Itakura Naota and Hiroko Murakami, high school teachers from Kobe, Japan, summarized their visit to Sammamish High School this past week with two words.

Smart Board.

The teachers paid a visit to Bellevue as part of an exchange program between Fukiai High School in Japan and its sister school, Sammamish. Itakura and Murakami traveled abroad to observe some the differences between the American and Japanese educational systems and to discuss the future of a student exchange program between the two schools.

Sammamish High School principal Tom Duenwald visited Fukiai High School in November 2009 and now played host to Itakura and Murakami, both English teachers in Japan.

“This is a wonderful relationship that has begun to form between the two schools,” he said. “This is just the beginning.”

During a six-day stay, Itakura and Murakami visited classrooms, studied lesson plans, met with teachers and students and learned as much as they could about American education. They then return to Fukiai High School and share their findings with the school’s principal.

The discovery of Smart Boards in classrooms topped their list of things to report back home. The Smart Boards, an interactive whiteboard with touch control technology to detect user input, allow teachers the ability to display information to students through interactive text, images, sound and video files.

“We love the Smart Boards,” said an enthusiastic Itakura.

They also were excited to learn more about elective classes such as drama, orchestra and graphic arts.

“We don’t offer drama or orchestra back home,” said Murakami. “The students are lucky here.”

Murakami also took note of the daily student and teacher interactions in the classrooms. She explained the differences between what she observed and her own teaching practices back in Japan.

“I think I am a little too protective of the students and give them many instructions, but here, teachers care more about the process and not the answer. They encourage discussion between the students. I think I can do more of this,” she added.

Other key differences that stood out to both Itakura and Murakami included the diversity of the students, the common curriculum and budget talks.

“Teachers here are conscious of the budget and talk about it a lot and we are more unaware of that back home,” Murakami said. “We have learned so much from this trip and are so grateful.”

The two high schools hope to begin a student exchange program as early as next year.