One way to see the fabric and true face of a society is to learn how it responds to a crisis. Nature can destroy anything mankind built within seconds, but human strength of mind, local initiative, and the joint forces of people can overcome seemingly unsurmountable challenges.
On 1 January, the day the world was celebrating the New Year, the Noto Peninsula in Japan was hit by an earthquake of magnitude 7.6. Driving for hours along the coastline through endless areas with collapsed houses, I could see some ruins marked with circles and red crosses, signalling where people had lost not just their homes but also their loved ones.
But I was equally struck by how strong societal foundations and resilient communities can face such challenges. Many wondered how Japan could maintain its strong educational performance in PISA during the years of the pandemic, when much of the world saw a sharp decline in student learning outcomes. The visit to Noto Peninsula helped me understand this better. Japan is a country of natural disasters, but it is also a country of extraordinary resilience. While many people have left the Noto region in the wake of the earthquake, accelerating its depopulation due to demographic shifts, teachers and school leaders have stayed. Within hours after the earthquake, they set out to find their students and families to ensure they were safe, and as soon as conditions allowed, they began to resume teaching at school. For students who cannot yet return to school due to damaged roads and infrastructure, they offer hybrid lessons, leaving no one behind.
Even in normal times, Japan is a country where there seems no boundary between the public and private lives of teachers. This is a country where teachers don’t just teach, but where they assume the roles of mentors, of coaches and of social workers too, roles that Western countries typically outsource to other professionals or services. What this means is that Japanese teachers know who their students are and who they want to become, and they accompany them and their families in good and difficult times. The Japanese teachers I met were not just great instructors but also passionate, compassionate and thoughtful people; they shared a deep belief that every student can learn; they promotes tolerance and social cohesion; they ensured that students feel valued and included; and they took a genuine interest in their students’ welfare and future. All this helps to explain why students from all social backgrounds in Japan excel in education. In the face of a natural disaster, this makes all the difference.
