Agricultural Education at the Japan Fork High School and Post-World War II Reclaimed Lands

Bibliographic Information

Other Title
  • 日本国民高等学校の農業教育と戦後開拓地
  • ニホン コクミン コウトウ ガッコウ ノ ノウギョウ キョウイク ト センゴ カイタクチ

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Abstract

This research, which used Ibaraki Prefecture as the research area, was aimed at clarifying the kind of agricultural education conducted at Japan Fork High School (Nihon-Kokumin-Koto-Gakko) for the children of the settlers of land reclaimed after the war.<br>The Japan Fork High School, whose first principal was agricultural leader, Kanji Kato, was established in Tomobe, Ibaraki Prefecture in 1926, and modeled on the Fork High School of Denmark. Kato tried to teach his students how to master methods of independent agricultural management, and methods of improving productivity in areas with poor land conditions, and how to become the ideal Japanese farmer through mind discipline.<br>In regards to the details of education in Japan Fork High Schools following the end of World War II, only those students who chose to took classes in mind discipline. However, practical agricultural training and fieldwork made up over 40% of the entire curriculum, continuing the focus of education on practical learning.<br>In the agricultural training, students were taught how to respond to postwar changes in Japanese agriculture, how to handle techniques to transform ill-drained paddy fields into a well drained fields and increase the yield, how to deal with tractor and combine and increase farming scale, and how to employ sustainable cultivation methods without using large amounts of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Instruction of such new postwar agricultural techniques and farming methods to students was conducted by part-time instructors who had graduated from the Agricultural Department of the Japan Fork High School or agricultural trial research workers.<br>Prior to World War II, graduates from the Japan Fork High School were dispersed throughout the country, but in postwar time the graduates came to be concentrated in Ibaraki Prefecture.<br>Ibaraki Prefecture, which has the largest number of graduates, dispersed graduates around the Joban Line area prior to the war. After the war ended, graduates came to be concentrated in the southern part of the prefecture, with an especially marked increase in the various towns on the diluvial upland around Lake Kasumigaura and Lake Kitaura, areas with a great amount of postwar reclaimed land construction.<br>It was in this postwar reclaimed land that settlers, who were directly instructed by Kanji Kato, recommended their children to attend the Japan Fork High School. The children of these settlers learned not only theory at the Japan Fork High School, but also came to comprehend practical knowledge and techniques, and acquired the ability to respond to postwar agricultural change, thereby making a success of agricultural business upon reclaimed land.

Journal

  • THE NEW GEOGRAPHY

    THE NEW GEOGRAPHY 48 (2), 37-48, 2000

    The Geographic Education Society of Japan

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