The net is vast and limitless.

A most certified banger

2010-06-24T05:37:00.000-07:00

I've been on a serious curry barge lately, eating it everyday - no joke - for 3 weeks straight. It's to the point where my toilet keeps me awake at night, lamenting it's lot in life.

I've adapted this one from a recipe I found in a Jinsuke Mizuno cookbook, the self-proclaimed "Tokyo Curry Bancho." Anyway, I've made a few minor but NECESSARY changes to it, and find this one has a better kick to it, so try it out. Feel free to make any changes as you see fit, you're not going to the moon after all.

Chicken Spinach Curry (serves 4)

Ingredients
Chicken wings 8
Finely chopped onions 2
Diced tomatoes 1 can
Spinach 2 packs
Grated garlic, grated ginger 2 tablespoons of each
Curry spice 2 tablespoons
Cumin seeds 2 teaspoons
Soup stock 3-4 cups
Brandy 1 tablespoon
Cream 1/2 cup
Olive oil, butter and salt

Directions

Heat some oil in a large pot, and add the cumin seeds. When you can smell the aroma of the seeds, add the chopped onions and cook until they become dark brown. Add the grated garlic, ginger and 2 tablespoons of butter, then mix. Now thoroughly mix in the the diced tomatoes and curry spice,p and simmer.
Add the chicken wings, and mix well into the sauce. Slowly pour in the soup stock, and simmer until the meat becomes tender (around 20 minutes).
In a separate pot, cook the spinach in boiling water then quickly transfer the cooked spinach to a bowl of cold water. When chilled, remove the spinach from the water and cut off the roots. Use a blender to puree the spinach (you may need to add a bit of soup stock to make things easier). Add the spinach to the curry pot and mix. Add the brandy and mix, then add the cream and do the same. Now add salt to taste. It should now be ready to serve (best with naan bread).

*If you have a bottle of Sriracha hot sauce, then it goes without saying that it should be added at the end. Enjoy!

Frigid dissertation, bro

2010-05-04T18:10:00.000-07:00

The weather is finally improving, festivals and other community events are taking place all around Iwaki, and people seem generally happier now that it’s Golden Week. I can’t think of a better time to take a massive pedantic over-the-top shite on the Japanese educational system! No, actually I’ve done a bit of wikipedia research on the topic over the past few months, and found a few FunFacts that may be of interest (to someone seriously considering jumping in front of a train).

One unfortunate truth is that the vast majority of teachers receive very little practical training beyond a supposed 1-year internship period of which only 1 month is spent in the classroom, wherein trainees operate as assistants and do very little actual teaching in most cases. Introduced in 1989, internship training was heavily criticized by the Japan Teachers’ Union, which argued that “the government’s policy to mold teachers into a uniform type represents illegitimate control over education and fails to develop their competence” (Japan Teachers’ Union, 1986, p. 413). Though painted with a broad brush, the Union’s criticism nevertheless reflects the lack of pedagogical training which often results in classes becoming overly formal, abstract and bookish. Like many teachers before them, students are consequently “schooled in rote memorization” (Galloway, 2009, p. 176), forgoing critical thought and contradicting, at the very least, the entire first Article of the Fundamental Law of Education.

Of course, it would be extremely myopic to simply blame the teachers. As Martin Buber puts it, “One cannot in the nature of things expect a little tree that has been turned into a club to put forth leaves” (1996, p. 127). Education in Japan is riddled with deeper systematic problems, and teachers, intimidated by laws governing their political behaviour, are turned into passive observers quick to admit that “it can’t be helped” when confronted with problematic situations in which they are unable to voice their opinions. Professor of education Teruhisa Horio explains, “Textbooks are controlled by strict screening, teachers are deprived of their freedom and autonomy, and classes are too large to be manageable. The situation should be changed, a point most people agree on” (1998, p. 200).

“The problem is aggravated,” Horio continues, “by the severe competition in university entrance examinations, which stifles any natural interest or spontaneity in the classroom.” The development of Japan’s so-called “meritocratic” system was not an unconscious policy decision; in fact, it stems from a series of attacks in the 1950s in opposition to the “hyper-democratisation” engendered during the Occupation and immediate postwar eras (p. 201). Efforts to control teachers (in 1957), to screen and censure text books (in 1958), and objectively measure student progress (in 1961) were made, only to be further enhanced in 1971 by a report from the Central Council for Education claiming the need to “diversify” or, in other words, to establish “a more complex gradation of pupils on a single value-scale according to test marks,” Horio explains. Such methods, it was argued, were required if the country was to preserve its conformism to the rigid value system of the past, and nurture “nationalism and patriotism.”

The economic difficulties of the 1970s, produced by oil price explosions, were conducive to major spending cuts in the areas of education for the purposes of building up defense. With this framework in place, the Nakasone government of the 1980s was able to transfer large public enterprises, such as the Telegraphic and Telephone Corporation and Japanese National Railways, into private hands, while making it no secret that education was next. It was believed that “once education is separated from the public sector and permitted to be free in its development, the stimulus of competition and free choice will have a positive, invigorating influence” (p. 202). These initiatives, however, opened up a whole new market for financial and industrial groups, effectively subordinating education to the demands of the pursuit of profit. Although parental rights and free choice were touted as reform, this “free choice,” Horio explains, “does not mean freedom of education ... [it] means no more than the opportunity of consumers to choose from among commodities produced and promoted by private enterprises in competition” (p. 202). “Parents and pupils,” he continues, “would remain only passive consumers, their basic right to create education, or at least participate in its creation, being blatantly ignored.”

Today, commercialism of education in Japan is obvious considering half of all compulsory school-age children attend cram schools, or juku (Monbukagakusho survey data, 2003). These crams schools ostensibly prepare students for passing the high school and university entrance exams, the latter being significantly more valuable since companies tend to actively seek out graduates from the most reputable institutions (Amano, 1998, p. 184). All this studying amounts to very little in the long run apparently, since Amano has shown that “opportunities for entry to the top universities [Tokyo, Hitotsubashi, Tokyo Kougyo, Keio and Jouchi in this study] are virtually monopolized by the top high schools” in Tokyo and Saitama (Amano, 1998, p. 183). Needless to say, policy makers are dwelling unduly on the belief that the educational system is meritocratic.

In the decades following the Occupation, much of the progressive educational reform and criticism against traditional prewar Japanese values were largely carried out by the Nikkyōso, one of Japan’s oldest and largest labour unions, and once a powerful and important member of the Japan Socialist Party (JSP). This amalgamation of local, school-based associations had, within a year of its inauguration, a membership of over 446,000, or 98 percent of the country’s elementary school teachers (Aspinall, 2001, p. 25). Now, the union finds itself split into factions (Nikkyōso and Zenkyō) due to infighting, its membership dwindling (accounting for 28.3 percent of all teachers in 2007), its reputation tarnished, and its influence in promoting educational reform mollified (Aspinall, 2003; Kamiya, 2008). I could only find three book-length academic studies of the Nikkyōso (Thurston, 1973; Duke, 1973; Aspinall 2001) and, according to Aspinall, “there is no book-length study of the Nikkyōso by a Japanese academic on a par with the works of Thurston and Duke” (Aspinall, 2001, p. 6). The Japanese studies that do exist, he claims, tend to be “either partisan, sensational, or merely descriptive.” Distinguished Japanese professor of education Ichikawa Shōgo explains, “Research on controversial topics tends not to be regarded seriously by Japanese pedagogists. In addition, taking sides on delicate questions can place Japanese scholars in an awkward position and may even have negative repercussions on their careers” (Ichikawa, 1984).

So now we find ourselves with a system which “is largely the result of outdated policy changes that have calcified into conventions” (Nehring, 2006) which I think needs to be reanalyzed through a framework of progressive education, a set of principles that embraces community, collaboration, attending to individual student needs, social justice, freedom, communication, a sharing of purposes, active learning and real understanding (as opposed to merely memorizing lists, formulas and other such academic busywork which have no purposeful end beyond simply committing them to memory).

When human energies and interests are cast into molds and forced to run in a routine way, the educative power of the school is for the most part lost. When this happens, we are left with a system of education whose object, as John Stuart Mill put it, “is not to qualify the pupil for judging what is true or what is right, but to provide that he shall think true what we think true, and right what we think right - that to teach, means to inculcate our own opinions, and that our business is not to make thinkers or inquirers, but disciples” (1836, p. 196).

Hence, one of the weightiest problems with which the philosophy of education has to cope is enlarging and improving experience for not only students, but for teachers and the community as well. This would involve “setting up conditions which stimulate certain visible and tangible ways of acting ... [and] making the individual a sharer or partner in the associated activity so that he feels its success as his success, its failure as his failure” (Dewey, 2004, p. 14). Dewey elaborates:

"In place of a school set apart from life as a place for learning lessons, we have a miniature social group in which study and growth are incidents of present shared experience. Playgrounds, shops, workrooms, laboratories not only direct the natural active tendencies of youth, but they involve intercourse, communication, and cooperation. ... The learning in school should be continuous with that out of school. There should be free interplay between the two" (Dewey, 2004, p. 343).

Of course, one cannot simply apply Western beliefs and reasoning to the Japanese condition and expect positive results, just as the opposite would equally be unsuitable. I would like to think, however, that all humans share a certain desire for solidarity, creativity and spontaneity, and that only progressive education consistently attends to these values. Unless pains are taken to ensure that education involves a genuine communication of interests and a sharing of purposes, then the aim of education will continue to be defined by the bare reception and storage of information, monotonously uniform exercises and word lists, and externally imposed learning objectives.

It is therefore necessary to maintain a vital connection between knowledge and activity, and not reduce education to a dead and machine-like routine which anaesthetizes students for hours, day after day, ignoring their natural energies, creativity and imagination. To simply learn things from books in connection with school lessons and for the sake of reciting when called upon creates a conduct that is not of much influence outside of school unless one’s goal is to reproduce statements at the demand of others. “While such an attitude has moral results, the results are morally undesirable - above all in a democratic society where so much depends upon personal disposition” (Dewey, 2004, p. 341).

References
Amano, Ikuo (1998). The socio-political background of educational crisis in Japan. In T. Rohlen & C. Björk (Eds.), Education and training in Japan. London: Routledge.
Aspinall, R. W. (2001). Teachers’ unions and the politics of education in Japan. New York, NY: State University of New York Press.
Aspinall, R. W. (2003). Explaining policy failure in the case of foreign language education in Japan. The Hikone Ronso, 344/345, 165-183.
Buber, M. (1996). Paths in utopia. New York, NY: First Syracuse University Press Edition.
Dewey, J. (2004). Democracy and education. New York: Dover Publications.
Galloway, N. (2009). A critical analysis of the JET Programme. The Journal of Kanda University of International Studies, 21, 169-207.
Horio, T. (1988). Educational thoughts and ideology in modern Japan. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.
Horio, T. (1998). Towards reform in Japanese education: A critique of privatisation and proposal for the re-creation of public education. In T. Rohlen & C. Björk (Eds.), Education and training in Japan. London: Routledge.
Ichikawa, S. (1984). Japan. In J. R. Hough (Ed.), Education Policy: An International Survey. (London: Croom Helm).
Japan Teachers’ Union Education Reform Committee (1986). Our proposal to reform education: How to change Japanese education. In Gyosei (Ed.), The National Council on Educational Reform. (Tokyo: Gyosei).
Kamiya, S. (2008, Nov 4). Nikkyoso: A ‘cancer’ of teachers? The Japan Times. Retrieved from http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081104i1.html
Mahoney, S. (2004). Role controversy among team teachers in the JET Programme. JALT Journal, 26(2), 223-244.
Mill, J. S. (1836). Civilization. In Dissertations and discussions, political, philosophical and historical. Reprinted chiefly from the Edinburgh and Westminster reviews; Vol. 1 (106-205). England: London and Westminster Review.
Miwa, S. (1988) The problematic internship program. Educational Law, 75, 11-16.
Monbukagakusho Survey Data (2003, March). 通塾率に著しい増加傾向は認められず. Retrieved from http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/shingi/chukyo/chukyo3/016/siryo/04092801/003/002.htm
Nehring, J. H. (2006, Feb 1). Progressive vs traditional: Reframing an old debate. Education Week. Retrieved from http://www.cascadecanyon.org/content/view/67/62/
Schmidt, J. (2000). Disciplined minds. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Shimahara, N. K. (1998). Japanese education reforms in the 1980s. In T. Rohlen & C. Björk (Eds.), Education and training in Japan. London: Routledge.
Shimahara, N. K., & Sakai A. (1998). Teacher internship and the culture of teaching in Japan. In T. Rohlen & C. Björk (Eds.), Education and training in Japan. London: Routledge.

Pedantic self-indulgence or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the System

2010-03-18T07:45:00.000-07:00

It’s been nearly a year since my last post, and while my involvement in this blog borders abandonment, it still provides a useful forum for gathering and addressing the various issues, specifically education, that I’ve found reason to criticize. Since my previous entry was in April 2009, it’s possible that there’s something particularly dispiriting about this time of the year. This realization comes at the heels of a three-month period of compulsive (though mild) drinking, done intentionally to forget the monotonous grind of working within an educational system largely indifferent to the principles of democratic education.

With the school year almost over, both teachers and students are struggling to complete the remaining textbook material. No page must go untaught, no grammar point or vocabulary item unlearned. The textbook IS the curriculum, and failure to complete it entails some kind of unnameable consequence, apparently. “We can get fired,” one teacher told me when I asked him if we could substitute an overly scholastic textbook lesson with a creative group project. “Maybe if we have time at the end of the year,” he added sardonically. So obvious, indeed, is the necessity of teaching the entire textbook that it seems the teaching staff at my schools are dwelling unduly on a truism.

One justification exists, however, and that is the threatening high school entrance exam - the scholastic coming-of-age ceremony that determines not only a student’s competences (and entire future), but also the value of the individual teachers. This “objective” way of measuring the worth and potential of human beings seems to go unquestioned amongst the staff members; it’s not very surprising, considering that human relationships within strict bureaucratic systems are said to operate largely upon a machine-like plane - the Japanese educational system is no exception.

As mentioned above, the entire textbook must be taught in order for the year to be successfully completed in the eyes of administrators. In brief, the teacher who ‘covers the most ground’ is somehow the better teacher. But unfortunately, the tendency is to follow (in a slavish manner) the models set by licensed textbook producers and, as a result, a very serious problem surfaces. When natural human energies and interests are cast into molds and forced to run in a routine way, the educative power of the school is for the most part lost. Without establishing certain necessary conditions - that is, opportunities in which students are stimulated by the meaningful relationship of the subject matter with their own lives and environment - it may be said without exaggeration that instruction becomes overly formal, remote and dead, abstract and bookish, technical and superficial.

“Hence one of the weightiest problems with which the philosophy of education has to cope is the method of keeping a proper balance between the informal and the formal, the incidental and the intentional, modes of education. When the acquiring of information and of technical intellectual skill do not influence the formation of a social disposition, ordinary vital experience fails to gain in meaning, while schooling, in so far, creates only ‘sharps’ in learning - that is, egoistic specialists.” [1]

This state of affairs also helps to explain why so many students appear entirely indifferent to the subject matter being presented. Some even seem determined to disrupt the entire class by throwing objects, yelling and screaming, walking around the classroom, swearing out loud, and other such behaviour. Bad students? Irresponsible parents? Lower-income households? Incompetent teachers? You could say that. But it is possible - I would say overwhelmingly probable - that these instances of indiscipline are an indication that traditional teaching methods, as well as the orienting goals of the current educational system, have ebbed behind human standards and expectations to the point where many students have simply become resigned victims of an unsuppressible imagination cut loose from concern with the topic at hand.

Criticism comes easier than praise, and to simply polemicize without providing ways to improve current conditions is simply being pedantic. But herein lies the problem; how can conditions be improved if the entire system has been consciously developed in order to intellectually subjugate the masses into a society where the many are not expected to have aims or ideas of their own, but to take orders from the few set in authority. After all, this is an old idea stretching back to Greece, when Aristotle wrote that the masses are so insufficiently intelligent that they are constantly overpowered by bodily appetite and passion, and for that reason unable to operate the function of Reason as a law of life. Such individuals are therefore prevented by nature - and not merely by social convention - from participating actively within the social arena. Instead, they become what can only be called slaves; that is, “means for the ends of others.” These slaves, artisans and women laboured not only for their own subsistence, but also for the means which enabled the superior class to live without personally engaging in occupations that required physical labour, which was seen as being in dualistic opposition with the virtue and dignity of developing purely mental faculties. The influence of Greek philosophical and educational thought, particularly the division between labour and leisure, has been quite obvious throughout history, including modern industrial society. [2]

But the question remains: How can conditions be improved? With respect to the educational system in Japan, there aren’t many options that I’m aware of. Teachers offer the least hope, resignedly chanting the mantra “仕方がない” (It can’t be helped). Administrators point to the Board of Education, the Board of Education points to Monbukagakusho (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology), and ‘Monbusho’ is where the trail of breadcrumbs ends. Just hearing the word “Monbusho” evokes a feeling of helplessness; that absolutely nothing can be changed. Of course, it doesn’t help that any teacher who voices their disagreement with the system beyond its narrow limits can be fired.

A Japanese Teachers Union (日本教職員組合) exists, and was apparently quite influential up until the 1980s, when internal disagreements on a number of issues reduced its effectiveness. Now the ‘Nikkyoso’ is plagued by a number of scandals, the most recent having occurred two weeks ago when the Hokkaido branch was discovered to have been illegally providing campaign funds to the Democratic Party of Japan, the party’s third alleged violation of the Political Funds Control Law since coming into power in 2009. In other words, unless Nikkyoso manages to find a way to improve its tarnished public image, it remains a very unlikely option for educational progress. The unions should focus on issues related to improving teacher training, modernizing classrooms with technology and equipping school laboratories and workrooms, increasing the requirements for employment applicants, decreasing the size of classes by hiring more teachers, eliminating entrance exams thereby providing more opportunities for experiential learning in schools rather than isolating subject matter from its social context, etc.

The state of affairs is indeed bleak, but fortunately life is not static; the present conditions must necessarily change at some point, hopefully for the better. “Continuity of life means continual readaptation of the environment to the needs of living organisms ... Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life.” [3] Unless pains are taken to ensure that education involves a genuine communication of interests and a sharing of purposes, then the aim of education will continue to be defined by the bare reception and storage of information, monotonously uniform exercises, externally imposed learning objectives, and most of all the inculcation and docile subjection of students to the opinions and values of others.

[1] Dewey, John. Democracy and Education. 2004 (originally published in 1916).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.

ぬかに釘

2009-04-27T07:36:00.000-07:00

The past few days have been pretty tumultuous, and have left me feeling a little uneasy about my job. The last time I felt this way, I wrote a blog entry about it, so yeah…

The driving force that once provided me with the impetus to change my work situation has lost much of its momentum, largely because my attempts were done with alienation as an inevitable and foreseeable consequence. Like a drop of water on a scorching stone (焼け石に水), my initial solitary action against the system changed nothing concrete – it left me, however, with a crucial insight into the problems that generally pervade institutional culture. Concomitant with any attempt at change is a sense of purpose – as good a justification as any to continue my perhaps pointless (maybe even pathological) obsession with criticizing the system in which I live.

I feel that I've taken some (several) liberties in the past in disagreeing with the methods of other teachers. I'm not a dick about it or anything; but if the class starts immediately with a word test, followed by 10 minutes of mindless group repetition, 15 minutes of note-taking, 15 minutes of workbook grinding (or any other kind of shitwork) and then only 5 minutes of actual communication, I'm going to voice my dissatisfaction (being careful not to the disturb the precious "harmony" of the workplace). After all, I'm not a robot, despite the expectations of many of my colleagues. Admittedly, I go a little far sometimes and this benefits nobody in the end – and usually leaves me feeling guilty about looking like an unpleasant smart-ass. I feel that I've made the mistake of focusing my criticism toward the teachers, who I saw as being largely responsible for the overly procedural, lifeless and mechanical lessons that have become the biggest source of discontent in my job. Despite the fact that most teachers are "short on balls," to quote American educator Jerry Farber [1], the problem lies not with individual teachers, but with the entire system in which those individuals operate.

Today, a teacher revealed to me his honne, his true feelings, about the educational system, its pseudo-meritocratic dependence on exams, the role of ALTs, and most importantly the famous concept of responsibility common among the Japanese. This notion of duty or accountability is the social glue that holds together and ensures the proper functioning of the pyramid. The teacher is expected to teach the official curriculum, using the official textbooks, so that the students will ostensibly be better prepared to face the junior and high school (and later university/college) entrance exams. "If I don't teach test-based English in class, then my students will not pass the entrance exams," my aforementioned teacher told me. "If they don't pass the exams, then I must assume responsibility. ALTs don't have to assume responsibility; we do." This is true insofar as the ALT is often considered 'outside' the educational system, like some kind of temporary assistant position or an outsourced white collar. We're not real teachers, formally speaking.

So during cleaning period, we continued our discussion. Aside from the fact that ALTs usually visit for only two weeks, and that planning time is made difficult with such hectic schedules being worked by the staff, he added, “most JTEs see ALT visits as an interruption. When the ALT leaves, we have a sense of relief. Now we can catch up on our duties and make up for wasted time.” That seemed a little hard to believe, so he made sure to mention that “every JTE I speak to thinks this way. They like the ALT, and the students enjoy the classes – but it’s still an interruption to teaching the curriculum.”

I’m frequently told by the JTEs that the reason why classes “must be boring” is because their role as teachers demands it. As mentioned above, the concept of responsibility comes into play – not only personal, but group responsibility. If a teacher performs “poorly” (students get low grades on a standardized test), then the principal must also assume responsibility, to both MEXT and the parents. If you want high test scores, then by all means encourage fear and anxiety, competition, subordination and silence. Force the students to jump when you say “jump.” Continue to tell the students where and when to stand, what they should read, what size pencil they can write with, what colour ink they can use, what textbooks they should write in, what hair colour and length they should have and what school bag and shoes they should buy. An excerpt from Jerry Farber’s controversial essay “The Student as Nigger” sums up the situation pretty well:

“Even more discouraging than this master-slave approach to education is the fact that the students take it. They haven't gone through twelve years of public school for nothing. They've learned one thing and perhaps only one thing during those twelve years. They've forgotten their algebra. They've grown to fear and resent literature. They write like they've been lobotomized. But, Jesus, can they follow orders! Freshmen come up to me with an essay and ask if I want it folded, and whether their name should be in the upper right hand corner. And I want to cry and kiss them and caress their poor tortured heads.”

I’m told however that most teachers disagree with the present system. They think the exams are detrimental to education, that the rules are often too strict and the curriculum too rigid. Other teachers, on the other hand, see nothing wrong with the status quo. After all, their ideal is to be teachers; but for them, to be teachers is to be oppressors. "The very structure of their thought has been conditioned by the contradictions of the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped." [2]

The system of standardized testing must necessarily be confronted. The gratuitous bias inherent to such objective methods, shrouded by the laughable façade of ‘neutrality’ (as though they can accurately reflect deficiencies in education), needs to be unmasked.

“There is no such thing as a neutral educational process. Education either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes ‘the practice of freedom,’ the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.” [3]

Unfortunately, the opposite is often true with admission tests preventing the latter view from ever emerging. These tests favour students who have the attitude and values that are the key to success in university/college and in jobs that require a degree. They hold theory in higher regard than experiment and thereby favour students who do the same (forget about Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences). They deal with socially isolated questions that often include logic tricks, to be answered under pressure and the threat of failure, which carries with it the inevitable loss of self-esteem. The students naturally study the subject in just the way the examination presents it, and therefore end up having an advantage on the test. One of my third year students had perfect A’s in English (in fact, in all subjects), but could barely make a sentence. My common sense tells me there’s something wrong. Jeff Schmidt, the author of one of my favourite books on education Disciplined Minds [4], gives a little more insight into the problem:

“The qualifying examination favors those most willing and able to work within the social framework of the status quo. Those comfortable with the status quo are the ones whose enthusiasm for performing intellectual labor is least likely to be dampened by a lack of knowledge of and control over the social goals of their work assignments, the ones least troubled by surrendering this key element of the creative control of their work to those who see and oversee the big picture. Similarly, those who favor the qualifying examination system often turn out to be the least critical of the social hierarchy and the dominant ideology, that is, the least critical of existing power relationships and therefore the least progressive politically.”

What makes the situation so much worse is that language, of all subjects, is especially difficult to acquire in an environment of anxiety, pressure and coercion. Anybody who has ever studied a second language seriously will tell you that the biggest leaps are done individually, outside the classroom – depending on that person’s desire and determination, of course. The Japanese have a good proverb to illustrate my point: 百聞は一見にしかず (seeing/experiencing something once is better than hearing about it 100 times). A good teacher is one who understands this, who motivates and encourages the students to want to know. After all, 好きこそ物の上手なれ (one does best the things one enjoys). I’m pretty much done with the proverbs now.

I was very lucky to work at a good language school back in Ottawa. Within a year, the students could speak on all kinds of topics with surprising fluency. Of course, if you’re willing to pay the high rates you likely have the necessary motivation to learn quickly – but there’s also the fact that language schools do not operate with a strict grading system. They give the students feedback, but it’s done with the purpose of improving, and not punishing, them. The public school system should acknowledge this; after all, why should you be punished for making mistakes? We’re always told that mistakes are part of learning – doubly true in the language classroom. York professor David Noble discusses his approach in “Giving Up the Grade” [5] in which he writes,

“Abandoning grades annuls alienation: students no longer depend on others for a sense of their own worth . . . When skeptical colleagues protest that it is not fair for me to give the same grade both to people who work hard and to people who fail even to show up, I remind them that these people are not getting the same reward because the people who work hard also get an education. ‘Oh, yeah,’ they say, remembering as an afterthought what should be at the forefront of their profession.”

My plan now is to write an open letter to the board of education in Iwaki, hopefully with the much-needed help (or at least the signatures) of fellow teachers and ALTs. Some friends are willing to help me translate it into Japanese, so it should be an interesting experiment despite the fact that I expect nothing will happen. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that “damn little education” will continue to take place in the schools. After all, “you can’t educate slaves; you can only train them. Or, to use an even uglier and more timely word, you can only program them.” [6]

[1] Farber, Jerry. The Student as Nigger. 1969.
[2] Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 1970.
[3] Richard Shaull, quoted in Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 1970.
[4] Schmidt, Jeff. Disciplined Minds. 2000.
[5] Noble, David F. Giving Up The Grade. 2007.
[6] Farber, op. cit.

The nail that sticks out gets hammered down

2009-01-19T01:49:00.000-08:00

In the past few months, I've become increasingly preoccupied with the role of education. Despite having studied language teaching for several years, I've never considered it to be enjoyable since my studies have been, for the most part, restricted to irrelevant armchair theory. Such absence of praxis figures prominently in modern education, where students continue to be treated like receptacles to be filled by the teacher. My recent observations at school have renewed my interest in the idea of educational praxis, and I plan on making several suggestions - as well as organized demands with others, hopefully - in the future.

Despite having taught at the junior-high level in Japan for only five months, the fundamental character of the educational system has already revealed itself to be unquestionably oppressive. A couple weeks ago, a JHS first grade student dyed her hair dark brown along with her mother. There was a lot of yelling in the hallway, and most of the teachers in the staff room were looking at each other confusedly, wondering what the hell was going on just outside the door. Moments later, the young girl was escorted into the staff room, and then berated by every single teacher in the first grade department, one after the other. After asking what the problem was, a teacher - who couldn't seem to comprehend how one of his students could do such a thing - told me about the dye job. "She dyed her hair!" he said. "It's not so serious, I think. They seem to be getting pretty angry for nothing," I said. "Dying your hair is forbidden at school, it's the rule," was his reply. "Okay, but some rules don't make any sense, like this one for example. I mean, look! Most of the teachers scolding her have dyed hair!" "Students are not adults. It's best for her future." At that point, I realized that our little disagreement was going nowhere and so I resentfully returned to my desk. The situation really bothered me, to be sure. Later on that morning, her mother was called to the school and instructed to get her daughter a haircut. The student missed half the day, and her mother was shamed by the head teacher.

Cleaning period is equally ridiculous. When the music begins, the students know to put their special cleaning caps on, line up outside the classroom (this line is clearly delineated) and SHUT UP. When the music stops, you have to stand at attention and be absolutely silent. At this point, it's not unusual to hear teachers chide the students several floors above for whispering to each other. When I asked about the necessity of such a rule, a teacher said that the work would not get done otherwise, and that talking during cleaning time could potentially be dangerous, since the dust in the air could enter the students' mouths. I shit you not, absolute rubbish. A fellow colleague (ALT), who apparently works at a school more strict than mine, said he once had to restart cleaning period three times because a few students were talking! Is this a prison or a junior high school!? Such demands for silence are the tools of the oppressor; they seek to silence speech, which is an incarnation of thought. To silence speech is to silence thought. I see no use for such trivial rules; they are nothing more than a display of the unjust power relations typical of oppressive hierarchies.

The overall nature of the educational system is also quite troubling, not only in Japan. Paulo Freire explains it pristinely in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed [1] (gender pronouns are used alternately throughout the book):

"A careful analysis of the teacher-student relationship at any level, inside or outside the school, reveals its fundamentally narrative character. This relationship involves a narrating Subject (the teacher) and patient, listening objects (the students) . . . Education is suffering from narration sickness.
The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable. Or else he expounds on a topic completely alien to the existential experience of the students. His task is to "fill" the students with the contents of his narration - contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could give them significance. Words are emptied of their concreteness and become a hollow, alienated, and alienating verbosity."

The prior allusion to students being turned into receptacles of teacher-based narration is an unfortunate truth in most schools around the world. The more completely the teacher fills the receptacles, the better the teacher. The more submissively the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better the students they are. It's not surprising that Freire refers to this style of teaching as the "banking system."

"Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiqués and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the "banking" concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits . . .
The educated individual is the adapted person, because she or he is better 'fit' for the world. Translated into practice, this concept is well suited to the purposes of the oppressors, whose tranquility rests on how well people fit the world the oppressors have created, and how little they question it."

On a daily basis, such a relationship subordinates and humiliates the students, and makes the act of learning an unacceptable grind. Unequipped with the necessary critical tools, students must accept the system or be threatened with rejection. This serves to warp their personalities, perpetuate their ignorance, repress their spontaneity and stunt their personal and creative development - amounting to a kind of violence against the individual. It's no surprise that such violence is often answered with violence, however misdirected (Japan has one of the highest suicide rates among rich countries).

Although the "banking" approach is dehumanizing, it's not to say that the world is filled with bad teachers. There are innumerable well-intentioned "bank-clerk teachers" who do not realize that they are serving only to dehumanize, likely because of several reasons ranging from being overworked, unfamiliar with educational theory, oppressed themselves... to just not caring. Students are not receptacles, and eventually gain enough existential experience to determine a positive from a negative teaching/learning (they are one and the same) situation. I can think of a handful of teachers that have really affected me personally in the past, mostly due to their humanistic methods of teaching.

But how can we humanize teaching, get rid of the oppressed-oppressor relationship inherent to hierarchical organizations, empower both students and teachers to question their supposed "freedom" and reject the oppressive reality that absorbs those within it and thereby acts to submerge human beings' consciousness? There are no simple answers to such questions. We can however delineate certain necessary conditions to the creation of a better, more humanistic approach. Freire, again, is on point:

"Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other . . .
Banking education (for obvious reasons) attempts, by mythicizing reality, to conceal certain facts which explain the way human beings exist in the world; problem-posing education sets itself the task of demythologizing. Banking education resists dialogue; problem-posing education regards dialogue as indispensable to the act of cognition which unveils reality. Banking education treats students as objects of assistance; problem-posing education makes them critical thinkers. Banking education inhibits creativity and domesticates (although it cannot completely destroy) the intentionality of consciousness by isolating consciousness from the world, thereby denying people their ontological and historical vocation of becoming more fully human. Problem-posing education bases itself on creativity and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality, thereby responding to the vocation of persons as beings who are authentic only when engaged in inquiry and creative transformation. In sum: banking theory and practice, as immobilizing and fixating forces, fail to acknowledge men and women as historical beings; problem-posing theory and practice take the people's historicity as their starting point."

The foundation of Freire's "problem-posing education" is rooted in a dialogical relationship between those involved, in which people develop the power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves. Any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry or dialogue is one of violence. The means used are not important; to alienate human beings from their own decision-making is to change them into objects.

As a foreigner, it's easy to write everything off as "the Japanese way." It's important to remember, however, that we are now part of the fabric of Japanese society and that we don't necessarily have to resign ourselves to their often self-censoring ways. We are above all human, and we should therefore seek to humanize ourselves and our environment. This garbage about there being a special "Japanese way" should be automatically distrusted, since it serves as a convenient illusion to mute, pacify and oppress others (consciously or not).

[1] Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 1970.

Une hotplotte c't'une hotplotte

2009-01-06T03:56:00.000-08:00

Japan is surprisingly cold. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that central heating is nonexistent, and that the Japanese derive some kind of sexual pleasure from being uncomfortable.
Centuries ago, however, the apparently Western notion of warmth was introduced to the formerly isolationist country of Japan, and thus nabe (hotpot) cuisine was allowed to develop. It has been the only source of heat since.

I was recently put on the ankou (鮟鱇) tip, trying it for the first time at my "forget-the-year" bounenkai party. 'Monkfish' in English, ankou is an ugly, mud-dwelling deep sea fish (pictured below) that tastes really good. Originating from Ibaraki prefecture, it was considered a very special delicacy; so much so that it was served to the emperor on special occasions (according to the interwebs). You may now purchase the fish for roughly ¥600 ($6).

So, here's a recipe that you can easily make... at least in Japan. Though you may be turned off by some of the ingredients, it's seriously really amazing.

Cooking time: 30mins

Ingredients:

monkfish/あんこう (500g) and one monkfish liver/あんこうの肝 (you can find special packs here in Japan that have both)
fried tofu/焼き豆腐 (1 pack/300g)
long, green onions/長ねぎ (x2)
Chinese cabbage/はくさい (1/4)
edible chrysanthemum/しゅんぎく (1/2 a pack, or 4)
Japanese soup stock/だし汁 (5 cups/1000cc)
mushrooms (a pack of enoki mushrooms is the best)

Soup paste mix:

sake (1/4 cup)
soya sauce (1/4 cup)
mirin (2 tbsp.)
miso (~4 tbsp.)

Mise en place:

Boil 5 cups of water then remove from heat and add around 1 1/2 or 1 3/4 packs of soup stock.
Mix all the soup paste ingredients together in a small bowl.
Put the ankou and its guts in hot water, and skim any white residue that collects on the surface. After a few minutes, drain and cut the meat into bite-sized pieces.
Mix the ankou liver into a paste, or just crush it a bit to prepare for cooking.
Cut the fried tofu into bite-sized pieces; cut the onions en bias; prepare the mushrooms; and cut the cabbage + chrysanthemum into large enough pieces, whatever you want really.

Cooking:

Heat up your nabe/stewing pot, and fry the liver (with a bit of miso if you want) at low heat. Mix it up into a paste, as long as there are no big chunks left. Add the dashi/soup stock, little by little, stirring constantly. Then, put in the soup paste mix.
Add the fish pieces from #3, all the ingredients from #5, and bring to a boil. Again, remove any white residue that collects on the surface. When everything is cooked, add salt and/or pepper to taste and that's it.

Classroom Kafka

2008-12-11T04:41:00.000-08:00

Things have been a little more positive for me lately, mostly due to my recent efforts in curbing my chronic negativity.
I had originally planned to go to Taira, but missed the train by a matter of seconds. I took it as a karmic sign that the big city of lights was not preordained for me tonight, and that such a situation was in fact an opportunity to do something different. Instead, I decided to visit this small izakaya in Yotsukura, positive that my entire future would, as a consequence, be hurled (quite subtly, of course) in a very different direction. Life is absolutely fascinating.

Now for something completely different.
There've been a few common complaints amongst JETs in the past, the most important one being confusion as to the actual role of the ALT. Some people say we've been reduced to "walking tape recorders," mindlessly reading textbook sentences for the students to repeat.
Although not entirely accurate, it's still an indication of the overall impression we, as outsiders, have of the Japanese educational system.
I'd like to mention a few things that have been bothering me lately (keep in mind that I speak only for myself).

I really value the notion of education as the creative process of enlightenment. Unfortunately, the entire school curriculum - from kindergarten through graduate school - operates with a very different function. I believe the cliché is that we're making cogs for the machine; at no time in my life has this been more apparent. "Sit here, learn this and be able to repeat it." Anybody who's ever been involved in education - or went to school for that matter - knows that the effect of this is that students will end up knowing and understanding virtually nothing. If something is imposed on you, and you're forced through it step by step, you'll have forgotten everything by the end.
I don't know enough math to count the number of exams I got an "A" on, and a week later be unable to remember the subject matter.
The methodology needs to be something dramatically different; it needs to be oriented toward getting students to want to learn. "Real education is about getting people involved in thinking for themselves, and that's tricky business to know how to do well..." [1]

I'm not saying that no meaningful work takes place in the schools - the educational institution is a very complex system, after all. I've noticed, however, that the basic function of the school, and why they're supported, is to provide an ideological service. That is, to promote a biased system that favours a real selection for obedience and conformity, while weeding out (or beating down) those who are just independent-minded, or don't like to conform, or just want to go their own way. That's pretty much what the schools are like: they reward discipline and obedience, and they punish independence of mind. Whether you "temporarily" accept the situation just to get ahead, or whether you've internalized the values and see very little problem with the existing hierarchical relationship, you're still on that intellectual assembly line, obeying orders, doing what you're told, and being where you're supposed to be. The status quo is good when you're on top.

Now Japan is a very disciplined and obedient society culturally; the population here just does what they're told, and nobody ever asks any questions about it. What better environment for a test-based system? Nearly all exams share the same characteristics; that is, they terrorize the students with the threat of failure, they alienate the students from the subject matter, they emphasize quick recall, memorized tricks, detached problems separated from their social origin, work under time pressure, endurance, quantitative results, comfort with confinement to detail, and finally comfort with the whole social framework of the test and institution. Tests de-emphasize qualitative discussion, physical insight, exploration, curiosity, creativity, history and philosophy. This forces the student who wants to pass to adopt an instrumental view of the subject, to view the subject as a tool - to use it in a way that's not intrinsically satisfying, in an alienated way. This is not an accident; this is actually good preparation for most employment. We don't want philosophers or critics, we want people who can churn out the work and not be distracted by their own thoughts.

I notice that students and teachers alike judge much of what they do in part on its usefulness as preparation for the looming assessment. Under the threat of losing face, losing dignity and failing at life, "any independent notion of what constitutes learning the subject dissolves into studying for the test, and students make this change quietly out of fear that any objection would be misinterpreted as a lack of dedication to learning the subject . . . The social framework imposed by the examination problems and by the rest of the qualification system maps out a domain of allowed activity that ultimately becomes the playpen of the nonradical credentialed expert and the cage of the individual working for progress in the social structure." [2]

"Education is but two things: First the parrying of the innocent child's impetuous assault on the Truth and second the step by step imperceptible initiation of the humiliated child into the Lie."
Kafka was on point, damn! But hey, relax guy! It's only a test, right?

[1] Chomsky, Noam. Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky. 2002.
[2] Schmidt, Jeff. Disciplined Minds. 2000.