8:00 JST, August 29, 2026

When society changes and new challenges emerge, the process of solving those challenges can become a new form of learning. In areas devastated 15 years ago by the Great East Japan Earthquake and the subsequent nuclear accident, children have grappled with recovery-related questions for which there are no clear answers — not simply how to restore their communities to what they once were, but how to build a better future beyond recovery. We have seen from these efforts that adversity motivates students and teachers to engage more seriously, driving the evolution of inquiry-based learning.

To report on the current state of education in the disaster-affected areas, I attended the national conference of the Japanese Association for the Education of Living Environment Studies and Integrated Studies, held in Fukushima Prefecture this June. The three-day conference began with a study tour of Futaba County, which is home to the nuclear power plant involved in the accident. The guides were former teachers and other educators familiar with how education was rebuilt after the disaster; the guide on my bus was a former Fukushima prefectural superintendent of education. At an elementary school where a clock remains stopped at the exact time the earthquake struck, a graduate recalled, “We evacuated without even changing out of our uwabaki indoor shoes.”

Education in Futaba County was devastated by the earthquake and nuclear accident, and at one point every school in the district was forced to relocate outside the area. To rebuild education, officials sought opinions not only from educators but also from children and drew up an “Education Recovery Vision.” Based on its principles, Fukushima Prefectural Futaba Future School, a combined junior high and high school, opened in 2015, carrying on the educational legacy of five prefectural high schools that had been forced to close. A visit to classes at the school was included in the tour.

The school aims to nurture “agents of change” with a global perspective. Under the three principles of independence, collaboration and........

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