The Physiological Society of Japan (PSJ) has been focusing on education, especially at medical schools due to the historical background. However, because of the dramatic progress in life science and technology and changes in social conditions of the modern society, PSJ must consider for physiology education in according with such changes. The era with Corona unintendedly makes us face what we had to do ahead of time, but have been procrastinating. I list three issues that PSJ should tackle in the future as my personal opinion.
1. Commitment to primary and secondary education: So far, PSJ has been mostly focusing on physiology education in higher education, but we need to realize that it is the social mission of PSJ to participate in more primary and secondary education to improve the literacy for medicine and like science in people.
2. Providing digital educational content: PSJ has created training books, workbooks, and glossaries in paper media. We are now thinking of providing digital educational content by utilizing digital technology and the Internet environment.
3. Fostering quality physiology educators: PSJ considers it important to train educators as an academic society, and we established the educator system on 2012, and currently 378 educators are registered. Because the "roof tile method" could be also useful to develop this system, we are considering qualifying physiology instructors who can train educators in future.
As mentioned above, all the issues have been raised from the viewpoint that education is not just a way to provide knowledge, but to acquire the physiological "thinking".