１、A conventional flow

（１）A theme

　　　A better way of life.
　　　To live life fully
     〜　In search of the richness of a true human being　〜

　We worked with the following points in mind;
       “To put feeling into the songs and the works.”
       “To express our feelings fully”
　    “To take actions by ourselves first”

（２）Learning methodology
   The third grade students were split into groups. First they expanded their knowledge of “richness” from various viewpoints individually.  Then they chose their leader within the group. As a result of working in a group, they viewed the world and deepened their thoughts by listening to other’s ideas. Through hearing the group members’ viewpoints, they not only asked “what is important for human beings to live in affluence” but also heard others feelings on this issue.

（３）The content of learning
　　At the first term of the all third graders go forward with these themes “Think about richness” as the first step, “Look back at the history of Showa” as the second step, and finally “Learn from the history” to deepen the knowledge individually.  And then we realized that there are two different types of richness, one is physical richness, and the other is mental richness, and that physical richness is not equal to richness of human beings. We collected our thoughts in groups (war, discrimination, destruction of nature, pollution) about many errors that human beings made in the past in pursuing physical richness.  Through the presentations of each group we shared information and thoughts. On the basis of that, we asked ourselves that “What is important for human beings to live richly?” 
    As the result, we reached following answers, “Will” (make action ourselves), “Love” (consideration for others or things), “Coexistence”( live with nature) and we came to the conclusion that “To Believe” is the first step to realize these concepts. After we thought about how we should express these messages and how we should send them, we decided to express them in “Poem”, “Chorus” and “Painting”.
 
　　Sending messages in Poem, Chorus and Painting way of expression.
　　　　Poem（literary approach）・・・to find relations from the theme and produce a poem
　　　　Chorus（musical approach）・・・ to sing “Believe” in three parts chorus
　　　　Paintings（artistic approach）・・・Kids Guernica

2、Painting

《Words from representative of Painting》

　　「What is the Kids Guernica?」
　　「This is a huge painting which was drawn hoping for peace」
　　「Really？」

　The Guernica project began with this conversation, and at first we were worried ehether we could complete this project or not. On the basis of the keyword “Believe” all the third grade students drew their image paintings, and put them all together to make this Guernica. Putting everyone’s paintings together was not as easy as as it sounded. It was hard work. There were many things that happened to hinder our progress, but we never gave up. We devised new ideas for the paintings and in the end we believe we made a perfect expression of our goal. Of course Guernica became our treasure because it is filled with our thoughts, and the time we spent making it is also became our treasure.
　　　　　　　　　　

3、Production of poem

《Words from representative of Poem》

 　We are going ahead with our work on the themes, which is related to [Believe], Will・Love・Coexistence, and “richness” as a main theme which is common with these three themes. First activities were divided into three groups, one for each theme and we came up with as many words as we could which we felt were related to each theme. As we had many poets, on the theme “Coexistence” we could come up with fifty-two of the related words. Using them we did our best to find the relations to express something that everyone could sympathize with, and wish in a poem that is one of the most beautiful in Japanese culture. I hope that you can fully enjoy the following finished work not only as a poem(詩shi) but as lyrics (詩uta) or as words(詩kotoba). I’m sure you will!!
　　　　　　　　　

　　Distant
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Ebihara Omata Mikawa Miyamoto

Chain of life that lasts four billion years
Pure love that supports our uncountable lives
I have inherited life that is fragile and strong, and lives desperately
Believe in the value of love, cherish plants and continue to pray for peaceful days
To find out the “meaning” of life I hold hands and close mymy eyes

Gentle wind that skims my skin is comfortable

Fact of vastly cruel sadness
Wind that snuggle to me, who is full of gaps
I turn away from deep pain and get hurt
Will dropped off, decision wavered and soon light will be devoured by dark
Unclean air and dirty heart that empty children

Tomorrow will come as a matter of course

Earth that endlessly continues I step on hard
Neither the past nor the future  pledge all of the existence  I live now
To live itself is the starting point of meaning  now  I will go back there
The one and only fact that I am living now  I will feel the weight

By feeling the soul can regenerate

Continue to the new world  to walk on the way before me straightly
In the false world there is no place to escape What I, as a small person, can do is・・・

4、Chorus

《Words from representative of Chorus》

　I like singing and listening to songs. Especially, I like chorusing with large numbers of friends very much. I think choruses can put people’s minds together, and impress the singers and listeners.
 　At the last school festival in our junior high school days, we will try to express in a chorus what we have learned. Fortunately, we discovered a wonderful song “Believe”(words by Shuntaro Tanikawa, music by Ko Matsushita), and have fully practiced singing it. The last sentence of this song says, “Believing is the source of life.” Mr. Tanikawa’s feeling expressed in this phrase is the same as that of each one of us, for all the difference of generations, and moved us like a big wave.
 　I hope that we will be able to sing with all our soul.　　　　　　(Takashi Sakamoto)

　

Believe

5、Exhibition

《Message from a representative of exhibition creation team》
　 We have been doing a lot of things in a short time such as a painting, a chorus, and an exhibition. We worked on the chorus and painting together with all other students in the third grade. However, only three students were in charge of the exhibition, and it was so tough. Of course, we had a little trouble with the chorus and painting as well, but at last we came to an achievement. I think that was because we believed each other according to the title of the song “Believe” and worked together, and in addition our teachers helped us.　　　　　( Fumiya Yagi )

6、Epilogue

 Through these activities, the students recognized a group study to be interesting but also found it difficult for everyone to work for a single purpose. In the end we feel that through cooperation can attain great success.
 While we were talking about each individual’s notion of richness, a lot of questions arose. We deliberated further on what we could do around those questions, or how we should think from then on. This contemplation was reflected in our painting, chorus, and poem, and their feelings are unified in the works.
　“The synthetic art” is an activity through all the subjects and was new for us. This was a good opportunity and they learned importance of putting ideas into practice, cooperating with each other, and working out something without resignation, and joy of expressing their feelings thoroughly. And these wonderful painting, song, poem, and exhibition turned out to be great achievments by students who now feel very keenly about the importance of believing. They will pursue their “own richness” in future with these works as a foot hold.

【Ｐａｒｔｉｃｉｐａｎｔｓ】

Erika Anzai   Katsuhiro Igari   Makoto Ishii    Tomoko Ichinose    Ayano Enomoto    Saki Kitai    Kaho Kunitani    Chiemi Koma    Teppei Kominato    Misaki Saitou    Takashi Sakamoto    Ayana Takahashi     Ayumi Taguchi    Norihito Tanihuji    Katsuya Negishi    Motoki Hirano    Masaki Hori    Hajime Matui    Yukiko Matsuura    Takashi Miyazaki    Manami Miyamoto    Takuya Yagi    Humiya Yagi    Mitsuo Yanagisawa    Asuka Yamamoto    Hazuki Watanabe    Muneyuki Watanabe   Ai Aoyama   Riki Umeda   Kengo Ebihara   Yoshiyuki Ozawa   Natsumi Omata    Yuuya Kaneko    Megumi Kuriyama    Kodama Yuutarou    Takashi Koma    Masahide Segawa    Misako Seki    Kei Chigira    Yukari Nakagawa    Kenichi Nakano    Tomomi Nagata    Kazue Haruta    Yuuta Hijikata    Chika Hosoda    Yumena Matsuki    Aruto Mikawa    Saori Miki    Ryou Mitani    Ayumi Yagi    Yukie Yanagisawa    Yuuya Yamaguchi    Kugon Ri

【Supporters】

Natsuko Torao   Hideyuki Miyasaka   Michio Suemune   Kunihiko Takei   Miki Nakai   **** Kawai  
Yuka Obata   *** ****   James Rogars