[A former teacher takes on lesson reform] What does “making the best possible lessons” look like when you do it from outside school? With Jugyo Terrace, the challenge of turning children into “fans” of learning, together with teachers all over Japan

Standing in front of a class as an elementary school teacher, Fan felt first-hand the reality of schools crying out under isolation and overwork. Convinced that the only way to revive education is for teachers themselves to become “fans of learning”, Fan joined NIJIN. Today, while running a sports school of their own, Fan is at the helm of “Jugyo Terrace”, one of Japan’s largest learning communities for teachers. We asked about the thinking behind joining, and about the challenge ahead.

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Fan

Worked as an elementary school teacher for three years. Came across “Jugyo Terrace” during a painful first year and learnt there what education is really about. In the third year, tried to push through reforms as head of physical education, came up against the structural limits of public education, and resigned. Now runs a sports school and, as a volunteer staff member at NIJIN, serves as venture head of “Jugyo Terrace”.

The future “Jugyo Terrace” is creating, where teachers and children are excited

— What kind of place is “Jugyo Terrace”, and what work do you do there, Fan?

“Jugyo Terrace” is one of Japan’s largest online learning communities, where teachers from all over the country hone their “teaching skills” and win back their confidence and pride as teachers. I am its venture head. In practical terms, I plan two or more seminars every month and run open lessons in classrooms around the country. We don’t simply invite a speaker; we design an experience that leaves the teachers who take part excited and thinking, “I want to use this from tomorrow!”

I also bring in a “business perspective” that schools have traditionally lacked, such as drawing up PR strategy using social media and the web, and improving the service from the customer’s point of view. Every day I keep thinking about, and acting on, how to bring this value to more teachers.

What education is really about saved me when I had “90 hours of overtime and dead eyes”.

— Fan, why did you want to join NIJIN?

The main reasons I joined NIJIN are how deeply its philosophy of “lighting up the world through education” resonated with me, and an intense formative experience of my own.

My first year as a teacher. With more than 90 hours of overtime a month and all alone, I was standing in front of the class with, quite literally, “dead eyes”. Swamped by daily duties, I couldn’t even prepare my lessons properly. “I want to quit…” I asked myself that question every day. What saved me, and kept me alive as a teacher, was “Jugyo Terrace”. The moment I saw first-class lessons with my own eyes and touched what education is really about, I discovered how thrilling it could be; it gave me shivers.

But in my third year, when I proposed reforms as head of physical education, I ran into an enormous wall. What stood in the way was “bad old tradition” and the atmosphere of an organisation that resists change. I felt the structural limits of public education painfully, on my own skin. “If it won’t change from the inside, I’ll change it from the outside, with overwhelming passion”. Having made up my mind, I left teaching, and now at NIJIN I have chosen the path of “upgrading the lessons of teachers all over Japan”.

If teachers are suffering, there is no way children can enjoy learning. That is exactly why I want to make teachers themselves “fans of learning” first. Teachers prepare their lessons with excitement, in a “fan mood”, and that warmth turns the children into “fans of learning” too. Spreading that scene across Japan is my goal right now!

— What kind of place is NIJIN, as you see it, Fan?

“Everyone has the power to be happy and the power to make others happy.” This is a philosophy that NIJIN holds dear. Teachers in schools are swamped by their daily work and tend to put their own happiness last. But if teachers are not happy, they cannot make children happy. Through the “Jugyo Terrace” community, I want teachers to be the first to live out this philosophy. The wish to help with that is what drives me.
NIJIN is also an organisation that, as professionals, cares uncompromisingly about results. Here I am learning through practice the essentials of business that I never came into contact with as a teacher: PR and social media strategy, sales, designing from the customer’s point of view.

As a venture head, I can sharpen the skills needed to make teachers across the country, and the world of education, much happier, and I can pursue outstanding results. For me, this environment is the most exciting place to grow.

— Tell us about the moment in your work when your “soul was moved” the most.

The moment that moved my soul the most was when a junior colleague from my university, who had been on the verge of quitting, came back to life through the people he met at “Jugyo Terrace” and told me, “Next, I want to be the one who creates more fans of lessons.”

One day a message came from him: “I’ve reached my limit. I’m quitting.” “I love children, I love being a teacher and I love PE, but I have nobody to talk to. The children in front of me don’t enjoy the PE I used to love so much. Every day is exhausting and I can’t find anything rewarding in it.” Hearing that desperate cry, I urged him to join “Jugyo Terrace”. There he watched the practice of first-class teachers with rapt attention and earnestly exchanged views with colleagues about his own lessons. Each time we met, I could see the life returning to his face and his motivation overflowing. “When my teaching got better, the children changed dramatically.” I will never forget his smile when he told me that.

Later, another message arrived from him. “Please let me run a lesson seminar. At Jugyo Terrace, which saved me when I wanted to quit, I want to present my own practice this time. Next, I want to be the one who makes someone else happy.”
Happy classrooms all over the country. When lessons change, teachers’ lives change. When a teacher smiles, the thirty children beyond that teacher shift into a “fan mood” of “I can’t wait for school tomorrow!”, and the children’s futures change. That chain of happiness is now beginning to happen across Japan. A project I set in motion is definitely changing someone’s life, and the future of education in Japan. That overwhelming sense of making a difference is my greatest joy.

With 7,000 colleagues, making the work of a “teacher” far more attractive

— What kind of future do you want to create together with NIJIN?

It is said that in the 2026 school year teachers will leave the profession even faster. But I truly believe we can change that. First, we grow to a community of 7,000. When a teacher in the staffroom is struggling with their lessons, the teacher at the next desk says, “Come and learn with me at Terrace.” We will build that kind of warm, solid “platform for education”.

People who became teachers burning with ideals give up their dream because of their environment. I want to prevent as many of those tragedies as I can. There is no time to wait for the Ministry of Education’s policies. We will, on our own initiative, change Japanese education from the inside and from the outside into something fun and full of hope.

— Finally, a message for those who are thinking of applying.

These days, with the ratio of applicants to places in teacher recruitment exams falling every year and more people leaving, teaching is, sadly, more and more often described as “an unattractive job”. But that is not how it is meant to be. A teacher who has real ability, who gives good lessons that children get passionately absorbed in, builds a warm class, and raises children hand in hand with their parents: if you can do that, there is no other job so creative and so attractive.

And yet right now schools are desperately short of an environment where you genuinely “want to learn” and where you “can learn and change”. There is no need to despair of today’s school education. The skills and the chance to remake it with your own hands are here. “When it comes to where teachers learn, it’s Jugyo Terrace, more than the board of education or the Ministry!” Won’t you come and seriously build a place that teachers all over Japan say that about? Won’t you make classrooms across the country happy, together with me?

Let’s give shape, at NIJIN, to your feeling of “I don’t want to give up on education”.

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