Postcard from the Chicago Lesson Study Conference: No Substitute for Experience

In April, I attended the 9th Annual Lesson Study Conference hosted by the Chicago Lesson Study Group at DePaul University. The presenters and facilitators were educators at the forefront of the lesson study movement in the United States, most of them with first-hand knowledge of lesson study in Japan. We were treated to keynotes such as “What does it mean to do Lesson Study right?”  (Catherine Lewis, Ph.D., Distinguished Research Fellow in Education at Mills College) and “What one should do—and not do—as a facilitator?” (Makoto Yoshida, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Lesson Study at William Paterson University's College of Education) We also had the opportunity to observe a live research lesson taught to students from Sabin Magnet School with a post-lesson panel discussion.

Over the two days of the conference, I heard many practical ideas for bringing lesson study into schools and learned a great deal about the lesson study process, but one big idea that I keep coming back to is this: the best way to understand lesson study is to do lesson study.

Presenter Jacqueline Hurd, a second grade teacher from the San Francisco Bay Area, brought this idea to light while sharing about her experiences with launching lesson study at her school. She described a journey that began with little to no lesson study experience, other than what she had read, and a lack of resources.

Equipped only with her dedication to teaching and the principals of lesson study, and with her own creativity, she began to grow a culture of lesson study at her school. During this journey, she was aware that the lesson study she was helping to create and support was unique to her school; it didn’t exactly follow the model described in the literature. Even so, this unique lesson study process was having a positive impact on teacher practice and on the school community.

In the end, my idealistic vision of lesson study was met with the freeing reality that lesson study in the U.S. will never look like lesson study in Japan. However, as U.S. teachers continue to participate and share their experiences, lesson study has the potential to play a significant role in the reconstruction of a broken system. 

Grady Carson is a Program Manager at Developmental Studies Center