Children on a field trip to observe life in a muddy tideland, in Kashima, Saga Prefecture.

The following comments were sent in by junior high and senior high school students who attended NIE (Newspaper in Education) classes. Said one student: “I used to only scan the television programs and read the sports pages, but I now read other articles, too. Now that I am reading the newspaper every day, I have come to realize that all things that take place in the world are related.” Wrote another young reader: “By reading about incidents and accidents I hadn’t heard about I am beginning to realize how precious life is.”

The Newspaper in Education (NIE) uses newspaper articles as live texts in classes. The NIE approach has been gaining wide support in many schools, helping students deepen their interest in society. The newspapers are used in various ways, ranging from clipping articles, photographs and cartoons for scrapbooks to more sophisticated studies that involve reading and comparing various articles. The Asahi Shimbun provides events and NIE text materials to support teachers and children involved in the NIE program.

The “Nono-chan no Jiyu Kenkyu (free research)” series offers easy-to-understand news commentaries for children, using the female cartoon character, Nono-chan. The popular series runs in The Asahi Shimbun three times a year, in spring, summer and autumn, with six installments each. The installments are printed separately later on, and distributed to schools and other facilities free of charge. A revised teacher’s guide book was released in 2006 as the fourth “Nono-chan no NIE Guidebook.” It provides an introduction to reading the newspaper and teaching methods in the classroom. The guidebooks for teachers are used in many elementary, junior high and high schools. Furthermore, the NIE program began producing educational video materials to be used by novice teachers in fiscal 2004. So far, five titles have been completed. The NIE Committee Office at the Tokyo Head Office is lending out these educational materials to schools across the country.

The NIE program also provides a line-up of educational lectures and seminars that introduce ways to learn from newspapers: such as “The Asahi NIE Lectures,” “Newspaper Lectures for Teachers” (Tokyo Head Office) and “Asahi Educational Forum” (Osaka Head Office), and “Shimbun Katsuyo Seminar for Information Education” (learning from newspapers), which was organized by our Seibu Head Office. Reporters of The Asahi Shimbun are dispatched to schools to give talks about their work and discuss current events. The program is well received and has become an established school program, with some 150 requests coming in from various schools each year.

“Demae Asahi” (Home-Delivery Asahi) is a program in Osaka in which a reporter goes to schools with a specially customized vehicle loaded with personal computers and printers to show children how to produce a newspaper. Other events for “learning from” and “learning about” newspapers encompass the “Yasashii Kankyo Kyoshitsu” (elementary class on the environment) organized by our Seibu Head Office, as well as the “Asahi School Shimbun Juku” and the “Yokkaichi Newspaper Scrapbook Contest,” which are promoted by the Nagoya Head Office.