Review On The Well-being Curriculum Reform In Japanese High School From The Perspective Of New National Courses Of Study

Since the 1970s Japan had already entered the aging society. Consequently, its well-being education system obtained early development history and up to now is relatively complete. In contrast, China has already entered the population aging society in advance before its overall modernization of economy and society is realized. Besides, the accelerating growth in population aging has been a serious social problem. Facing up to such a severe condition, it is of great importance to think over the following questions: How to establish a preliminary well-being education system? How to minimize the negative impact of population aging on the society? To make satisfactory answers, it's better to get a deeper understanding of the Japanese well-being education first.Therefore, in this paper, I will conduct in-depth analysis of Japan well-being education in particular well-being curriculum in high school. These will be achieved in the following four chapters:In chapter one, well-being education in Japan is divided into two major categories: general well-being education and professional well-being education. The main purposes of well-being education are the following: learning current well-being system, fostering the consciousness of well-being, and training capacity for promoting social well-being.In chapter two, the background and progress of Japanese well-being curriculum in high school is introduced and analyzed. Then comparisons were made between well-being curriculum and integrated learning, as well as between well-being curriculum and the Certified Care Workers Qualification Examination. Moreover, the urgent issues facing well-being curriculum were concluded as follows: lack of teaching faculty, variety of textbook quality and difficulty of practice course implementation.In chapter three, in response to the changing domestic and international situation, Japanese New National Courses of Study was published in 2008 that made a detailed plan to improve well-being curriculum in high schools for the next decade. Under its requirements, the number of well-being curriculum in high school increased from the seven to nine. Three major characteristics of this reform can be concluded as follows: emphasizing on care, flexible application, communication and understanding. However, the effects and significance of the curriculum reform remain to be proven in trials.In chapter four, the necessity of establishing well-being curriculum in our vocational high school was analyzed through four aspects. Meanwhile, some underlying problems may be faced when we establish well-being curriculum in our vocational high school, such as difficulty of recruiting students, lack of qualified teacher and low of recognition from the general public. Finally, according to the experience of Japanese well-being curriculum, some suggestions were made to better our well-being curriculum.