Curriculum Development and Teachers for Cultivating OECD Student Agency in Japan: From an Examination of Educational Thought, Educational System, History, and Contemporary Science and Mathematics Education Practices

The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of a curriculum in Japan to foster the agency (OECD Student Agency) necessary for children living in the future, as outlined in the OECD Education2030 Project, and the role of teachers who implement this curriculum. Therefore, I aim to achieve this goal by taking an overview of educational thought, educational systems and history, and examining several initiatives in the OECD Project and the situation of a Japanese high school that practices science and mathematics education. As a result of analyzing previous research and the narratives obtained from interviews with Teacher A (pseudonym) of a certain F High School (pseudonym), it was found that school education should not simply teach subjects, but should aim to enable student to help student exercise agency in the future. It was suggested that it is not necessary to add content to the curriculum, but rather to prepare to provide students with competencies that will enable them to use the content in various contexts, situations, and circumstances, suggesting that in order to discover such important competencies, teachers and other related parties are required to implement curricula that allow students to slowly and carefully explore the competencies surrounding the content, and to conceive and build curricula that include both hidden and intended curriculum that allows student to reflect on the curriculum they have achieved.