A Moral Education Lesson to Enhance Self-Affirmative Consciousness in Japan and Taiwan

Abstract

This paper addresses clinical research on moral education lessons to enhance the self-affirmative consciousness of students in Japan and Taiwan. We conducted four lessons for fifth and sixth graders under the same conditions. The lesson was about the natural environment and was organized as a cooperative learning experience. The Association Method was employed as an assessment. 　Prompted by the image of , response words such as “water,” “air,” and “environment” appeared in four classes after the lesson. Through the 60-minute lesson, more than half of the response words changed. This indicates that the children concentrated deeply on the lesson, and that it made an impression on them. 　The results from the Japanese A and B and Taiwanese C and D schools were diverse. We compared the response words before andafter the lesson, using the Association Method by cue word , which shows self-affirmative consciousness. In class A, words that recognize the importance of nature appeared even in self-consciousness, and in class B, positive words increased and negative words decreased significantly (p < .05). In class C, consciousness of “oneself” and “family” increased, and in class D, “life” and “friend” increased. We interpreted these differences as a result of the children’s reflections on their own inner character and the historical background they have learned and not learned.departmental bulletin pape