New Perspectives in Science Education

As one of the educational efforts to nurture rich humanity in children, there is a philosophy of "taste education" that emphasizes the sense and expression of one's own [1]. This philosophy strongly reflects the interpretation of the educator who practices it and how they approach food in their learning activities [2]. By Therefore, in this study, we surveyed teachers who participated in the "taste education training". We decided to clarify the presence or absence of awareness and behavior change in the activity. In this way, we will analyze the influence of the understanding of taste education on educational activities. For this reason, we will conduct a questionnaire survey on the awareness and educational activities of the participants before and after participating in the training. Among those who participated in the “Taste Education Training” held in France every August from 2013 to 2019 (sponsored by INSTITUT de DEVELOPPEMENT du GOÛT chez l’ENFANT), teachers during the period covered by this research 15 people will be surveyed. Teachers refer to those who teach classes at elementary schools, junior high schools, high schools, universities, and nutrition teachers. The native language of the subjects is Japanese. The subjects who agreed to cooperate with this research were asked to answer a questionnaire about their own thinking and educational activities before and after participating in the taste education training. The questionnaire was conducted using Google forms. As a result of the questionnaire, significant differences were seen in the following items before and after attending the seminar. “I provide a place where learners can feel and express their tastes” “I respect the tastes that learners feel” “I support experiences that use the five senses” “I respect learners’ decision-making”. By attending the seminar, it became clear that the awareness of these matters in one's own education was particularly heightened. In addition, the corresponding remarks were also extracted from the results of individual interview analysis, suggesting that these items have a large impact on the change of consciousness of the participants of the taste education seminar. The change in consciousness of educators that we were able to confirm this time is an important quality as an educator, and furthermore, it was suggested that taste education itself may lead to an individual's Well-Being.