Food Education and Agricultural Terroir for Japanese Children: The Practice at Nakamatsu Elementary School in Minamiaso Village
Editor's note: Huang Hung-sung, a teacher at Longdu Elementary School in Meinong, took food education as his theme and spent four months in Japan on a study visit in the spring of 2014, traveling from Kyushu to Hokkaido and visiting twenty middle schools, elementary schools and kindergartens in total. In early October, at the invitation of the Meinong Eight-Color Bird Association, Teacher Hung-sung gave a talk titled "Food Education and Agricultural Terroir of Japanese Children," sharing what he saw and heard during his travels in Japan. This article shares "The Practice of Food Education at Nakamatsu Elementary School in Minamiaso Village." There is alsoa brief comparison of school food education in Taiwan and Japan; please click here to read it.
Japan's Basic Act on Food Education
Teacher Hung-sung first explained the current reality of "food" in Japan: interaction between children and family members is insufficient, and children often eat alone; eating habits are disordered, with more eating out and fast food and a growing number of picky eaters; there is insufficient experience of food production, and gratitude toward food producers and cooks is increasingly thin; and dietary etiquette is not valued, with the transmission of traditional food culture declining, among other issues. Against this background, in order to improve family and school dietary life and enhance national health, among other goals, the Japanese government promulgated the Basic Act on Food Education in 2005 and immediately began actively promoting it at schools at all levels.
The Basic Act on Food Education takes "cultivating a sound mind and body and rich humanity throughout the nation's lives" as an important issue, and its philosophy is to preserve traditional and good dietary culture and, through exchange between food producers and consumers, to promote the vitality of farming, mountain and fishing villages and raise the food self-sufficiency rate, among other things.
And Mr. Yukio Hattori (doctor of nutritional medicine and well-known food critic), known as Japan's "Ah-Shi," also proposed three major points on food education: 1. Cultivate the ability to distinguish and comply with safe food; 2. Be able to care about world food issues; 3. Be able to practice dietary etiquette.
Ordinary teachers and parents, however, tend to place their expectations for food education on hoping that children understand the importance of "food," do not eat pickily and have balanced nutrition, experience food production and cooking processes and thus have grateful hearts, understand traditional Japanese dietary culture, and recognize food issues in seasonal events.
After giving everyone a bit of understanding of the development background and key content of Japan's Basic Act on Food Education, Teacher Hung-sung introduced the methods of practicing food education using Nakamatsu Elementary School in Minamiaso Village, which he visited, as an example.
The Practice of Food Education at Nakamatsu Elementary School in Minamiaso Village
Minamiaso Village, located in central Kyushu, Japan (when municipalities merged, it continued to use the designation "village" to express its closeness to nature), is internationally known for the Shirakawa water source, Mount Aso and its selection as a World Agricultural Heritage site in 2013. It is a very popular tourist destination, and the journeys mainly promoted by the local tourism association include satoyama tours, spring-water tours and hot-spring tours.
After taking a small train into Minamiaso Village along a railway surrounded by mountains on both sides, what comes into view is like a hidden paradise, with continuous emerald-green fields and fine farmland; its beautiful scenery reminded Teacher Hung-sung, then abroad, of Wan'an in Chishang, Taitung.
Minamiaso Village once had as many as eleven schools, but now only one middle school and three elementary schools remain. The Nakamatsu Elementary School that Teacher Hung-sung visited has just over eighty pupils, similar to the number of students at most elementary schools in Meinong at present.
Nakamatsu Elementary School set four major goals for food education:
1. Based on experience, using courses such as life studies and integrated learning, learn to solve problems in an inquiry-based way.
2. Integrate food education into all learning domains to make horizontal connections, and include it in the annual curriculum plan.
3. Cooperate with dietitians and join hands with families to systematically promote food education.
4. Through promoting food education, revitalize the region's nature and human relationships.
Accordingly, the practice of food education at Nakamatsu Elementary School can be divided into three main pillars:
