Westbrook High School teacher Allyson Montana recently got the opportunity to get a first-hand look at Japanese teaching methods during a three-week tour of Japan.

Montana, who teaches Chinese, world history and fine arts at the high school, went to Japan in June on a trip sponsored by the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund. She said the Japanese government pays for the program, which is similar to the American Fulbright program that was founded after World War II. She said the Japanese government started the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund about nine years ago.

About 200 teachers from all across the United States went to Japan as part of the program this year, said Montana, who was the only teacher from Westbrook to go. “The purpose is to show us a little bit about Japanese education, industry and culture in the hopes that we will bring it back to our community and our school,” Montana said.

The group spent their first week in Japan in Tokyo getting acclimated and touring the city as well as attending workshops and lectures by Japanese educators as well as members of the Japanese government. “The lectures ranged from talking to members of their Diet, which is like their senate, to the ministry of education,” she said. “It was really interesting.”

Montana said the main concern among Japanese educators is one that is familiar to American teachers. The Japanese are becoming concerned that the focus of Japanese schools on performing well on standardized tests is detracting from education.

In fact, Montana said the Japanese put even more stress on doing well on the tests than Americans. “Their test culture has taken a toll on their students,” she said. “It’s so competitive.”

She said kids have to take standardized tests at many levels, and those tests determine what junior high schools and high schools they go to, and even have an effect on their career path later in life. The pressure to perform well on the tests leads parents to send their kids to what are called “cram schools.”

“They spend four or five hours just cramming information and studying booklet after booklet,” said Montana. “As a result, their test scores are amazing, but what the Japanese government is worried about is the high rate of suicide, depression, truancy and lately there’s been school violence, bullying and even violence against teachers.”

After a week in Tokyo, Montana went to the northernmost part of the country for a two-week stay in Kushiro in the Hokkaido region. “What was interesting about this place was how similar it was to Maine,” she said.

Montana said the area where she stayed was near the water and it also had a paper mill leading her to compare it to Westbrook. “It was kind of nice,” she said.

While she was in Hokkaido, Montana visited local schools observing classes of elementary, junior high and high school students, as well as staying for a couple of days with a family from the area.

Montana said she also taught a couple of high school English classes while she was there. “Just to give something back to the school,” she said.

She said she saw the differences between Japanese and American students almost immediately after stepping into a Japanese classroom.

High school students “have taken English for roughly 10 years,” she said. “And they refuse to speak. They were frightened. They were nervous to speak to me.”

Montana said the students could write beautifully, but she thought they did not practice spoken English all that often.

The Japanese students were also quieter than their American counterparts, said Montana. “They had this fear to speak up and raise their hand,” she said. “In Westbrook, one thing my students have is after the first few weeks and they’re comfortable with me, they are constantly raising their hands and I welcome that.”

Faced with a classroom of unresponsive kids in a foreign land, Montana, who does not speak Japanese, said she relied on the universal language of laughter to get the kids to open up. She said she acted “goofy” to get the kids to open up a little. “Kids are all kids,” she said. “I could see within their faces similarities to some of my favorite jokers here. And it was great to see there was a similarity.”

Montana said the classes taught by the Japanese teachers were also much different than American classes. “They are very lecture-oriented,” she said. “There is very little movement in the classroom. It is not as activity based. The kids stayed in their seats for all 60 minutes and remained there until the bell rung,” she said.

Montana said one of the main reasons for the lecture-oriented classes is that Japanese classes tend to be much larger than American classes, sometimes as large as 40 students in a class. She said from a logistical point of view, with that many students it makes sense to focus more on lectures rather than activities.

One other difference between Japanese and American schools that Montana noticed is the custom of taking time out during the school day for the students to completely clean the school. She said the students are each assigned a task and they work for about an hour to help keep the school clean. She said even the youngest students get in on the act, and it is not uncommon to see young kids vacuuming the hallways. Montana joked that was one aspect of Japanese school life she wished she could bring to Westbrook.

“I wish I could get my kids to clean my room like that,” she said with a laugh.