投稿者: Greg Culos

Cross Educationへようこそ！ ウェブサイトを通して、私たちについて、私たちの取り組みについて、 ぜひ知っていただけたらと思います。

共通の環境と共通の目的

Cross Educationは1つのシンプルなアイディアから生まれました。世界中の私たちが自分の能力を引き出し、物事の実行能力を高め、影響を与えるような存在になる事ができるのは、共通の環境のもとで共通の目的に向かって共に学ぶ時である、という考えです。Crossではこのような学びを通して、世界に良い影響を与える能力を高めていきます。私たちが一緒になって学ぶ時、固定観念や教育の境界線を超えて、包括的でオープンな場・機会・空間を作り出すことができるのです。

私たちはみな、 社会的、地理的、言語的、そして文化的に大きく異なる背景を持っています。ですが出身地に関わらず、人間としての基本的要素は同じだと私たちは考えています。この世に生を受け、日々を過ごし、物事を成し遂げるため努力し、他人からの慰めを求め、この世を去る時には自分の人生と行動が、何らかの形で世界に良い影響を与えることを願っているのです。

自分自身、そして世界の発見

私たちは皆さんの発見を手助けすることに重点をおいています。発見とは、自分自身について、自分の可能性、強みや弱み、そして能力を見出すことです。みなさんが多様性と可能性に溢れた美しい世界を探求する能力を伸ばすサポートをします。人生における問題や疑問、困難を歓迎し、学びの経験や実際のコミュニティ形成を通して、解決策を模索しましょう。自分の中にある才能や能力を発見し自信を持つこと、そしてコミュニティの中で能力を発揮するサポートをいかにしてできるか、私たちは常に追求しています。

私たちの青少年向けアカデミーおよびキャンププログラムは、これらの考えに深く根ざしています。私たちの教育哲学は、コミュニケーション(日本語と英語)、テクノロジー、社会、文化、芸術、メディア、エンジニアリング、パフォーマンス、スポーツ、その他多くの実践的な学びの経験の全てに反映されています。私たちのアプローチの中核は、人々、場所、考え、活動そしてチャレンジにおける多様性です。

昭和女子大学: 世界の中心で

Crossプログラムの目玉でもあるサマーアカデミーは、都心に位置する昭和女子大学で行われる毎年恒例の夏のイベントです。 世界的人気を誇る都内のホットなエリアからもほんの数分という便利な立地で、日本の文化豊かな景観に囲まれて行われるこのプログラムは、非常に国際色豊かな教育施設を拠点としています。とはいえ多様性がCross最大の特徴である通り、その拠点は昭和女子大学のキャンパスにとどまらず、多様な施設を有しています。東京郊外の生態系と農園の中心地、奥多摩の全施設完備の学校施設、日本アルプスの麓、そして岩手県と群馬県にも施設を有しています。2019年には、日本そして世界から集まる生徒の皆さんに様々な学びの体験をお届けすることを楽しみにしています！

多様性とコミュニティにおける強み

私たちのコミュニティもまた多様です。毎年世界中から異なる言語や文化背景を持つ生徒、スタッフ、講師が参加します。世界中から集まる講師陣は、世界レベルのトップアスリート、著名なテクノロジースペシャリスト、一流のパフォーマーやデザイナーなど、各分野のプロフェッショナルが揃う多様性溢れるチームとなっています。私たちと一緒に、英語という共通言語を使って、日本という最高のレンズを通して、学びに溢れる世界を体験しましょう。

最後に、私たちが最も自負していることは、私たちの生徒の笑顔は絶対に耐える事がない！ということです。2019年、ぜひ一緒に自分自身を発見しましょう！

グレッグ・クロス、プレジデント
Cross Education、日本

Welcome to our website!

We’re excited you have discovered Cross, and we welcome and encourage you to explore our pages and learn about who we are and what we do.

Common Ground & Common Purpose

Cross Education was born from a simple idea: when we learn together, on common ground, with common purpose, we, people from around the world, become more versatile, more effective, and more impactful. In doing so, we increase our capacity to make the world a better place for everyone. When we learn together we remove the traditional biases and boundaries of education, and create a platform of inclusivity and open-mindedness where all of us share and benefit from what we all share equally: the human experience.

At Cross we believe that no matter where we are from, and indeed we are all from often very different social, geographical, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds, the essential things that make us human are equal. We are born, we live, we strive to accomplish, we seek the company and comfort of others, and when we are gone, we hope that our lives and actions impacted the world, somehow, positively.

Discovering Ourselves Discovering the World

We believe in encouraging people to discover themselves, their potential, their strengths and weaknesses, and their capacities. We facilitate the ability for people to explore the world, it’s vast diversity, its beauty and potential. We celebrate problems, questions, and challenges in life, and through exercises in learning and effective community building, look for solutions to them. We seek ways to help people grow confidence in the abilities and capacities they discover within themselves, and learn to use them together and in combination with those of others.

Our Academy and Camp programs for youth are deeply rooted in these ideas. Our philosophy of education is manifested through applied learning experiences that include learning in communication (in Japanese & English), technology, society, culture, the arts, media, engineering, performance, sport, and much more. At the core of our approach is, indeed, diversity: diversity of people, of places, of ideas, of activities, and of challenges.

Showa Women’s University: at the Center of Our World

The Cross Summer Academy is our signature program held annually for the entire summer on site at the Showa Women’s University Campus in the heart of Tokyo. Located only minutes from some of the most exciting metropolitan centers in the world, within the rich cultural landscape of Japan, the Cross Summer Academy is based in a world class education facility. However, since a defining characteristic of Cross is diversity, our programs take advantage of a variety of locations in Tokyo and in different parts of Japan; we have an ecology center and farm in the outskirts of Tokyo, a full facility school in Okutama in the foothills of the Japanese Alps, and program facilities in Iwate and Gunma prefectures. In 2019, we look forward to expanding our reach of opportunities for students to other other parts of Japan, with considerations even beyond that!

Strength in Diversity & Community

Our community is equally diverse. We are a community of students, staff, and faculty who gather annually from Japan, from around the world, and from many different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Diversity is also demonstrated within our team of instructors. Not only do they come from around the world, but they are also professionals in their fields of specialization: world class athletes, renowned technology specialists, and accomplished performers and designers. Together, in English as our common tongue, we experience a world of learning opportunity, through the lens of Japan, that is second to none.

Finally, what we are most proud, is this: the smiles on our students faces that don’t ever seem to fade.

Join us in 2019 and discover for yourself!

Greg Culos, President
Cross Education, Japan

グレッグ・クロス、プレジデント
Cross Education、日本

Cross Education has come to Japan to establish its fully cultural & communicative immersive learning experiences for both Japanese and inbound international students.

There are certain places in the world where international education community building has happened and flourished. We’ve seen so historically in the USA, Switzerland, Canada, the UK. We believe that Japan now makes absolute sense for may reasons: one for its global economic reach and impact; two for its positioning in the East, from where global economic growth is now largely being driven; and three, from a country that provides the connectedness, the safety, the security, and the richness of life and experience that inspire learning in all ways.

The directors have a long heritage in both Canada and Japan offering English-based experiential programs for international students. Through Cross Education, Japan, they proudly bring an exciting new brand of education to Japan to create a venue for people from all corners of the planet.

The 2019 Cross Summer Academy is a multi-locational program based in the Tokyo and in the Kanto region. It brings a community of children and teenagers (from 5 to 18 years old) together from around the world, and from around Japan.

Together they engage in up to seven weeks of challenge and discovery.

The Cross Summer Academy is open to participants from Japan and around the world, and from all social, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds.

The main language of program delivery is English, and the Academy is held within a native International English environment. For students whose native tongue is English, their participation will give them exposure and learning opportunity to all of the themes and subjects the Academy has to offer. As all participants, they engage in the community building emphasis of the program, and in particular they become English speaking mentors to those participants whose native languages are not English.

For those whose native language is not English, daily morning classes are separated by age and English speaking ability. These students learn as English second language learners as they engage in the same learning concepts and challenges as everyone else.

In the afternoons, activities replace the morning classes, and all students regardless of language competency participate in a variety of different groups depending on the challenges and events scheduled each afternoon.

For those students coming from overseas, the Academy offers a Japanese Language and Culture stream. During the morning class sessions that all participants are part of, this category of student engages in learning about Japan, its language, and its culture.

What’s happening this summer?

The Cross Summer Academy is an intense seven week program that is best described as a learning adventure experience. Everything that happens during the camp is tied together thematically from the start of the first week to the end of the sixth. The overall theme of “Open Minds Change the World” runs through each day, week, activity, event, topic of learning, location, challenge, and interaction. From the first moment of the first day of camp, participants sense immediately they are about to embark on something exciting, and they are!

For us, open-mindedness is the ability to understand the world’s social, cultural, linguistic, physical, conceptual, and technical dynamics, with the ability, flexibility, and aptitude to engage in those dynamics in different social and cultural contexts. In this spirit, each of the six weeks of the Cross Summer Academy is sub-themed accordingly: Eco-Environmental Studies, Technology & Engineering, Online Media & Design, Photography, Videography, & Production, International Dynamics, Remote, Virtual, & Real Flight, Communication and Social Awareness.

While each week introduces the camp participants to it’s particular sub theme through different sets of activities and experiences, the purpose of the entire Academy experience is to help participants learn how every individual activity they engage in is influenced by all of the weekly sub-themes simultaneously. Our approach is always interdisciplinary.

Take, for instance, learning to fly:

• learning to fly requires technical and sensory-motor skills
• flight enables new perspectives & ideas
• new ideas are important to share
• media and technology enables sharing and communication
• communication has social and linguistic implications
• socially and linguistically appropriate communication has presentational needs and requirements
• presentation is highly dependent on form and structure
• form and structure leads to design and ways and modes of communication
• the ability to fly impacts, improves, and diversifies both action & behavior.

While each week of Camp introduces participants to subset themes, participants are constantly challenged to consider and apply those skills while taking into account the interconnectedness of all of the Academy’s sub themes and the overall intent of the Academy: to teach children how to use what they know to impact the world in positive ways, and to understand how their actions impact those around them, in whichever context they may find themselves.  

So, while the first week may focus on International Dynamics and Awareness, the learning challenges and activities participants engage in during that week will be framed by awareness of the Academy’s overall goal: to help them understand what Open-Mindedness means, and the positive impact it has in any social, cultural, and communicative context.

We’ll also teach them what a disrupter is… since change at a large scale is accomplished by those whose open-mindedness ultimately leads them to impact the world with ideas they believe will improve it for everyone!