Nishimachi International School

Nishimachi International School (西町インターナショナルスクール), established in 1949, is an international school located in the Azabu area of Tokyo, Japan. Co-educational, non-sectarian, private K-9 day school. The main language of instruction is in English. Japanese is taught to all students every day from beginner to native speaker level. History Nishimachi International School was founded by Tané Matsukata, granddaughter of former Prime Minister of Japan Matsukata Masayoshi, and sister of Haru M. Reischauer, wife of former United States Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer. Tané Matsukata returned to Japan after seventeen years in the U.S., where she received her education and spent the war years. She found Tokyo still badly scarred from the war although the slow process of rebuilding had begun. In discussion with friends, she began to realize the important role that education would play in the reconstruction process. Together they explored the alternatives and concluded that a new approach other than traditional education was needed, one that stressed the human side of learning and had peaceful coexistence with others as an objective. Learning a second language, in this case English, was step one in the educational process. They saw this as fundamental to extending the children's understanding beyond the boundaries of their own culture and into other cultures. They hired a teacher for Japanese, and the school that was eventually to become Nishimachi opened its doors to its first four students. Matsukata is related by marriage to the late Harvard professor, Edwin O. Reischauer. Details The Nishimachi school year, for grades 1-9, begins on August 23, and finishes on June 13. Middle school students enjoy dances, a week-long ski trip, Kazuno, and many other holidays and traditions. Ninth graders participate in a service-learning trip to Cambodia and volunteer at the Kirivorn School, a rural school that Nishimachi students fundraised to build and maintain. Nishimachi owns a piece of land in Kazuno, Gunma Prefecture about 3 hours travel away from the city. The land belonged to Ryoichiro Arai, Tané Matsukata's maternal grandfather who was a silk producer. In 1945, the women and children of the Matsukata family moved to this farmhouse to seek refuge from the US bombings of Tokyo.