How Nishigaoka Elementary School Builds Students' Confidence

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Today I paid a visit to an elementary school in Nishigaoka, western part of Miyagi Prefecture, with friends. Our visit was for being a guest assessor/commentator for students’ presentation, as well as doing our own presentation in front of students. We were divided into groups, where each group of students was accompanied by one foreign student from Miyagi University of Education. 

It was such a mind-blowing experience that opened my mind idea about how school can effectively encourage students to be confident individuals. First session in our group was filled with students’s presentation done in groups of three. There were 7 groups of presenters in total in the group where i belonged. To my surprise, they took turn doing presentation in such awesome way. I believe that they must be well-prepared. It might have taken at least 2 weeks for them to get prepared for that. Each of the group had their own topic to put forward. Not only conveying orally what they present, they also brought some handicraft that helped them give illustration of what they conveyed.

They must have memorised a lot of words, or even all, they convey. Some of them even simply read texts occasionally. To me, it does not really matter as long as it helped them to conquer the fear of being in front of people, something that is not easy for them, i believe. Each personal in each group got turn to speak. There might be teachers’ interference for making sure that students were ready for the presentation. 

To me, it is not about how fluent and how they looked ready that really matters. But, it is about how such activity could be a brilliant idea to foster students’ confidence. Education at schools should give much opportunity for students to build up their confidence. The idea of ‘doing presentation by students’ is such a simple yet blew away my mind. 

From that activity, i can infer two points, to the least. First, building students confidence can be done through presentation activity. ‘’Is it possible?’’, some may ask. ‘What if the students are a silent guy?’’ We may be pessimistic how such activity can boost students’ confidence. Some might think that such activity is decreasing confidence, instead, because those who feel being failed in the presentation tend to get even worse feeling of low self-esteem. In fact, this school made it. Secondly, in order to achieve its goal, teachers should make sure that students are well-prepared. Never let students take the whole process of preparation independently. Students should be given freedom to express the ideas they will put forward, yet they must be under guidance of teacher. Students, as a matter of course, will come across some challenge/difficulties. That is the time when teachers are necessary to give hand. Some students are a bit clumsy. They might need a text to read to at least help them convey their ideas. Thirdly, there should be an effort of creating situation where students feel free from negative remarks that are potentially discouraging and demotivating. Teachers should create situation where no laugh for mistake students make, as it is unbearably often discouraging. For Japan, it is not a big deal, as people are somehow having character of respecting each other. 

We have to remember that the main objective of this activity is to boost students’ confidence. It is not about the students are being good communicator or not as indicator of the success of the activity. We surely cannot expect them to be good communicator in such pretty young age yet. How the activity impacts on their character or personal quality is what really matters. 

Building character in such early stage of life should become the main focus of education. Therefore, elementary schools should provide character building-based programs for students. Japan is good example for this.