A paper of mine, Sustainability Through Open Educational Resources, was published in Between the Keys, a journal produced by the JALT Materials Writers Special Interest Group. Spring 2026, Volume 34.1, pg. 20–27. Download: PDF & ePub.

The Present and Future of Teaching

Japan’s overall population has been declining since 2007 (Rizzi, 2023), but perhaps more surprisingly, the Japanese youth population has fallen every year since 1982 (Nippon.com, 2022). The national government has examined and proposed various strategies to stabilize the numbers, but few positive effects have been achieved. Every year, negative population pressure causes approximately 450 schools around the nation to close their doors (Yamamitsu et al., 2023). Many public and private schools are struggling to fill seats. As schools shrink and merge, teachers are being asked to perform a myriad of duties, both bureaucratic and academic, including teaching classes they haven’t taught recently or at all.

In present-day Japan, teaching at the primary and secondary level is declining in popularity (Sakuma & Shimazaki, 2024; Yamasaki, 2025). In fact, the profession is losing popularity faster than the youth population’s decline. One approach to revitalizing the profession is to expand Open Educational Resource (OER) development into schools. OERs are teaching and learning materials that are either in the Public Domain or Creative Commons licensed. They have been a staple of international university education for many years (Gourley and Lane, 2009) and in more recent years international research has begun on high school deployment (García-Solano et al., 2023; Yassin, 2024). Progress along these lines in Japan could alleviate some teacher overwork while helping build teamwork and confidence among the country’s educators.

It has been remarked that U.S. school reform efforts over the last two centuries have led to surprisingly few major changes to teaching practice (Cuban, 2013). Cuban (2013) claims that one of the “fundamental errors” is the overemphasis on changing “school governments, organization, and curriculum,” and another is the mistaken assumption that policymakers have a “worldview” similar to that of teachers. Although Japan has arguably been more successful in national curriculum reform (Kitamura et al., 2019), continued change is both inevitable and necessary, and the ideas presented here avoid falling into the trap Cuban outlined. Expanded OER use doesn’t depend on distant edicts, and the choice of what materials to use and share can be left to individual teachers and departments.

Sustainability

From the Millennium Development Goals of 2000 to the Sustainable Development Goals of 2015, governments have been looking for ways to improve the quality and availability of global education (Kumar et al., 2016). Although some have criticized the SDGs as self-contradictory, in that Goal #8 targets continued economic growth, which is unsustainable given limited world resources (Hickel, 2019), most of the remaining goals refer to “sustainable development” as that which is designed “to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (United Nations Secretary General, 1987), echoing wording from the National Environmental Policy Act (1970) written nearly two decades prior.

The purpose of SDG #4 is to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2018). That goal might sound broad and distant to individual educators, but strong communities have the capability to make measurable progress toward it. As Japan struggles with population decline and teacher shortages, sustainability is clearly a matter of both global and domestic significance. Sustainable education consists of policies and practices that boost education quality, are long-lasting, don’t depend on continued funding, are flexible for current use and future change, and can be exported to other schools and districts (Hargreaves & Fink, 2006). It is advanced through distributed leadership, when schools and teachers are offered greater power over how their schools function (Hargreaves & Fink, 2003, 2006). Government-led education reform efforts rarely succeed (Munby, 2020), and research emphasizes the potential of teachers themselves to lead the way to better education (Harris & Jones, 2019). Thus, one step towards sustainable education is to advance teacher agency.

Open Educational Resources

As mentioned, OERs are materials relating to teaching and learning. These include regular classroom materials—handouts, slideshows, websites, booklets, etc.—that the authors have decided to share with everyone. Creating an OER is simple—the author need only add a license to the document (Weichler, 2020).

Flexibility is a key idea surrounding OERs. Because they are free to use and remix, educators typically customize things according to their own needs. For some elective courses, instead of a textbook, the teacher might create their own information packets and slideshows. For other courses, the teacher might mostly use a MEXT-approved textbook and have separate files for projects and presentations. In the aftermath of COVID-19, most schools started (or continued) using some kind of online learning platform, such as Google Suite for Education or Microsoft 365 for Education. As such, many teachers today have at least basic experience sharing and collaborating in online document creation. For those who do not, collaborative editing using Google Docs or Microsoft Office is easy to learn (Javed, 2024; Mihaila, 2023).

When creating OERs, the author must consider three main points. First, open and accessible formats are necessary. Many teachers like to use Apple computers, but Keynote files are hard to open on Windows. As such, Apple users, and anyone using proprietary file formats, may need to convert their files to more accessible formats (e.g., converting the Keynote file to a PowerPoint file or uploading it to Google Slides). Also, when sharing a PDF, the author needs to also share the source file, so that future teachers can make their own modifications. Second, personal information cannot be included in OERs. Because OERs are designed to be shared online and publicly, students’ names and pictures must be avoided, and school-specific information should be kept to a minimum. Finally, it is necessary to avoid non-free material, so content creators take care with downloaded pictures, long copyrighted passages, music, and video. The above considerations apply to any kind of public-facing materials development, so experienced authors are already prepared to create OER. For less experienced authors, a simple starting point would be to adapt previously-created OER work and share the results.

OER development began in the 1990s, and the term itself was formalized in 2002 (Bliss & Smith, 2017). Yet, adoption within Japan has been slow (Shigeta et al., 2017), and much of the domestic focus has been on massive open online courses (Open Education Japan, 2022). One way to estimate engagement in a topic is using Google Trends¹, which shows search term popularity by country over the last five years. Two December 2025 queries, one for “OER” and the other for “open educational resources” ranked Japan in 40th and 60th place, clearly showing the relative lack of engagement in the topic at present. OER textbooks are unseen at the high school level, partly due to the burdensome national certification process (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, n.d.). Although primary textbook certification takes years, supplementary textbooks and materials are less restricted, and teachers—particularly those at private schools that offer flexibility surrounding the course syllabus—can quickly create and integrate them into courses.

Benefits of OERs

One major benefit of OERs is the ability to share with other teachers and schools. Many teachers in Japan today work under one-year contracts and leave their schools in less than five years (Green, 2019). Because OERs are free to everyone, teachers can take OERs with them when they find future work at other schools. Also, they can share materials at conferences or post them online. This gives individual teachers greater stability in their own classrooms and incentive to collaborate.

A second benefit is that actively using OERs decreases the teacher’s and school’s dependency on publishing companies. Many high quality supplementary OERs can be used standalone; they might go well with a specific textbook, but they don’t depend on that particular textbook. Consequently, when textbooks go out of print or new versions are released, teachers feel no rush to recreate supplementary materials, because their OERs are still be perfectly usable.

OERs are one important element of the greater effort to build Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). Research in education has solidly established the importance of a shared vision for school change (Aldridge & McLure, 2024; Hallinger, 2011). When teachers agree on what kind of school they want to create, they’re more likely to succeed, and one way to accomplish this is through PLCs. These communities play a key role in sustainable education (Hargreaves & Fink, 2006) because they involve teachers working together both within and between schools to reflect on, share, and collaboratively develop methodology, materials, and ideals that help them all provide a better education to their students (Stoll et al., 2006). Research has shown that subject departments in schools can raise student achievement through professional community development (Gates & Watkins, 2010; Lomos et al., 2011), and because OER production is visible and tangible, OER growth can act as a focal point for some PLC work. Successful use of OERs by PLCs has been reported in various locations; for example, teachers in Mexico found that sourcing quality OERs was less time-consuming than expected (García-Solano et al., 2023), and students in Egypt have reported clear benefits of OERs as supplementary materials to support their primary non-OER textbooks (Yassin, 2024). These were small studies in non-Japanese environments, but nevertheless they show the possibility and benefits of greater OER use in the broader educational community.

Discussion

Many schools in Japan are struggling to both recruit students and retain teachers. The former issue is one that will unavoidably remain a serious concern for many decades, but the latter challenge can be more effectively addressed. There are many ways to boost teaching popularity, such as improving working conditions and raising salaries. These two approaches should not be understated in importance but are outside the scope of this paper. Of significance here is the potential that OERs hold to provide useful and reliable educational resources to teachers in what is, for many, a fluid and precarious professional environment. On the one hand, OER use in Japan at the primary and secondary level is currently minimal, and from that one might conclude that OERs are somehow unsuitable for these environments. On the other hand, it can also be argued that with a change in perspective, and increased teamwork within departments and across schools, progress can be made. Teachers and schools that are looking for inspiration from successes achieved abroad are well-situated to enact rapid change by collaborating to build better quality materials to help themselves and their students. In the words of Creative Commons (n.d.), “When we share, everyone wins”.

Footnotes

1. https://trends.google.com

References

About

Douglas Perkins is an English teacher at Keio Shonan Fujisawa Junior & Senior High School. He has taught at several schools in Akita, Tokyo, and Kanagawa for almost two decades. He is passionate about the development of high quality free educational materials. He makes and shares many of his own classroom materials and is an active contributor to Wikimedia Commons and similar sites.

For some reason the highest mountain in Okinawa is not on the main island, but rather far to the southwest on the less-visited island of Ishigaki, a summit by the name of Mt. Omoto. The mountain itself is not famous — people usually don't go to Ishikawa for hiking — but you can if you care to.

The last time I visited this place was in late 2019. Certainly things have changed in the last six years. If you read the newspaper, they'll tell you that things are changing faster than ever in the modern world. But that's not what it feels like down here. The things that make this place nice to visit — friendly people, scuba diving, nature, Okinawan food — feel similar to my previous visit.

For three days I went scuba diving. The dive boats leave from the port on Ishigaki, and there are dive sites around all of the nearby islands — Taketomi, Iriomote, Kohama, Kuroshima, Aragusu, and Ishigaki itself. Scuba diving is a magical thing, difficult to describe in words. It's a lot quieter under water, for one. And then the colors are all kinds of exciting — blue tends to dominate, especially at depth, but brilliantly colored coral and fish are all around as well. One neat thing about Ishigaki is the small things to find, and if you're with a knowledgeable dive buddy or dive master, they'll point to something, you come over and stare at it for two minutes, and finally you will see a little shrimp smaller than your pinky nail, or translucent tubes that look like tiny smiley faces, or who knows what it might be. Sometimes you'll stare for two minutes and can't figure it out, and they'll tell you when you're back on the boat. Anyway, there's some nice diving down here.

Mt. Omoto was next on the list. A quick bus ride and a 1-hour walk brought me to the top of the mountain. The summit is covered with shrubs, so there aren't any panoramic viewpoints, but it's still an enjoyable way to spend a morning. After the hike, rather than wait two hours for the return bus, I took a 10 kilometer stroll through the hills, past the pineapple farms and sugarcane fields, back to downtown Ishigaki. The next day, my last full day on the island, I went to a different one. Taketomi is a 20-minute ferry ride, and walking down the beaches and up the dusty roads is a scenic way to spend time... And that's it, a week down here. Scuba diving, hiking, scenery, books, sure thing. Happy holidays!

There must be something precious here, that no textbook can teach you. That's the islanders' treasure. —BEGIN (2002)

As autumn comes to a close, the time for a motorcycle ride is now, before colder weather makes it impossible. The last place on my list, the Sixteen Motorcycle Roads, is the Mikata Rainbow Line, which goes around the Mikata Five Lakes (Mikata Goko) in western Fukui. It's possible to do this as a day trip from Kyoto, but because Mt. Ibuki is in the vicinity, and Mt. Ibuki is on the list of 100 Famous Japanese Mountains, I opt instead for a twenty-four hour rental.

On Saturday morning I take the train to Kyoto and rent the bike. Then I ride to Mt. Ibuki, but just as the weather forecast predicts, Mt. Ibuki is hiding in a downpour. Well, I expected the rain and have the right gear, so I carefully ride to the parking lot, walk the final twenty minutes to the summit, and have a mug of hot chocolate. The sun peaks through a gap in the clouds for half a minute and decides not to linger. Neither do I. So I ride on, down the mountain and then northwest for two hours to a hotel for the night.

The next morning, the weather has taken a sunny turn, and at eight o'clock I head for the Mikata Rainbow Line. It's a few minutes from the hotel, and because the tourist facilities don't open until nine, the road is empty. At this early hour the only people around are locals and riders like myself, and it's an enjoyable ride up and down the hill and curves around the lakes. Then I head south, following Route 367 for a few hours. The road stays in a river valley, and by mid-morning there are hundreds of cars and motorcycles out enjoying the fine autumn weather. This scenic highway is a welcome change from Saturday's expressway riding. The final hour of the morning is a quick jaunt east, across Lake Biwa, and then a bit of lakeside driving south, down to the rental shop. Then I hop the train and head home.

This summer was a good time to visit Canada. I initially thought about going to the U.S., but what with Trump's anti-foreigner policies and the immigration police locking people up all the time, Canada had a greater appeal. Why not visit the Canadian Rockies? Never been there before. Betsy and Dex said we should go to the Bugaboos, so we did. Great.

On the first day we drove to the Conrad Kain Trailhead and hiked up to the Conrad Kain Hut. The road was rough, but the rental SUV handled it fine, and the hike was short but steep, so we took our time... We had several ideas for the next day. In the end, we decided to hike up and over the pass to Cobalt Lake. This was a good idea, but what we had not counted upon is the fact that while there are many rocks, cairns are scarce, and the trail is mostly non-existent. But we were confident, and experience was on our side, so we climbed up the scree slopes, boulder hopped through the rock fields, walked down the glacier, and eventually found our way to Cobalt Lake. The route was sketchy and fun... On the third day, consistent with day before, we found that the Cobalt Lake Trail doesn't exist in places, but with the assistance of GPS and offline cellphone maps, we meandered out of the mountains and back to civilization... A spectacular three-day hike, provided you have the skills and strength.

The next day my parents wandered west and I drove up to Glacier National Park — the Canadian one — for several days and then headed up the Icefields Parkway to Jasper, where David joined me up. Jasper, Banff, and the Parkway connecting them are rightly famous.

The hiking and camping were excellent. The mountains were majestic, the glaciers were gigantic, the waterfalls were wonderful. In the words of Stompin' Tom Connors, In Canada, where adventure ever falls — in Canada, we get to see them all.

Taiwan is close to Japan, relatively inexpensive, and not particularly cold in the winter, which makes it an ideal destination for winter break. Although I had visited Taipei in 2019 for Julie & Max's wedding, that was a weekend trip with little time to see the country and the countryside. This vacation, there were more than enough days to visit Tainan and Kaohsiung in the south, and then Taipei and the surrounding area in the north.

The food and drink were excellent everywhere, with "drink" referring to coffee, although tea lovers say that the tea is spectacular too. Food is interesting because spending more money doesn't make the taste improve. Google Maps and the night markets provided plenty of inexpensive eateries with exciting entrées.

East of Taipei in a town called Jiufen, the A-Mei Teahouse, said to be the inspiration for Spirited Away, was quite amazing. The crowds arrive around 11AM, and if you get there early, before many shops open, have a serene stroll on the narrow sidewalks, all on the side of the mountain with a view of the sea. From that location, it's a jaunt down to Houtong, a coal mining town turned cat-themed village. Following that I went for a walk south and stumbled into the Sandiaoling Tunnel. Of course the signs for the tunnel, including useful information such as where it goes and how long it is, are all written in Chinese, but translation apps are boring, and it was more interesting to go inside and start walking... Apparently, the tunnel leads to a town called Mudan, which is not particularly notable for tourists, but it has a train station so you can get home after the spelunking session has concluded.

It's so easy to travel internationally these days. Google Translate makes ordering food relatively simple — just take a picture of the menu, or even screenshot a menu pic on Google Maps, and walk in ready to order — and OpenStreetMap and Google Maps make navigation a piece of cake. Many buses and trains in Taiwan, as in many countries, have signs with the stops in English, and to pay you swipe the card when boarding and disembarking, so you don't have to calculate fares or learn the numbers. Ideally we would all have time to study the language for a few months or years prior to visiting, because surely talking with the locals would make the journey even more rewarding, but that's easier said than done. Anyway, it was a fun trip.

I started climbing the peaks of Oze last summer and returned this summer for more adventure. Oze is a 4-hour drive from my house, and it's remarkably remote. The last real town is Uonuma, and heading east from Uonuma on Highway 352 brings two hours of hairpin turns and curves that look like malaria germs, naturally with no cell signal. What few people can be found are there for fishing, hiking, and hot springs. Some of the roads and villages are summer-only, and you get the feeling that it's just you up here. I climbed Mt. Naeba (Niigata), Mt. Echigo-Komagatake (Niigata), Mt. Aizu-Komagatake (Fukushima), and Mt. Hiragatake (Niigata), all on Japan's Top 100 Mountains list.

Some years ago, there were a great many free campgrounds in the country. These days you can find a few here and there, but what's more common are places that charge 500-1,000 yen for a night. Search online for 無料キャンプ場 and see what comes up. I prefer to use these basic campgrounds when hiking because your average campground is more likely to be designed for glamping and barbecuing. There's nothing wrong with those activities, but they tend to bring a noisier crowd and higher prices. Also, for some reason they tend to have "check-in by five" policies, which doesn't work well if you arrive after a long hike or drive. On the other hand, some commercial campgrounds have great views and facilities, and the crowds are a non-factor in the off-season. Either way, there's some beautiful nature to be found.