This month's issue.
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WELCOME
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Response to 'Coming of Rage' - Melissa Marsh SMD 1As far as unruly youth? I don't think it's just Japanese youth
that are "changing". I think the world's youth are changing.
What causes it, who can be sure? Changes are happening in the world,
changes have happened before. Youth were unruly in the past; they
will be in the future. I really don't think it's anything new. Something to think about this month.Thank you Melissa for your input. Some good points there. This
month we will focus on the debate that has been going on recently
in the Japan Times, "letter to the editor" section. The
debate involves people debating whether or not the ability to write
and read well, also means the ability to speak well. |
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TEACHING TIP
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Teaching Examples Zero conditional
First conditional
Second conditional
Third conditional
Hope that helps - gambatte. |
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Something from John's Freeman.First of all, I'd like to thank Alastair for his initiative and work in providing a forum for us to share ideas and opinions. I guess feeling and imagination doesn't amount to a whole lot without any action. Thanks Alastair and everyone else involved. I was fortunate enough to be able to meet Miura-san's father in Kitakyushu just before JALT last year. Nakamura-san and I spent the Thursday ( before JALT started) together there, and I was once again reminded of the incredible hospitality Japanese show at times. Besides treating me to a delicious lunch overlooking the waterfront of Shimonoseki, and dinner and a hot bath at the Nakamura house, he packed me up in his car for a tour of the area. It was on this day that I was introduced to Yoshida Shoin. In 1859, Yoshida Shoin was ordered to commit seppuku (ritual suicide by samurai) at the age of 29. His crime? He rowed out to the Black Ships anchored off of Shimoda, and asked Commodore Perry, the American tasked with opening Japan to the world after centuries of isolation, to take him back to America. Though any attempt to leave Japan was punishable by death, Shoin was one of the few men in Japan at the time with the foresight and vision to realize that Japan would not be able to remain free and sovereign without knowledge of the world outside. Due to delicate negotiations going on with the Edo shogunate at the time, Perry refused Shoin's plea. However, it seems that Perry was impressed with Shoin enough to appeal to the government on his behalf for clemency, which helped stay his execution for five years. Rather than immediately execute Shoin, he was exiled to Hagi, Yamaguchi prefecture, where he became the headmaster of his revolutionary school, the Shoka Sonjuku (Shoka village school). What was so special about Shoin and the Shoka Sonjuku? A quick search on the Internet will give you plenty of reasons, and I urge everyone to take a look. However, I'd like to briefly discuss a little bit of what I have found and how it may apply to us. Though Yoshida was the sensei of the Shoka Sonjuku, he expressed his attitude towards education and his students as follows: "I'm not here to teach you, I am here to learn with you." I don't think you will find many "teachers" in the Japanese education system, or in English classrooms today with the same approach. What about our classrooms? We have as much to learn from our students as they do from us. In fact, the more we know about our students and their culture, the more effective we can be in the classroom. True communication is a two-way exchange, not a one-way barrage. The same goes for cultural understanding, tolerance, and growth. Even a modest show of interest and effort in trying to understand the Japanese language and culture can make a tremendous difference in the quality and effectiveness of our "teaching". This extends outside the classroom as well - to the cafeteria or smoking area, for example. How many of us eat lunch with students or other Yazaki staff? How many of us make ourselves available (even occasionally) to anyone who might actually enjoy eating with us? An interest in and a willingness to learn from and with our students can go a long way in making our own time as guests here all the better. The second reason why Shoin had the effect he did was his vision and foresight and how he was able to foster these traits in his students. One of his mottos was "hijichoumoku". The literal meaning of the kanji is flight/ear/long/eye. It will take some thinking to try to grasp what it means, but basically, he encouraged his students to try to look far into the future (choumoku), beyond today and tomorrow, and to decide where they wanted to be at that time and what it would take to get there. The other part (hiji) meant gathering the information necessary today and acting on it.A quick look at his students gives you a who's who of Japan's first Meiji administration (including Ito Hirobumi, Japan's first prime minister, and most of his cabinet) - the men who began the transformation of Japan from a feudal system in which even wheels were outlawed to an industrialized world power in less than seventy years. Shoin was just a teacher, and only ran the Sonjuku for a few years before he died, but the effect he had on his students, and in turn, Japan, Asia, and the rest of the world baffles the mind. It is a reminder of both the responsibility and the power that educators have to make positive changes both in ourselves and in those around us. Finally, Shoin was special in that he made no distinctions as to the social status or backgrounds of his students. Regardless of being born a samurai, farmer, peasant or merchant, anyone with a desire to learn was equal in his eyes. Not only this, but he guided and encouraged his students to develop their individual talents and abilities. Those who showed aptitude in languages were encouraged to learn English, Dutch, etc.; the same was true for those capable in math, science, military arts, education, or any other field. Unfortunately, this is exactly opposite of the education system today in which students are forced or molded into "clones" (at least to a very large extent). It is easy for us to characterize many Japanese today as "uncreative", bad English speakers, ignorant of geography, current events, etc., but are we not all (to a large extent) products of our educational system? Where does the blame lie? One of the saddest things is that many of our students cannot even tell you who Yoshida Shoin was or what he did. Why don't you ask them? Just as with English education in Japan, there are glaring deficiencies and gaps in other areas of education, including history and geography for example. While students are not completely to blame, who is willing to try to fill some of those gaps? I hope that we will look for ways to try to broaden outlooks, set examples, show different ways of doing things, stir some debate, show some interest and take some action. Our job of helping our students become proficient in English is not nearly as simple as it should (or could) be. For our students to really "embrace English" there must be some knowledge and understanding of western culture. To really understand culture, there must be some knowledge and understanding of the history - of the events, people, thoughts, and ideas in which that culture developed, and why it has developed that way. Our students do not have to become "American", "Canadian", or "Australian"; they do not have to lose any of their "Japaneseness"; they don't have to accept or agree with aspects of the culture, but they should know them and work to understand why we are who we are, and how we came to be that way. So should we. Anyway, I really do appreciate having the chance to share some thoughts, to rant a bit, and to hopefully introduce you to something new. If you do have a chance, take a peek into the people and events in Japan around the 1860s and 70s - try "Meiji Restoration", "Yoshi Shoin", "Shoka Sonjuku" for starters. You might be surprised at how relevant, even inspiring, "history" can be. John Any and all comments are welcome |
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Social Committee
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