The Kaizen method arrives in Sardinia for the first time thanks to Michele Sestu's book "Learning with Kaizen" , an essay dedicated to the educational system in the school environment enriched by the preface by Bruno Fabiano of the Kaizen Institute Italia.

The work of Sestu, pianist, composer, teacher, producer and expert in music education, will be presented in Cagliari this evening, Friday 4 October, at 6 pm in the auditorium of the Church of SS. Crocifisso.

This is the transposition of the Kaizen method from a method for improvement in industry to a method for improvement in learning and teaching.

The original meaning of the Japanese word "Kaizen" from the Shogakukan Dictionary could be literally translated as "The act of improving negative points".

The most popular translation is "change for the better", also to improve.

While this is true, there is much more to it.

Regardless of what you may think, continuous improvement is not the only definition of Kaizen, which is, instead, its result.

In fact, the literal translation of continuous improvement in Japanese is “Kairyo”.

Kaizen is more of an internal process that happens in the culture and mind.

The goal is to realize everyone's potential, break the status quo and in this way achieve improvements: so a more precise way to define Kaizen would be the expression "continuous self-development".

In fact, the modern sense of the word originated in Japanese automobile factories.

After World War II, many Japanese companies were influenced by the methodologies introduced by American consultants sent under the Marshall Plan.

Although this practice has been implemented elsewhere, in the four-wheel industry it is the most shining example: in some well-known companies of the Land of the Rising Sun, an excellent level of continuous improvement has been achieved thanks to the Kaizen method - creating effective management systems to generate, acquire and review improvements in infinite cycles.

In order to achieve Kaizen, it is necessary to adopt the practice of self-criticism.

In Japanese, that practice is known as “Hansei”: it means holding yourself accountable and finding room for continuous improvement even if everything is going according to plan.

Adopting this type of mindset will give you the opportunity to break the status quo and push yourself to the limits.

While positive thinking will show everything as a “success,” it is the negative emotion of “it could have been better” that will provide the motivation to continually improve and reach new heights.

«When I talk about learning I also talk about teaching, because they are the same thing - explains Michele Sestu - for me teaching is not transmissive, but rather it is to be understood as the engine that moves and develops metacognition in the student in step with the construction of skills that have to do with problem solving applied to learning».

"In essence I try to transform each student into a 'self-taught expert', capable of implementing superior learning strategies, based on previous training experience - continues the author - a sort of compound interest related to one's skills: my teaching aims to use the practical tools of the Kaizen method such as the Deming cycle to apply to one's own learning style, thus creating what I call 'learning standards', which once defined for each of us, can be, and must be, always improved. The transposition - concludes the island expert of the Kaizen method - also includes the identification of 'muda', actions that do not add efficiency to a standard, and their counterpart in the learning of any subject, namely cognitive muda".

The event is free to enter.

LP

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