When Ryoichi Kawakami, a 34-year veteran schoolteacher in Saitama Prefecture, was appointed to the National Commission on Educational Reform in March, he was skeptical about whether his input could help solve the problem of "classroom collapse."
Classroom collapse is a term commonly used to describe the situation where classes do not function because of unruly students. The expression was coined after Kawakami, a 57-year-old teacher at Kawagoe Municipal Jyonan Junior High School, wrote the book "School Collapse" in 1999.
Kawakami now appears to be satisfied with his participation on the nation's top educational panel because the opinions he offered on how to improve classroom environments were woven into the panel's final report submitted to Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori in late December.