The Clipper

Issue date: 2/26/10 Section: Features

Media Credit: Joe Dyer Student Yui Takahashi and Nau Inose stand in front of the Nippon Business Institute after their traditional Japanese coming of age ceremony.

In the southwest corner of the Everett Community College campus, the Nippon Business Institute is changing the way students are learning.

The institute's ambitious mission is to "bridge the gap" between Eastern and Western cultures with a primary focus on Japan. Instructor Masako Nair is fulfilling this mission in her class without cracking open a textbook.

When the textbook Nair was using in her Japanese culture and history class was discontinued, she was unable to find a worthy substitute and decided to restructure the class to be completely student centered. The course covers two thousand years of Japanese history, culture, religion and business practices, and she uses the resources found in the NBI to bring it all together.

Rather than give what Nair calls a "bla bla bla lecture" she tries to use as much technology and hands-on learning as possible to keep her students engaged.

The Nishiyama Japanese garden is a part of the NBI that is often used as a classroom on sunny days. A roomy kitchen is also used to make traditional Japanese dishes. Another resource used as a teaching tool is an authentic tea room built by a Japanese contractor. The room can be accessed from the garden and is used to teach students the Japanese tea ceremony that is an important part of their culture.

"It's a considered a high art," Harlam Parker says about the ceremony. Parker is a student currently taking the course. "If we were using a textbook it wouldn't have Masako Nair's special touch."

Instead of giving the traditional textbook reading assignment, students are given a short course in effective research in the library and then receive detailed worksheets that they fill out using their own research.

Michael Steele is a Running Start student enrolled in the class, and every other week Steele presents specific aspects of a topic to the class with his group as part of the class.

"When we do research, we do a lot of thinking for ourselves, whereas with textbooks the thinking is done for us," says Steele.

Nair has noticed a positive student reaction to the class since the structure of the class was rearranged spring quarter of last year. She thinks that this is because the class is more interactive, and the students are all accountable to each other.

"In Japanese class we do it the Japanese way, that means that everyone contributes and everyone learns from each other," Nair says. "That is the number one Japanese concept -- harmony in community."

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