Educating the Whole Child for the Whole World: The Ross School Model and Education for the Global Era

6Toward a NewEducational Philosophy

| 81 6 Toward a New Educational Philosophy Hideaki Koizumi Twice, first in 2004 and then in 2006, I spent several days at the Ross School in East Hampton, New York. During my visits, I had the opportunity to observe various classes (from kindergarten through high school), speak with many students, engage in discussions with enthusiastic teachers, and even attend some lectures. A consistent, comprehensive educational vision was evident in each visit. An impressive set of basic principles guides the Ross School vision: the spiral curriculum, which combines the developmental processes of culture and civilization while bridging and fusing art and science to nurture enthusiasm and aspiration. This is a school that instills respect for cultural diversity with the aim of nurturing global-scale understanding and engagement. This chapter discusses the educational principles of the Ross School from the perspective of brain science, with a focus on the similarities to my research program in Japan.1 My specialty is physics, and my work is focused on developing various practical applications for the fields of environmental science and mind-brain science through the measurement of atoms and molecules. My work is on the imaging of the human body and the creation of new methodologies to measure the human mind. Specifically , in the field of mind-brain science, I have promoted the development of principles for and practical applications of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and near-infrared spectroscopic optical topography (NIRS-OT). In January 1995, the “Trans-disciplinary Symposium on Mind-Brain Science and Its Practical Applications” was held at the Odaira Memorial Hall of Hitachi, Ltd., where we attempted to apply mind-brain science through noninvasive brain-function imaging methods to the fields of education, medical care, information technology (IT), and robotics— fields beyond the framework of industry, government, and academia (Koizumi 1995). 82 | Hideaki Koizumi Furthermore, in 1996 I coordinated a four-day international symposium, “Trans-disciplinary Symposium on Global Environment” (see Koizumi 1996a, 1996b), which included a session on the interaction between the brain and the environment (see Koizumi 1996a, 1996b). In 2000, I coordinated the “Trans-disciplinary Symposium: Developing the Brain: The Science of Learning and Education,” hosted by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (See Koizumi 1998, 2000). The aforementioned symposia addressed mind-brain science through the previous Science and Technology Agency and addressed education through the previous Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, thereby creating and launching the “Brain Science and Education” research initiative as a symbol of the newly combined entity. In addition, in 2001, Japan’s Ministry of Education, Science and Culture and the Japan Science and Technology Agency were combined to create the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Since then, under the guidance of Dr. Masao Ito (who was the president of the Science Council of Japan in 2001 and a founding director of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute), my colleagues and I have promoted research in brain science and education and the development of the “Brain Science and Education ” initiative as a Japanese government program (Koizumi 2004b, 2008b). In this chapter, I will focus on the educational features of Ross School from the perspective of mind-brain science and the similarities to my research and its applications for education. The Concept of Spiral Curriculum at Ross School One of the basic features of the Ross School is its educational system, which features a comprehensive spiral curriculum. Although a spiral is a trajectory of dots moving in 3-D space, the concept employed by the Ross School is not a simple spiral: the cross-section of conceptual dots that forms a spiral consists of flower petals (Gardner and Ross 2003), which represent the many educational subjects (academic, scientific, and artistic fields). The spiral trajectory ascends as human culture and civilization develop. The holistic integrated education provided at Ross progresses along this spiral. The integrated curriculum ensures the development of multidisciplinary understanding. With the integrated curriculum, student talent is nurtured over time to eventually achieve a balance of diverse or multiple intelligences (see Gardner, this volume). The buds of the cross-section at the beginning of the spiral gradually flower along with individual growth and development. Toward a New Educational Philosophy | 83 In Courtney Ross’s new vision of education, the historical time axis is shortened to a learning time axis (a learning period) in which specific subjects of the curriculum are located in the order in which each...