Educators from Japan visit St. Louis to learn from Catholic schools

Published: 2003-10-28

ST. LOUIS (CNS) -- At what one called "a moment of change" in Japanese education, three educators from Notre Dame Elementary School in Kyoto turned to St. Louis, home of the School Sisters of Notre Dame motherhouse, to learn new ways to improve education at their school. The Japanese government recently began to deregulate education, said Sister Beatrice Tanaka, a School Sister of Notre Dame who is principal of the Kyoto school. "Usually all public schools in Japan used the same textbooks, and most private schools did, too. The government is now encouraging a diversity of approach to education in Japan," she told the St. Louis Review, newspaper of the St. Louis Archdiocese. Visiting with her were Koji Motsumoto, vice principal of Notre Dame in Kyoto, and Sister Kathleen Wegman, another School Sister of Notre Dame originally from the St. Louis Archdiocese, who teaches English at the Kyoto school. Sister Kathleen is a former staffer at the St. Louis archdiocesan Catholic Education Office, a former teacher and principal and a former provincial of the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

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