“Mirai no Gakko Presentation” by Masami Miyazaki

Presenting “Mirai no Gakko”(School of the Future),
A New Company Training Program
by Cornell University and Kodo Cultural Foundation
Aoyama, Tokyo on September 12

When you hear “School of the Future,” you may imagine a modern, high tech school. But this project aims to give new purpose to the Fukaura Schoolhouse on Sado, a recently closed-down elementary and junior high school. Mirai no Gakko (School of the Future) is produced by Yasuhiro Karakawa, Senior Manager of Market Creation Strategies – Asia at the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at the Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University. He is a member of the team at ifs Future Laboratory and planned a research trip last summer to the Fukaura Schoolhouse, which tied in to his annual research theme, “Inconvenient, yet comfortable.” It was a two-day/three-night program for Mr. Karakawa’s acquaintances (who he describes as an interesting bunch) and we, Kodo, offered them a taiko workshop to suit the program.

At the presentation, Mr. Karakawa briefly introduced this project and some of the summer participants’ impressions on it. To let the audience experience non-verbal communication, I brought a taiko drum along to show them how fun it feels to make one unified sound all together. The sound of taiko made all of them smile, even the serious-looking businessmen in suits. This project gives people the opportunity to come to Sado, play taiko, and through that, they can open up, free their minds, discuss and start to solve a range of issues, for example job or future-related concerns. We, the Kodo Cultural Foundation, highly recommend it!

Photo: Amazon Kajiyama

Kodo Blog | “’Mirai no Gakko’ Presentation on Sep. 12″ by Hirofumi Uenoyama