, he continued for many ages to
be distinguished in the schools,—was, like Socrates, more a
metaphysician than an observer of the natural world. His morality is
the most estimable part of his works; though his conceptions of
moral truths were much less just than those of Anaxagoras and
Plato:[5] for his physics are replete with notions and terms alike
vague, unmeaning and obscure.[6] The intimate connexion that
subsists between the physical and moral fitness of things, in relation
to their respective objects, was more evidently known to Anaxagoras
and Plato, than to either Socrates or Aristotle: and the reason is
obvious;—both of the former cultivated the sublime science of
Astronomy.

To this cause, then, may be fairly attributed the half-enlightened

notions of the Deity,[7] and of a future state, entertained by these
pagan searchers after truth. To the same cause may be traced the
sentiment that dictated the reply made by Anaxagoras,—when, in
consequence of his incessant contemplation of the stars, he was
asked, “if he had no concern for his country?”—“I incessantly regard
my country,” said he, pointing to Heaven.

Plato’s attention to the same celestial science unquestionably

enlarged his notions of the Deity, and enabled him to think the more
justly of the moral attributes of human nature. According to Plato—
whose morality, on the whole, corresponds with the system
maintained by Socrates,[8]—the human soul is a ray from the Divinity.
He believed, that this minute portion of infinite Wisdom, Goodness
and Power, was omniscient, while united with the Parent stock from
which it emanated; but, when combined with the body, that it
contracted ignorance and impurity from that union. He did not, like
his master Socrates, neglect natural philosophy; but investigated
many principles which relate to that branch of knowledge:—and,
according to this philosopher, all things consisted of two principles,—
God and matter.

It is evident that Plato believed in the immortality of the soul of

man; but he had, at the same time, very inadequate conceptions of
the mode or state of its existence, when separated from the body. It
seems to have been reserved for the Christian dispensation, to
elucidate this great arcanum, hidden from the most sagacious of the
heathen philosophers.[9] It was the difficulty that arose on this
subject, the incapability of knowing how to dispose of the soul, or
intellectual principle in the constitution of our species, after its
disentanglement from the body; a difficulty by which all the
philosophers, antecedent to the promulgation of Christianity, were
subjected to unsurmountable perplexities;—it was this, that rendered
even the expansive genius of Anaxagoras utterly incompetent to