Japan's Farewell to Yutori Education

On 10th May 2016, Mr. Hase, Japanese Education Minister, issued a message to clearly mark the departure from Yutori education, the ill-famed Japanese education policy that is largely influenced by progressive education thoughts.

Although this policy had been already reconsidered in 2005 by another education minister of the time, some people were worrying that the new education policy would become a disguised attempt to go back to Yutori. Thus, he felt it necessary to confirm that it is not intended to turn back a clock.

In the meantime, it is reported that the OECD director for education and skills recently praised Yutori education. If this report is true, Mr. Hase’s message happens to highlight the difference of opinion between them.

Yutori education policy is a set of school reforms that were aimed at depressurizing school life, which had been gradually introduced since the late 1970s and faded out in 2000s. It is primarily known for large cutbacks in subject contents and school hours.

When it comes to learning methods, cramming methods such as rote-learning, drilling, testing, etc. were largely denounced because the Yutori policy was based on the firm belief that every hardship and suffering of young people was caused by such methods.

Alternatively the progressive educational methods such as problem-solving, experiential learning, project-based learning, etc. were encouraged with a view to eliminating problems in schools and promoting all those positive things such as academic ability, creativity, independence, or whatever.

The consequence was devastating. 

Parents evacuated their children’s learning to juku cram schools and some companies had to provide remedial courses to their newly-recruited employees who received Yutori education. One news report described Yutori people as “running amok, threatening to destroy the country”.

Needless to say, this policy is now regarded as the most famous blunder of Japanese education. Many ordinary Japanese people may feel his message as a belated action.

Although his message states that “we should not return to the dichotomy of cramming and Yutori,” many things still remain to be clarified. 
Particularly, it doesn’t clearly mention how to rectify qualitative or pedagogical failure of Yutori education, though it seems to admit that the large cutbacks in subject contents were wrong.

* Above cited Japan Times article said that Yutori kyoiku (Yutori education) took effect in 2007, but it is a glaring mistake. Although there are some different opinions on when it was started, nobody thinks that it took effect as late as in 2007.

Why Lesson Study Failed in Japan?

(Continued from "Lesson Study Is Not A Success Story of Japanese Education"

Thanks to the help from those who shared and tweeted the previous post, far more people than expected have read about Lesson Study.

I hope that they have understood that Japanese people cannot believe in Lesson Study as success story.

The Background of the Movement

Since it is obvious that it failed to work in Japan, some people may be wondering now why Lesson Study has been so advertised.

Its background in Japan is relatively clear.
To make a long story short, the Japanese education studies as a whole has been lacking in notable academic achievements. And the researchers as well as other school educators, whose raison d'etre is questioned these days, are consciously or unconsciously longing for some trophy to authorize themselves.
Thus the Lesson Study movement must be regarded by them as a good chance to achieve an international reputation.

(I wrote about this background more in "Pitfalls of Japanese Education Studies 1, 2, and 3)

I'm not sure why overseas educators are keen to play up Lesson Study despite all the news reports about the failed Japanese school education.
However, considering that the wrong educational reports are often applauded without any critical thinking, we may have good reason to suspect a similar background in their countries or on the global level.
At any rate, the Lesson Study movement reflects this kind of educators' mindset rather than students' learning.

Why Lesson Study failed to work in Japan?

Japanese educators’ mindset is one thing, and efficacy of Lesson Study is another to talk about. 
As I argued, Lesson Study is neutral and doesn't guarantee either success or failure by itself. With this in mind, I would like to discuss the reasons why Lesson Study failed to work in Japan.

1. Lesson Study is carried out just as ritual

Needless to say, it's nonsense to conduct Lesson Study just as ritualistic formality. However, there are a lot of such ritualistic events and activities in Japanese school education, some of which do more harm than good.
Therefore, I cannot deny the possibility that many of the Lesson Study sessions are held as one of those rituals.

2. Lesson Study is carried out very exclusively.

Lesson Study is characterized by joint collaboration by schoolteachers.
It may sound very open-minded, but actually it’s very exclusive because it is basically confined in the closed circle of school educators. 

Its initial concept, which is to share good practices and ideas, is certainly open-minded, but it seems that the Lesson Study experts limit the source of those good practices and ideas only to schoolteachers for some reasons, promoting some turf-minded attitude which, as a result, functions to shut out efforts and developments outside of schools.
In such a closed environment, it is no wonder that the Lesson Study sessions tend to be made just to satisfy the members inside.

3. Irrelevant ideals are shared by educators.

When teachers share the same educational ideal, Lesson Study will be influenced by it. 

For example, the present dominant ideal among Japanese schoolteachers is the Finnish-style education.
Therefore, it is likely that the performing teachers try to bring their teachings close to Finnish style in the sessions and that observing teachers applaud them.

However, students and parents don't wish for the education in which less than 20% of learners become able to solve fractional calculations. Thus Lesson Study cannot help but go irrelevant.

4. Successful Lesson Study needs competitive environment.

Frankly speaking, the long-standing popularity of jukus in Japan suggests that their staff training has been better than that of school education on the whole.
However, unfortunately the staff training as well as teaching methods of juku companies has been rarely reported, because Japanese education scholars have neglected them.

In the meantime, the professional development system is usually available in private companies, sports clubs, show business, and others. And Lesson Study, which is consisted of planning, observation, discussion, etc. is most likely to have many things in common with those systems in other working places. In fact, some Lesson Study experts argue that it is comparable to the renowned industrial methods such as PDCA, Kaizen, etc.

However, there is a fundamental difference which is very critical: while those industrial methods have been developed and carried out in strongly competitive environment, Lesson Study is practiced in school education which is a monopolistic state undertaking.

In this sense, it is relevant to consider that those methods including Lesson Study should work effectively only in some competitive environment.

The above are the likely causes I can think of for the failure of Japanese Lesson Study. I hope they activate the discussion on it.


Ends

世界的な「フィンランド教育ブーム」に警鐘を鳴らしていたフィンランド数学者たち

(The English summary is on this page)

はじめに

日本の学校教育の欠点について発言すると、海外から「なぜ自分の国を批判するのか？」と言われることがある。
教育がその国のすべてではないのだから、これは的外れな反応なのだが、学校を批判するとその国民全体を批判したと誤解する人はいるようだ。

以下の文章は全体的に否定的なトーンである。ただし、これは「フィンランド教育ブーム」について書いているのであって、フィンランドという国家について論じているわけではない。言うまでもないが、フィンランドは尊敬すべき国のひとつである。

フィンランド教育ブーム

２０００年代前半から、主にＰＩＳＡ（OECDの国際学力調査）の結果がきっかけになって、フィンランドの教育が世界的に注目されるようになった。日本でも「学力世界一」というフレーズとともに、多くの教育専門家やジャーナリストがフィンランドの教育を取り上げ賞賛してきたので、良い印象を持っている人が多いと思う。
ただ、実際何がすごいのか、ということを知っている人は少数だろう。私もあまりよく知らなかった。

警鐘を鳴らしていたフィンランド数学者たち

一昨年（2014年）、ニューヨーク・タイムズが日本の教育についてトンチンカンな記事を載せたとき、私の反論に加勢してくれた人たちが「フィンランド教育ブーム」についてもいろいろ聞かせてくれた。関連のサイトも教えてもらったので、ここに紹介したいと思う。

以下は、フィンランドの数学者が書いた文章の要約である。英語で全文読みたい場合はリンク先へどうぞ。

１　PISA 調査で分かるのは、生徒の数学能力のごく一部だけ

The PISA survey tells only a partial truth of Finnish children's mathematical skills
http://matematiikkalehtisolmu.fi/2005/erik/PisaEng.html

PISA 調査の結果が発表されて以来、「フィンランドの義務教育を修了した者は数学の専門家だ」などと新聞やマスコミは報じているが、大学や Polytechnic（技術専門学校）の数学教員たちは、新入生の数学の知識が劇的に落ちているので懸念している。たとえば、１９９９年に行われた TIMSS （国際数学・理科教育調査）では、図形と代数の分野でフィンランドの学生は平均を下回った。また、あまりにも多くの受験生を不合格にできないので、最近理事会は入試の合格基準点を驚くほど下げざるを得なかった。
この矛盾は、PISA 調査では日常的な数学知識を測るだけで、分数の計算、初歩的な方程式の解法、図形的推理、立体図形の体積計算、代数式の扱いなど、その他多くの技能には対応していないことが主な原因である。
習得すべき数学の基礎が弱いので、後期中等教育では、本来それまでに習得しておくべき単元の復習に労力を割かなくてはならず、そのしわ寄せが高等教育にまで波及している。
（要約終わり）

２　フィンランド人の数学能力における深刻な欠点

Severe shortcomings in Finnish mathematics skills
http://matematiikkalehtisolmu.fi/2005/erik/KivTarEng.html

200人以上の大学教員がフィンランドの数学教育について懸念を表明したことに対して「アカデミックの批判にすぎない」という意見があったが、それは正しくない。実際、文書にサインしたうちの約半分は Polytechnic や工科大学の教員であって、彼らが教えているのはアカデミックな数学ではなく、実用的な数学だ。
1999年から2004年にかけて、Turku Polytechnic（トゥルク技術専門学校）では工学系の新入生の数学能力をテストしてきたが、２４００人の生徒のうち初歩的な問題を解くことができたのはわずか３５％であった。
Polytechnic の教員たちは、学生の代数式の扱いや方程式を解く能力の低さに驚いている。
この問題を解決するために、教育省は作業部会を設立する必要があると思うが、そのメンバーには大学や Polytechnic の教員を参加させるべきである。
また、PISA 調査でトップになることは Pyrrhic Victory（ピュロスの勝利＝犠牲が大きすぎる勝利）なのではないかと考えてみる必要がある。
（要約終わり）

フィンランドの教育制度や論争の文脈によくわからないところがあるので、詳しい方がいたらコメントをいただきたいところだが、「学力世界一」という看板には、フィンランド国内でもかなり議論が分かれているようだ。
また、マスコミや教育学者は、このような事実を全く伝えず、フィンランドの教育を賞賛してばかりいるが、それには改めて愕然とさせられる。

フィンランドの中学生で分数の計算ができるのは２割以下

あるアメリカの数学者が、TIMSS というもう一つの国際学力試験の結果について論じている。
OECDのPISAとは違って、TIMSS ではフィンランドの子供たちのスコアは総じて低いのだが（日本は両方とも高いレベル）、その中でも、彼は分数の引き算の問題について注目し、16%という正答率の低さもさることながら（日本の正答率は65%）、その間違え方を分析した上で、フィンランドの生徒は分数が何なのかわかっていないかもしれない、と論じている。

日本に限らず世界中の教育関係者が、フィンランド教育やPISA型学力を礼賛しているが、少なくとも、日本の社会や保護者は、分数の計算ができる中学生が２割以下にとどまってしまうような教育を求めていないだろう。


（以下は、2016年6月2日に追記し、2017年1月20日に改訂しました）
また、下のフィンランドの新聞記事は、「9年生の3分の2がパーセンテージの計算ができない」と報じている。ちなみに、フィンランドでは就学年齢が７歳なので、9年生とは概ね16歳に相当し、基礎教育（義務教育）の最終学年である。

Study: Two-thirds of ninth graders unable to calculate percentages https://t.co/4awBiWOmF1

— Yle News (@ylenews) April 25, 2016

上記の２番目の意見で、フィンランドの数学者は、PISAでトップになることは「ピュロスの勝利」ではないかと書いているが、その大きすぎる犠牲とはこのことだったのだろうか。

Lesson Study Is Not A Success Story of Japanese Education

Critical Thinking about Overseas Education Reports

After having read educational discussions for the past few years, I have learned that the education theories and ideas based on experiences of different countries are often unreliable.
Especially, the experiences of countries where “educational pluralism” can be seen are more than likely to be misreported.
Therefore, educators are strongly advised to apply their critical-thinking ability to those reports instead of swallowing them. It is not fascinating that people’s discussion is driven by wrong stories.

This time I would like to discuss Lesson Study (or Jugyokenkyu in Japanese), a teacher training method of Japanese origin, which is gathering attention now.

Lesson Study as Success Story outside of Japan

Lesson Study is a professional development method in which teachers collaborate with each other through planning, observation, discussion, etc.
It was first introduced widely abroad in the late 1990s in the book titled “Teaching Gap” written by two university professors in the US.
Since then, this method has been known overseas as a secret of Japan’s educational success. Many educators have been involved in the seminars and workshops on it. Several study groups have been set up and conferences have been held.
Thus this movement has succeeded in raising awareness of the Lesson Study method among overseas educators to some extent.

Lesson Study as Unsuccess Story in Japan

However, this success story of the overseas Lesson Study movement must sound very strange to the people who have just experienced the grand educational failure under the policy called "yutori education" in Japan, which is, for example, described in the below articles.

Japanese school reforms fail to make grade

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0b21280e-b37c-11df-81aa-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3yoYo8gih

Reform Holds Japan's Students Back

http://worldpress.org/Asia/652.cfm

By searching the Internet with the phrase “yutori education”, you can find other discussions on this policy, none of which call it successful most probably.

In fact, it is a national consensus in Japan that this long-standing yutori education was a big failure.
It was so devastating that the Japanese word “yutori”, which used to have only positive meanings, has earned a new meaning that is very negative. For example, “Are you yutori?” in casual conversation means “Are you an idiot?” now.
Accordingly, so many students resort to shadow education that is called juku in Japanese.
Now we should scrutinize and overhaul the whole school system including teachers’ training.

Under these circumstances, nobody can possibly argue that the Lesson Study method succeeded in Japan. Rather, some may suspect that it hindered students’ learning.
Or are there any arguments that this method alone was successful in midst of the overall collapse of school education?
I wonder what the experts think about the role played by the Lesson Study method in this recent failure of school education.

Collaboration between Schools and Jukus after Educational Failure

The government is gradually shifting away from yutori education, and school educators as well as policy-makers are now struggling to seek a new direction.
Under these circumstances, some of them are looking to jukus for help, as seen in the below articles.
(Please seek assistance from the Internet translation service for understanding the below articles written in Japanese)

Junior-high principals who are positive about the collaboration with jukus are increasing (in Japanese).

http://www.asahi.com/edu/articles/TKY201309240321.html

To respond to these demands, some juku companies have prepared school-support services and some are involved in school reform programs carried out by local governments, as can be seen in the below articles for instance.

School-juku collaboration is being accelerated (in Japanese).

http://www.asahi.com/articles/DA3S12045861.html

Takeo city in Saga prefecture launched the public-private school system exploiting the know-how of a juku (in Japanese)

http://www.sankei.com/life/news/140417/lif1404170039-n1.html

I have been talking about the dual structure of students’ education in Japan. And now maybe we are witnessing the similar structure developing for teachers training.

Lesson Study Doesn't Guarantee Success

The recent Japanese educational situation doesn’t provide any evidence to prove that the Lesson Study method was successful. Rather, it can testify that it failed to work.
Therefore, it is incorrect to insist that this method succeeded in improving students’ learning in Japan. It would be dishonest to play up this method while shutting eyes to the failed Japanese school education.

Probably the proponents of this method including the authors of the above book are making the same mistake with the NY Times.

However, just because Japanese Lesson Study failed to work, it doesn’t mean that this method always fails everywhere.

Ingredients of the method such as planning, observation, discussion, etc., are neutral in nature.
In other words, it doesn’t automatically guarantee either success or failure by itself.

In this sense, Japan’s experience of Lesson Study can be an important case study.
Although it is unfortunate to take up Japan’s case as unsuccessful, it is worth discussing the reason why it failed to work in Japan in order to find out problems in its implementation and seek the ways to solve them.
I hope that such a discussion will deepen the thought on Lesson Study.

To be continued in "Why Lesson Study Failed in Japan?" 

Finnish Mathematicians Were Blowing Whistle on the Finnish Education Hype

(日本語版はこちら)

Finnish Mathematicians Were Blowing Whistle on the Finnish Education Hype.

Introductory Words

When I speak of shortcomings of Japanese school education, some people sometimes react by saying that "Why you so criticize your own country?"
Needless to say, education is nothing more than a part of the country's system, but some people mistake criticism of the school system for the criticism of the whole nation.

Although the below discussion on Finnish education may sound negative, I respect Finland as a nation, of course. I am going to just discuss the recent hype about the Finnish education.

The Global Hype about Finnish Education

Finnish education has attracted a lot of attention of the global community of educators since the early 2000s. Here in Japan, it has a good reputation among people due to the enthusiastic promotion of education experts and the media coverage with the banner of "The World Best Education."

To be honest, however, most people are just having a vague idea about it and unsure what is really going on there. And I was no exception.

Last year, when I was struggling to argue against the NY Times, the people, who thankfully helped spreading my opinion in the US, also informed me of a few reports and opinions about the Finnish education hype.
I would like to present some of them as below.

1. The PISA survey tells only a partial truth of Finnish children's mathematical skills
http://matematiikkalehtisolmu.fi/2005/erik/PisaEng.html

2. Severe shortcomings in Finnish mathematics skills
http://matematiikkalehtisolmu.fi/2005/erik/KivTarEng.html

I'm not very sure about the educational situation and the context of the debate in Finland, but there has been a controversy there, which doesn't seem negligible.

Less Than 20% of Finnish Students can Solve Fractions

Finlanders' achievement in another international assessment test, which is TIMSS, is way lower than that in OECD PISA.

Dr. Richard Askey, an American mathematician, made a report on the below TIMSS question on fractional calculation.
http://blogs.ams.org/matheducation/files/2015/02/TIMSS-fraction-item-32.pdf

He takes note of the mistakes they made as well as its percents correct by country (Finland: 16% Japan: 65% for your information) and argues that Finnish students possibly have no idea about what fractions really are.

Do educators, who highly play up Finland's education and PISA-type ability, know these facts?
At least, nobody in Japan seeks education through which less than 20% of junior high students can solve fractions.


(The below part was added on 2nd of June, 2016 and revised later on 18th January, 2017.)

Is This "Pyrrhic Victory"?

In April 2016, a Finnish news report deplored that the Finnish students' math skill is not enough for daily life. According to the report, tow-thirds of ninth graders (16 years old) cannot calculate percentages. 

Study: Two-thirds of ninth graders unable to calculate percentages https://t.co/4awBiWOmF1

— Yle News (@ylenews) April 25, 2016

Finnish mathematicians wrote about "Pyrrhic Victory" in the second opinion above. And I wonder that this is the price of being ranked high only in the PISA study. 



*Further discussions are available as below:

The Finnish Embassy in Japan is Warning against the Fake News about Finnish Education

http://jukuyobiko.blogspot.jp/2016/12/the-finnish-embassy-in-japan-is.html

Discussing PISA 1/3 Questionable Background between the OECD and Finland's Education Administration 

http://jukuyobiko.blogspot.jp/2016/08/discussing-pisa-13-questionable.html

Discussing PISA 2/3: Politicizing the International Student Assessment 

http://jukuyobiko.blogspot.jp/2016/08/discussing-pisa-23-politicizing.html

Discussing PISA 3/3: The OECD's Education Initiative Keeps Poor Countries Poor

http://jukuyobiko.blogspot.jp/2016/08/discussing-pisa-33-oecds-education_18.html

A New Horizon of Comparative Education in the Age of "Educational Pluralism"

"Educational Pluralism" As a Global Phenomenon

Although most of us have long taken it for granted that children's learning should take place solely in schools, we are globally witnessing the emergence of alternative educational forces such as charter schools, Teach for America, shadow education, etc., which marks the phenomenon that can be called "educational pluralism."

Particularly, those alternative forces are the active players for introducing new pedagogical methods, many of which are inspired by technological innovation. Therefore, if you don't pay any attention to them, you will surely miss the trend of education.
And we should not forget that the movement of educational pluralism resonates very well with people's frustration and resentment against the public education.

The Widening Gap between the Scholarly View and the Reality

However, many of the education scholars and journalists still cling to the classic school-centered view, and some of them are busy attacking the alternative agents other than schools and representing the rights and interests of schoolteachers rather than learners.

Especially the "global educators" tend to be trapped by this view for some reason. They are often driven by some biases based on it and not true to objective facts. Thus they travel abroad, look at a few of schools there, and make one-sided reports.
(cf. "The Perils of Edutourism" by Tom Loveless).

However, it is getting more and more difficult to maintain this school-centered view in the digital age, because such one-sided reports can be easily challenged and questioned by those who know the reality. 

The gap between the scholarly view and evolving reality in alternative education forces is being widened, and I wonder that it can undermine authority and reliability of education studies as a whole.

Lamentable is that shadow education is so neglected in academia, while the charter school movement and Teach for America are openly discussed in a fashion. Notably the juku, the Japanese version of shadow education, is almost perfectly ignored by education scholars, as I discussed before.

Research Works on Shadow Education in HKU

Under these circumstances, precious efforts are being made by a group of researchers in the Comparative Education Research Centre (CERC), the University of Hong Kong (HKU), who are led by Prof. Mark Bray, a UNESCO Chair Professor.

Prof. Bray joined the compilation of the report of Asian Development Bank and has recently made a keynote speech in the International Council on Education for Teaching (ICET 2015) held in Japan in order to warn researchers and policy-makers to conduct studies on shadow education.

And the other day he informed me of a new research work made by the group thankfully in return for the copy of my book I had sent him before. This work, which covers shadow education not only in Asian countries but also in some European countries, Iran, and Jamaica, is a great effort for shedding light on it.

And here I would like to mention Dr. Julian Dierkes, another researcher  who is familiar with jukus in Japan. He is running an Internet site "Jukupedia" to put the juku phenomenon on the discussion table, though he seems rather busy with Mongolian matters at the moment.

The Underlying Problem for the Research on Shadow Education

Shadow education is an interesting research subject, which is almost unexplored, but its research works often bump into difficulties. The underlying problem is the implicit or explicit resistance from country's educational establishments, as below.

Government officials in charge of education are, as a matter of course, reluctant to appreciate the excellence of shadow education, or even to admit its existence, because it compromises the reputation of the school system which is their monopolistic undertaking. And this reluctance (or maybe abhorrence) is obviously shared by other establishments such as teachers' unions, academics, and often media people. When they are politically active, we should count politicians and political parties, too.

Thus shadow education tends to be greeted by silent treatment or, in worse cases, negative campaign, which creates a very ambivalent or perverted perception and behavior among ordinary people, as exemplified by the case of Japan. 

In this sense, research materials such as government reports, words of interviewed persons, answered questionnaires, etc. have to be studied and analyzed very carefully, as mentioned also in the work of CERC.

A New Horizon of Education Studies

Despite the problem, however, we can expect that the research on shadow education will be of a great contribution to opening up a new horizon of the education studies, because new ideas, new technologies, and innovative minds are flowing into alternative educational forces rather than schools, while many scholars are stuck with the conventional school-centrism.

I think that the immediate task is to raise the awareness of shadow education and involve more people in the research works on it. The enhanced recognition of the research subject will surely facilitate the research itself.

Ends

What We Know So Far about the Flash Anzan Method 2

3. The Flash Anzan Method Is Multitask System?

Multitask operation seems another brilliant characteristic of the Flash Anzan method.
Alex Bellos, a British science writer, reported an interesting scene in his article in the Guardian. The first video is from his article.
It shows two girls in a certain soroban juku playing a word-chain game called "Shiritori" while calculating.




In "Shiritori" game, you have to look for a noun word beginning with the last syllable of the word uttered by the opponent. They are doing this game simultaneously with the mental calculation.

The second video is from another "infotainment" TV show. It features a girl having a conversation with somebody while calculating. (This video is a bit longer. The conversation part starts from around 7:00)



In the video, the girl, who is watching numbers flashed on the screen, answers the question from the female TV reporter like this:

What is the capital city of France? - Paris.
What is your favorite food? - Okonomiyaki.

And of course, she calculated correctly.

There is yet another video demonstrating the multitask nature of the Flash Anzan. In this video, the girl is calculating simultaneously with cheerleading, which is not a verbal task but a motor task. 




The instructor (or her mother?) reads out the numbers flashed on the screen behind and the girl, who is twirling a baton, adds up the numbers and answers correctly.

In the meantime, Michael Frank of Stanford Univ. and David Barner at the UC, San Diego carried out a study on this phenomenon - the multitask performance of the Flash Anzan calculators. 

In the study, they asked 15 students, who are experts in mental calculation, to do two (or three) tasks simultaneously - calculation with either verbal task or motor task, or do both. And they said that the verbal task and motor task somewhat hindered their mental calculations, with the language task interfering slightly less than the motor task. 

Are the above videos testifying their study findings?

It's gonna be an interesting debate.

What We Know So Far about the Flash Anzan Method 1

The Flash Anzan method seems one of the favorite topics of TV program creators, and various experimental attempts have been carried out in some information or entertainment programs.

You may think that experiments in entertainment programs are far from rigorous and may include some faking. It is true that they are over-dramatized or staged just to entertain the audience, but they are still precious for seeking suggestions about what the Flash Anzan method is all about under the present circumstances where it is not treated duly in the field of education studies.

1. The Flashing Speed Should Be Set Appropriately?

The first video features a woman comedian named Miyuki Torii as a human calculator. She used to learn soroban and has earned the 2nd grade certificate.

In the video, she tried calculations six times. And in the first trial, she gave a wrong answer and complained about the flashing speed, saying that the soroban in her mind disappeared because the flashing was too slow. Therefore, the flashing speed was raised gradually from the second trial.

(Unfortunately the below video was removed.)




She added up 5 or 10 number sets in each trial as below.

Flash Anzan Performance by Ms. Miyuki Torii

Trial	Number Sets	Flashing Interval	Result
1	5 (Two-Digit)	1.0 sec.	Failed
2	10  (Two-Digit)	0.8 sec.	Succeeded
3	10  (Two-Digit)	0.6 sec.	Succeeded
4	5  (Two-Digit)	0.4 sec.	Succeeded
5	5  (Two-Digit)	0.36 sec.	Succeeded
6	5  (Two-Digit)	0.3 sec.	Gave up

This video suggests that the Flash Anzan method fails to work properly when the flashing is excessively fast or slow. It seems that there is an appropriate range of flashing speed for each Flash Anzan performer. 

2. The Flash Anzan Calculation Defies Disturbance?

Second video shows the performance of Mr. Takeo Sasano, the Guinness world record holder of the Flash Anzan method. In this video, the first trial was carried out normally, but in the 2nd and the 3rd trials, unusual settings were prepared to challenge his concentration. In the 2nd trial, number sets were increased and flashing duration was extended. And in the third trial, some horror images were inserted in an attempt to disturb his calculation.





His performance data in the video are as follows.

Flash Anzan Performance by Mr. Takeo Sasano

Trial	Numbers Set	Flashing Duration	Result	Remarks
1	15  (Three-Digit)	1.7 sec.	Succeeded
2	50  (Three-Digit)	15 sec.	Succeeded	Longer Duration
3	50  (Three-Digit)	20 sec.	Succeeded	Longer Duration with Four Disturbing Images Inserted

*Please note that the Flashing Duration was mentioned in this program instead of the Flashing Interval.

Most interesting and superb is the third trial, in which he gave the correct answer despite the horror images inserted (the fourth image was a photo of the program MC and the ghost-disguised woman coming from under the table was just for joking, of course). And, what's more, he was commenting on those disturbing images while watching the number sets flashed on the screen.

I don't know how far this TV program is "staged", but the phenomenon itself seems possible because multitasking nature of the Flash Anzan method is reported also by other people.

(To be continued)