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New fifth-grade social studies textbook to include efforts of Chugoku Shimbun

by Yoko Yamamoto, Staff Writer

A fifth-grade textbook for social studies produced by the publisher Tokyo Shoseki, which has been screened and approved by the government as a textbook for elementary schools for the 2011 school year, will introduce the efforts of the Chugoku Shimbun.

The textbook has 116 pages and the work of the Chugoku Shimbun is included in two facing pages under the title "The Roles of Newspaper Companies" in a section on the theme of "Information Industry and Our Lives."

The textbook poses the question: "What kinds of roles do newspaper companies play in society?" It then shows a photo of the "Paper Crane Portable Shrine" float at the Flower Festival in Hiroshima and introduces the peace newspaper titled "Peace Seeds," which is produced by Japanese teens and appears regularly as an insert in the Chugoku Shimbun. At the end, the textbook says in summary: "The Chugoku Shimbun supports citizens' activities in pursuit of peace and puts a great deal of effort into peace-related reporting."

Staff members of Tokyo Shoseki involved in producing the textbook had an eye on the "Newspaper in Education (NIE)" activities at the end of 2008, where newspapers are used for educational purposes in classrooms. They interviewed the Chugoku Shimbun, which has, as a local newspaper, made a strong effort to provide news coverage of peace issues. Yoshihiro Horihata, chief editor of social studies textbooks for elementary schools at Tokyo Shoseki, commented, "Newspapers have the role of conveying not only news but also people's wishes for the next generation. We hope this section will be used as material to consider the importance of the press."

(Originally published on March 31, 2010)

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