Chapter 1:
Introduction
CHAPTER 1:
Introduction
1. Objectives of the
study
a) To critically
examine the significant contributions of John Dewey's Instrumentalism to
Japan's pedagogy, and its possible application in teaching Japanese high
school students English conversation. This objective will be attempted
with regards to the justification of suggesting possible modernizations to
the current Japanese high school educational system by the adoption of a
legitimate English conversation module that may improve the current
program's success in two areas:
1: Teaching students to
speak English fluently and naturally in a fixed time period (two to three
years).
2: Imparting in the
students an awareness of, and interest in global changes in ideological
trends in order to prepare them for participating in planetary
improvement.
b) To critically
examine the possible limitations of Dewey's progressive educational
approach towards providing sufficient revision and amelioration to the
current Japanese high school educational system's English conversation
program. This will be attempted towards the same general aim as outlined
in a) 1 and 2.
These limitations will
be made in specific reference to the following issues:
i. A lack of a uniform
system which high schools may follow to construct and plan English
conversation courses.
ii. A lack of oral
examination systems by which quality educators may be selected to
teach English conversation courses.
iii. A lack of
examinations by which student's progress in English conversation may be
evaluated.
iv. A lack of qualified
North American English conversation teachers.
v. Dewey's naive and
perhaps utopian approach to pedagogical methodology (which has led to its
abuse).
vi. The great
differences between North American educational systems and the current
Japanese high school system.
vii. The difficulty
with Japanese political interpretation of Dewey's early twentieth century
American Progressive Movement.
viii. A lack of
correlation between Dewey's idea of “personal growth” as the end of
education, and the value of education in Japanese society.
ix. A lack, in some
high schools, of any English conversation courses whatsoever.
c) To approach
uncertainties and further questions on this issue and offer a precise
guidance, towards the amendment of Japanese high school English
conversation programs.
Given the contributions
and limitations of Deweyian Instrumentalism in the modern history of the
Japanese Education with regard to the aforementioned aim, I will conclude
that information-sensitive linguistic aids and problem-solving educational
techniques alluded to in the cognitive, developmental psychology of Jerome
Bruner may adequately respond to questions left unresolved or not even
approached by Dewey.
2. Setting the
context: Japanese high school English language courses in perspective
a) A Background of
Education in Japan
A brief outline of the
last three hundred years of Japanese education must first be undertaken,
so that a clear definition of the strengths and weaknesses of this system
may be approached. Three distinct periods emerge in an examination of the
history of the Japanese Educational System. The first runs parallel to the
Tokugawa Era (1603-1868), a time when Japan was at peace and the Samurai
Class (Knights) were at the top of the feudal society. Japanese society
was divided into social classes, with merchants on the bottom of the
social scale, farmers and artisans in the center, and a Military Class at
the top, all presided over by the Emperor. While the Emperor resided
in the capital city of Kyoto, the Shogun (Generalissimo), who was the
supreme military commander and political strong arm of the empire, made
his home in Yedo (present-day Tokyo). The Bakufu (Shogunate made up of the
ruling nobility), who were the clan chieftains of the various regional
powers, provided education for their samurai retainers in the form of
colleges that taught Chinese characters, Confucian philosophy, Abacus
Computation and Budo (martial Arts with the strongest influence in Kendo
fencing). The main campus Shohei-Ko, was established in Yedo, and the
predominant dogma of the time was obedience to higher authorities. Daimyo
(Nobles) furnished smaller schools in their fiefs that were based on this
example and some Confucian scholars branched out to form their own
independent academies, which were called shijuku. Merchants,
traders and peasants who wanted their children to receive an education,
sent them to terakoya which were parish schools that were taught in
the local Buddhist temples. There students were taught the basic skills of
reading and writing by priests and monks.
Those attending were
commoners, most likely farmers' children, and the virtues taught were
Japanese agrarian: common sense, cooperation with and respect for
others, thrift and the avoidance of waste. While Confucian precepts
advocating more stringent observance of filial piety and obedience were
part of the curriculum, the morality actually inculcated was homely, and
down-to-earth. (White, 1987, p.53)
The second period is
demarcated by the beginning of the Meiji Restoration (1868-1912), which
marked the transformation to a centralized political system and an opening
of Japan to Western ideas. This promulgated a strong voice of resistance
by the ruling clans of the samurai nobility, who were chagrined by the
Shogun's loss of political monopoly, and the movement of the Emperor and
capital from Kyoto to Yedo. The Imperial government established the Bansho
Torishirabe-dokoro in Yedo during the conversion of 1868-69, which later
became Tokyo University. In 1890, Japan's Parliamentary body was formed,
and the same year, The Imperial Rescript on Education was issued.
This decree effectively designated the Emperor, through a conservative
return to Confucian ideals, as the country's instrument of ethical
inspiration, a sentiment that was to remain as a profound influence on
education in Japan until 1945.
In essence, the
Confucian teachings of the Tokugawa period, briefly abandoned, were thus
emphatically reinstated as a means of anchoring the new education
culturally and making it an instrument of legitimation and support for
the political institutions of the state. Because the Meiji Emperor was
the official source of this new direction in his role as provider of
moral guidance for the country, both intentions were reinforced. He was
Japan's crucial link to the past and center of all legitimacy and
authority. Schools thus enshrined the state's highest values, old and
new. Reverence for both Western learning and Eastern morality were
combined around the ultimate concerns of ordering and strengthening the
young nation. (Rohlen, 1983 p.54)
By the turn of the
century, Japan had imported the ideas for their educational system from
other countries. Centralized, state run institutions were being created
based on France's system of national authority. The establishment of a few
public universities that catered to the elite class was initiated through
an investigation of Germany's system. England provided the groundwork for
the introduction of athletics and moral instruction, although Japan's
primary influence was the United States. From America the Japanese
acquired not only curricula and school furnishings (blackboards, desks,
books), but the design for classrooms and gymnasia as well. Teachers were
samurai in the Imperial government's employ, and were viewed as the
ethical leaders and guides of the youth towards the nation's new morality.
They were pompous and bellicose, many being army officers, and they began
to introduce military drills and training exercises as part of a rigorous
physical education curriculum. Japan was about to enter into wars with
both China and Russia, and the government had to prepare their potential
fighting force at short notice.
The shift of education
to the meritocracy that is existent in contemporary times occurred during
this crucial period, during the formation of Japan's school system. Six
year primary schools were made compulsory for both boys and girls, as was
previously mentioned, to strengthen the nation's character through
discipline and authoritarianism. Secondary education was created as a
means by which students could prepare for entry to university. Three types
of chugakku (middle schools) were established at this time. The
first type was for average students, and those of lower classes, and was a
continuation of upper elementary education. Although many student's of
these schools aimed at university education, few were accepted into
Japan's public universities, which, although the government disapproved,
prompted the creation of several private universities. Many of the
students who graduated attended Trade Schools and were eventually hired as
industrial workers. These schools began to offer their students to local
factories and plants so they could gain valuable working experience.
The 'higher' middle
schools were originated to ready the graduates of regular middle schools
for higher education, and although they were geared toward the samurai
class, many students from the lower classes succeeded in entering them.
This, in effect, began to change the face of Japanese society, and caused
an uproar in the political community by Conservative groups that supported
the return of Japan to a status not unlike that of the Tokugawa Era.
Finally, there were
middle schools created for girls. While the boys' schools taught foreign
language, literature, the sciences and social sciences, the curriculum of
girls' schools was aimed at creating good homemakers. When boys were
undergoing athletic and military training, girls were learning cooking,
sewing, child care and etiquette. Attendance to middle schools by girls
surpassed that of boys attendance in the few years since their creation,
and as a result, more girls were achieving secondary graduation than
Japanese boys (Rohlen, 1983). Even though the school system was
taken up with little enthusiasm, soon children from all segments of
society were graduating from elementary school and continuing on to
secondary education and beyond. The government provided grants to farmers
whose second sons (the first-born would inherit the farm) wished to go on
higher learning, and mass programs were initiated to promote fourteen
years of education for all Japanese. Government envoys were sent abroad to
study foreign languages, new teaching methods, and philosophies.
From the end of the
Meiji period (1912) to World War II, Japanese education experienced a
widely diverse set of influences. John Dewey was particularly in vogue
in the 20's. His influence was strong in part because while his
proposals could clearly be seen as modern and Western, they were in
their underlying philosophy close to indigenous Japanese ideals of the
unity of cognitive, physical, and affective development. The roots for
the idea of educating the whole child,' which returned with the American
Occupation reforms after the war, were deeply Japanese, and because of
their Western cachet could flourish as a modern `import'. Dewey's first
impact, however, was a philosophical one, with some influence on
experimental education. (White, 1987, p.61)
As the influence of
Western thought grew in Japan, from a fashion, to a social and political
trend, a renaissance of Japanese culture was also under way. This created
an important moral issue for the bureaucrats of the time, who were all
samurai nobility. They had to deal with potentially rapid changes in their
society, as more and more commoners were gaining the ability to rise to
positions of power. In order to formulate an educational system that would
not discriminate by social class, and hence assist the intellectual prime
of Japan to rise to the top, thereby building up the national character,
the national entrance examination system was instituted in the 1920's.
Competition to succeed in mastering these examinations and enter into the
state and private universities became severe. Due to the anonymous and
impersonal nature of this system, high school and university entrance
examinations became the main criteria for admittance to a top corporation,
thus avoiding the obligations dictated by blood and birthright. Peter
Frost, when contemplating on the history and future of the Japanese
entrance examination system, concluded that,
In such
circumstances, it is not surprising that the government was unable to
stop the various high schools from administering very difficult written
entrance examinations. Underlying the prewar examination system, in sum,
lay a number of complex factors, the first and most obvious of which was
that there was only a limited number of spaces in a clearly defined
educational hierarchy for the increasing number of Japanese men who
wished to get ahead. The idea of judging these students by written
examinations, Masuda Koichi tells us, was not only a concept dating back
to early Japanese traditions, but also an educational practice in vogue
in those European school systems that the Japanese were using as models
in their own nation building. With so much at stake, short, factual, or
“right or wrong” answers seemed to be the most objective and hence both
the fairest and the most discriminating way to distinguish between
students who probably did not differ all that much in their training and
ability. Most important of all, the rising notions of progress, social
mobility, and the right of the individual to serve the state if able
were still in conflict with a society bound by obligations and a sense
of place. “Probably no Meiji leader thought about matters in quite this
way,” notes Thomas Rohlen, “but the fact remains that outside of
education, particularism retained its extraordinary power, and the Meiji
leadership was anxious to assure that the nation would benefit from the
secure flow of talent to the top. The sacredness of exams in Japan, even
today, seems proportional to the flow of particularistic forces it holds
at bay.” (Beauchamp, 1991, pp.288-89)
As was demonstrated in
Frost's passage, the scholastic examination was the method by which
Japan's educational system conformed to Western ideology, and contributed
to the nation building process. Within ten years, the refusal of
traditional samurai families to abandon Tokugawa ideals prompted the
Japanese government to wax increasingly militaristic and nationalistic
(Duke, 1986). In one generation, Japan's educational meritocracy had
become self-perpetuating, and the public's spirit was caught up in this
new race for national excellence.
Education became the
voice for the reintroduction of Bushido (the samurai ethic) into
everyday life. Foreign Language Studies were virtually eliminated from the
national curriculum, and students had to spend half their study time on
the assembly lines of munitions plants. Spearheaded by the emperor and
national government, the schools were turned into military academies for
producing a new generation of samurai warriors, which led Japan towards
the martyrdom of her most promising intellectual minds of the time on the
battlefields of the Second World War.
In the last year of the
war between Japan and the United States, a campaign was organized by the
Japanese Navy to recruit pilots for their newly formed “Divine Thunderbolt
Corps Special Attack Force”. Propaganda for this drive was aimed at
educational institutions, universities and Higher Middle Schools. The
recruits were volunteers from the most elevated ranks of achievers, and
after two months of intensive training, they became kamikaze pilots. In
this last-ditch effort to save the nation from disgraceful defeat at the
hands of the foreigners, all efforts were concentrated on the recruiting
program. Allowing foreign soldiers to step onto Japan's consecrated soil
would be the ultimate loss of face. In the words of a survivor,
I still believe that
what we did was covered with a certain sacred righteousness. The error
was outside us and was involved with the fundamental question about the
justice or injustice of the war itself and the intensive indoctrination
we were given in which the nation's feelings on the war were sublimated
to a rather fanatic and religious level and individual reasoning was
disregarded. (Adams, 1973, pp.136-37)
The loss of the war and
commencement of American occupation (1945-51)marks the beginning of the
third period in Japan's educational history. The compounded effects of
strafing by American B52's and fifteen years of militarization by the
Imperial government had left Japan's Educational System in shambles.
Japan was placed under
occupation by the Allied Forces led by General Douglas MacArthur,
Commander in Chief of the combined American military. November 3rd, 1946,
Japan's new Constitution was introduced which effectively eliminated all
ties between the Emperor and the government, reducing his position to a
mere symbol of the State and the people's unity. This Constitution, which
was strongly influenced by MacArthur himself, took effect in 1947. The
same year, the Imperial Rescript on Education was scrapped, and in its
place, the American's put forth the Fundamental Law on Education
and the School Education Law. The former of the two of these laws
fundamentally guarantees the right to equal educational opportunity for
all Japanese citizens and prohibits discrimination on any basis. According
to one interpretation of this law,
A central goal of the
education system is to produce self-reliant citizens of a peaceful and
democratic nation who respect human rights and love truth and peace. The
law emphasizes the importance of political knowledge and of religious
tolerance in the development of sound citizens, but it specifically
prohibits any link between political parties or religion and education.
(I.S.E.I., 1989, p.90)
The American advisors
also introduced three major changes in Japan's Educational System in order
to salvage it and establish it as a major democratizing force. First, they
extended the range of compulsory schooling from six to nine years, which
formed an protective umbrella over waning Middle School attendance. This
action injected fresh hope for the financially ailing populace, who feared
that their children would lose their chances for higher education and be
recruited for massive urban reconstruction projects.
Second, they
decentralized education, and transferred organization and supervision of
the pedagogy from the Ministry, to local boards of education, which were
established in each prefecture. The Ministry was reduced to the role of a
curricular coordinator, while municipal governments selected the board
members, who in turn form school budgets, and oversee the appointment of
teachers and superintendents to each school within their jurisdiction. It
is up to the school administrators and in many cases, particular teachers,
to choose which textbooks they prefer to use, based on the Ministry's
authorized list. Joseph C. Trainor, who was a member of the Education
Division of General Headquarters during Japan's Occupation, describes the
importance of the Board of Education Law to decentralization as follows,
The world in which
[Japan] finds herself is not one conducive to calm and orderly progress
in developing the new democratic patterns which she has adopted. There
will repeatedly come over the central government the feeling of need for
strengthening its hold upon all governmental activities, including
education. Some governments may not be able to resist the temptation to
respond to that feeling. In any such development, should the political
forces become strong enough, the Board of Education system might be
abolished. On the other hand, each year will see an increased
understanding by the people of the importance of their Boards of
Education and the value of their having a direct voice in the selection
of members for them. The Board of Education Law placed the schools close
to the people and the more experience the people of Japan have with this
relationship to education, the more difficult it will be to take from
them the direct voice which they now have in educational affairs.
(Trainor, 1983, p.202)
The third major change
introduced by the Occupation was their encouragement of the Japanese
pedagogy in the formation of non-political unions, the largest of which,
dubbed the Japan Teacher's Union, rapidly gained popularity among
pedagogues that opposed the prewar ideology. The union's strong leftist
leadership mustered the efforts of young educators whose collective policy
centered around the democratic control of schools and the persistence of
educational reforms.
The American Occupation
lasted until the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951 (Lowe
and Moeshart, 1990. p.102), and within that time period, many educational
reforms took place that are still in effect today. The school system was
revamped, with a three year high school and four year university program
added to the previously established six years of primary and three years
of middle school. Although the Americans put all their best intentions
into democratizing the Japanese educational system, there was no
vigorous grassroots movement in Japan's history to support such an
effort. As a result, the new schools that were created immediately
fell into a predominant social hierarchy, and behind the scenes, the
`freedom' that came with Americanization resulted in a deluge of academic
curriculum, a literal flooding of the system with learning material, and a
new race to the top of the ladder. Educational opportunity for all was
once again the rule of the day, and in effect, the American approach
helped to legislate in liberal ambiguities that were in complete disregard
for Japanese personality and historically grounded social norms. Most
Japanese teachers recognize the value of individual freedom, but are also
aware of the serious problems that American high schools face in today's
world.
They know that to
institute diversity and choice in high schools is to challenge both the
Confucian emphasis on social order and the principles of efficient
preparation inherent in the prewar legacy. These issues are more sharply
drawn in education that in any other Japanese institution because time
has compounded rather than simplified the value choices involved. The
overwhelming facts that face high schools today are that nearly all
young Japanese are enrolled and that the majority of them intend to go
on to college. If history has provided a set of contrasting ideals and
legacies, contemporary Japanese society has come to constitute an
environment for education that establishes entrance examinations as the
key to understanding its dynamic. (Rohlen, 1983, p.76)
The sheer numbers of
young people that were attending secondary schools heralded in a new form
of heated competition: University admission. The equality that was
promoted by American educational ideals would be transformed by the
Japanese into an organism that they could deal with and that would adapt
easily to Japanese society. Herein lies the core of the entrance
examination's source of power. These examinations became fused with the
only touchstones that would enable a criterion that could legally
segregate a new generation, and they grew to replace the traditional
Japanese sentiment the importance of testing one's strength to persevere
over the odds. The test of an individual's endurance, (in feudal times,
the swordsman's duel), has been fused with a patriotic character since the
Occupation, and ultimately, the quality of education has since been
superseded by a devotion to the institutions of social stratification,
presided over by prestige of university admission. Even though there is an
overwhelming trend in high schools towards participation in diverse
extracurricular activities (characteristic of American institutions),
personal achievement of the Japanese secondary student lingers among the
vestiges of an antiquated, oppressively academic Confucian environment,
where the examination is the ultimate contemporary challenge. According to
Benjamin Duke,
Examination
preparation, the backbone of the school system, from this perspective
goes far beyond mathematics or English class with its rote memory of
abstract equations and emphasis on detailed rules of grammar. That is
the superficial aspect of Japanese school that tends to distract us from
the fundamental. Rather, examination preparation epitomizes the daily
tests of perseverance and endurance, fulfilling not only a mathematical
function but a spiritual need of the Japanese. The entrance tests to the
high school and university have, to this observer, replaced the physical
tests of survival of a bygone era as a challenge to one's depth of
endurance. Their importance to this society and its industrial
competitiveness extends well beyond the classroom. (Duke, 1986, p.129)
b) The Impact of
English on Japan's International Role
Thirty years before the
end of the Muromachi Period (1338-1573), the first foreign ships landed in
southwestern Japan. They were the Portuguese, who were followed by Jesuit
Missionaries, the Dutch, British, Russians and later on, British traders.
Christianity became a popular religion in Japan, until it was outlawed,
and Japan's doors were closed to foreigners, as the Shogun, Tokugawa
Ieyasu unified the nation in 1639. In 1800 the Russians began to establish
trade in the Kurile Islands, which were Japan's most northern boundary,
and the Black Ships of Britain and America were soon seen approaching on
the horizon.
In 1845 American Naval
Commodore James Biddle attempted to take two warships into Yedo Bay, but
he was refused entry to the harbor. To the chagrin of the Samurai class,
the insistence of the Americans that they be recognized as favored trading
nation with Japan was bolstered by the technological superiority of the
U.S. military forces over their own. Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry of
the U.S. Navy successfully entered Uraga with four men-of-war in 1853 and
by March 31st of the following year, the Americans succeeded in being the
first foreign country to sign a treaty with the Japanese (Sansom, 1950).
American Diplomat Townsend Harris was the first to receive an audience
with the Shogun, and on December 7th, 1857, he negotiated the right for
American ships to put ashore (with the alternative being a war that the
Japanese knew they could not win) and established a unique relationship
between the two countries. July 29th, 1858, the Americans brought the
first steam locomotive, whiskey and pistols to Japan and signed further
diplomatic treaties.
Early in 1861, the
first Japanese diplomatic mission traveled to Washington to ratify the
treaties and catch their first glimpse of the state-of-the-art knowledge
that surpassed that of their own nation, which had been sheltered from the
Industrial Revolution by the Tokugawas. In the next two years, an influx
of American literature arrived in Japan, although only a handful of
scholars had been sent abroad to study the English Language. At the same
time, Scottish journalist, J.R. Black, published the first English
language weekly newspapers, The Japan Herald and The Japan
Gazette. This monopoly was due to the fact that it was he who imported
the first printing presses into the country.
He also produced one
of the first regular newspapers in the Japanese language, the Nisshin
Shinjishi or Reliable Daily News, and he exerted some
influence through articles written by himself or by Japanese political
writers. He attacked the government at the time of the agitation for a
national assembly and was offered an official post in hope of silencing
his adverse comment. His influence on Japanese journalism was
considerable though it is not always fully recognized in Japan. (Sansom,
1977, p.421)
English novels began to
appear as Japanese translations of foreign books were in style. Several
writers including Oda Junichiro, Kawashima Chunosuke, Shiba Shiro and Baba
Tatsui, all of whom studied at universities in England and the U.S.,
became known as the popular translators of the times. A notable group of
educators, writers and economists were sent to Europe and America during
these years to gather information on political practices that would be
used in forming Japan's new government.
Although many of these
gentlemen, like Kato Hiroyuki (first director of Tokyo University) and
Itagaki Taisuke (founder of the Liberal Party), would go on to become
Japan's leading politicians, the most remarkable of these figures was the
academic Fukuzawa Yukichi. Fukuzawa had already lived in America for one
year, as he'd stowed away on the Japanese vessel that escorted the
Shogun's envoys to Washington in order to ratify the treaty of 1958. He
wrote an account of the events that led to this risky decision.
In 1858 he was sent
to Yedo to give lessons in Dutch to the young men of the clan on duty
there. one day, on a visit to Yokohama, he spoke to some foreign
merchants in Dutch and found that they did not understand him. it was
thus that he discovered that English, not Dutch, was the language of the
future, and set about learning it at once. (Sansom, 1977, p.429)
Okuma Shigenobu was the
leader of a samurai clan who's actions had a profound influence on the
political trends during the Meiji Restoration. Although he had never
traveled beyond Beijing and Korea, during the Formosa Expedition, he was
well read in his colleagues' translations of English and American
politics. In fact, Western philosophy, economics, medicine and language
were already being rivaled with an equally intense revival of Confucian
learning. A Conservative movement was in the works which was antagonistic
to the transformation of Japan into a modern industrial nation. The brunt
of the conservative samurai faction's malcontent and anxiety centered on
the claim that the new education had a softening effect, on the character
of the ensuing generation.
When the Ministry of
Education was formed in 1871, it proceeded to encourage Western learning
and decided that a complete system of education must be devised and
enforced. One of the high officials, Tanaka Fujimaro, was sent as a
commissioner to examine the systems of Europe and America. He returned
in 1872, and in that year a most detailed and voluminous Education Act
was issued, which laid the foundations of state-controlled compulsory
education. The plan was ambitious, providing for universities, middle
schools, elementary schools, normal schools, and technical schools on a
large scale, and the statement of policy that accompanied it made it
clear that, in future, education would be organized on Western lines.
(Sansom, 1977, pp.455-56)
In 1871 and 1872
respectively, Imperial Decrees on samurai code began to eliminate the
carrying of swords and the wearing of `topknot' hairstyles. Christian
Colleges were founded in 1873 by Nakamura Keiu and 1875 by Niishima Jo,
both of whom, unbeknownst to the Imperial Government, had been living in
New England. These schools and many other public study groups, were
institutions of utilitarianism and free-thought that were supported by
private individuals who had resided in America and believed that it was
their duty to provide for the diffusion of these ideals to Japanese
society. In 1880, a law restricting public gatherings was issued in an
attempt curb these activities.
Within the year, the
actions of Okuma and his associates prompted the Emperor to issue the
famous Rescript that called for the formation of parliament by 1890. He
founded Waseda University in 1881 (a private university that stood for the
freedom of inquiry) and formed the first Constitutional Progressive Party
in 1882. Since the CPP supported moderate reform it gained little
influence over the Conservative opposition, which was supported by the
government. In 1889, Okuma helped in the drafting of Japan's Constitution.
Mori Arinori was forty
one years old when he became the Minister of Education in 1885. Being ten
years the junior to most of his fellow politicians was no shortcoming for
him. Mori, who was seen as a moderate, took it upon himself to revise the
educational policy with an emphasis on the teaching of English. He also
stressed the dominance of the state in education, in other words, the
primary aim of education should be patriotic. Mori was a close friend of
the Prime Minister, Ito, and they had traveled together through Europe and
the U.S.A. Their concern was that educational institutions were lagging
behind in the development of a Japanese curriculum. Mori believed that
courses in Japanese language and history must not fall by the wayside in
the name of Western progress. Of course, Japan was in the process of
nation-building, hence the first concern was that uniform state control
would become more efficacious with a parallel emphasis on national
identity.
Japan's decision to
embark on this course of educational expansion reflected the conviction
of the Meiji reformers that education was what the nation needed to
provide it with the trained workers and talented leadership needed to
'catch up' with the west. Mori Arinori, an early minister of education,
expressed the goal quite succinctly: “Our country must move from its
third-class position to second class, and from second class to first;
and ultimately to the leading position among all the countries of the
world. The best way to do this is by laying the foundations of
elementary education.” This
belief in the ability of education to foster industrialization and
economic growth has continued to serve as a basic principle of Japanese
education today (Schoppa, 1991, p.25)
The second concern was
a brewing discontent with the colonial powers that, in every other Asian
country, were working against traditional inherent values. Christianity
became the fundamental opponent of the government's radical conservative
wing. All one had to do was pick up a world history text to learn of the
Western conquests in the name of Christ. The confession and the absolution
from sins were completely alien notions to the Japanese, and it was
believed that these and other concepts intrinsic to Christianity, were the
most dangerous enemies of the traditional Japanese character. The
government was finding that as the support by foreign Christian
organizations for private colleges and universities increased, it was
becoming increasingly difficult to control the behavior of extremist
groups, who in the past had restricted their protests to lectures and
articles. On November 11th, 1889, Mori Arinori was at home preparing to
attend a ceremony for the proclamation of Japan's Constitution, which was
developed according to his ideas and suggestions put forth in the Rescript
on Education. Seen by the radicals as influenced by Western, hence
Christian persuasions, Mori was assassinated on his own doorstep as he
left his house.
He was in fact,
though modern minded in respect of the material benefits of Western
civilization, essentially a conservative man, and his educational policy
was fundamentally nationalistic and militaristic, for he planned to give
rifles to elementary school children for their drill and to make the
dormitories of normal schools resemble military barracks. This did not
protect him from the assassins, however, who alleged that he had
profaned the great shrine at Ise; and the cause of his murder was
summarized in the liberal magazine the People's Companion by
saying that he fell a victim to the reactionary thought that he himself
had aroused. (Sansom, 1977, p.480)
Okuma was mortally
wounded by a terrorist's bomb shortly after Mori's murder. The Meiji
Emperor died in 1912, before the outbreak of the First World War, in which
Japan established itself as a global power. By this time she had already
been victorious in her war with China (1894-95), with the Russians
(1904-5) and had annexed Korea in 1910. This was a time of utopian
innocence and naivety for Japanese pedagogy, but students were making
great accomplishments. Japanese social reformers started the first Trade
Unions in 1912, and they began to attract a small group of workers, as
more young men and women were graduating from secondary education than
ever before, and the universities were flourishing (Lowe and Moeshart,
1990, p.36). John Dewey, a strong supporter of Syndicalism, especially
when it improved the rights of teachers, was visited this same year by
Naruse Jinzo, the founder of Japan's Women's University (Kobayashi,
1964,p.28). Dewey had the opportunity to lecture at Tokyo Imperial
University, where he made this observation of Japanese classrooms in 1919,
They have a great
deal of freedom there, and instead of the children imitating and showing
no individuality—which seems to be the proper thing to say—I never saw
so much variety and so little similarity in drawings and other handwork,
to say nothing of its quality being much better than the average of
ours. The children were under no visible discipline, but were good as
well as happy; they paid no attention to visitors...I expected to see
them all rise and bow. (Kobayashi, 1964, p.28)
The Taisho Emperor
survived his predecessor for only fourteen years, until 1926, when
Hirohito was coronated and the Showa Era began. Between 1926 and 1934 The
Japanese Trade Unions flourished, and finally collapsed under the strain
of the great Depression. During this Era, both Anarchist-Communist and
Syndicalist influences were gaining popularity among the new generation of
intellectuals, although the success of trade unions was hampered by the
increasingly authoritative waxing of the Meiji government, and eventually
police action was taken against their leaders. In his study, Society,
Schools and Progress in Japan, Tetsuya Kobayashi, Professor of Comparative
Education at Kyoto University, deals with the pressure that the
pre-World-War-II Japanese government exerted on Liberal and radical
political reform organizations,
The national
federations of the trade unions, which were organized in the early
twenties, systematically led the laborers and the peasants into strikes
and other agitation. A few political parties were associated with the
labor movement were organized in this period by sects of socialists and
communists. Among them, the Communist Party, which was secretly
organized in 1922, was declared illegal and suppressed by the
government. Other socialist parties and the labor movement also suffered
to various degrees from government pressure...As the government
strengthened its oppressive control over the socialist movements, the
student movement became more radical and as a consequence suffered more
from the government...During the labor disputes in the twenties there
were some cases in which the laborers or peasants sent their children to
the “proletarian schools”. Between 1929 and 1933 a few attempts were
made to organize teachers' unions, and as a part of the movement a
short-lived Proletarian Education Institute was set up as a center for
the socialist education movement. This soon met government oppression.
Together with the leaders of the student movement, many individuals and
groups of school teachers, who intended to liberalize school education,
were suppressed on suspicion of being 'red'. (Duke, 1976, pp.37-38)
One thinker stands out
as an important figure of his time, Hatta Shuzo, who's great influence by
the Social Anarchist, Peter Kropotkin, motivated him to form a Libertarian
solution to the class struggles effected by Imperial rule. Although Hatta
graduated from a Christian University, he was excommunicated from the
Church, and began to spread Kropotkin's ideas throughout Japan, via an
agricultural and factory worker organization called the All-Japan
Libertarian Federation of Labor Unions. Like Kropotkin, his inspirational
model, Hatta's revolutionary philosophy was based on his belief that,
Free association was
not just a good idea or one among a number of contending theories of
social organization. Rather it was a natural characteristic of human
beings, a fundamental truth or principle which we all recognize from the
experiences of our life, knowing that without it life would simply
collapse and we ourselves would perish. (Lowe and Moeshart, 1990, p.46)
Hatta died in 1934
during the beginning of an unparalleled pandemic economic depression,
during which truculent political upheavals lead to the Japanese military's
participation in the Lugouqiao Incident (Rohlen), and finally Pearl
Harbour as Japan's youth were plunged into the horrors of bloodshed and
death of World War II. The culmination of slaughter and genocide that
began with the Holocaust, ended with America's atomic bombing of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. On August fifteenth, 1945, the Emperor read the final
Imperial Rescript in which he agreed to the surrender terms of the Potsdam
declaration with the words, “The time has come for us to bear the
unbearable.”
Article 9 of Japan's
Constitution reads,
Aspiring sincerely to
an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people
forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat
or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
In designating Japan as
the world's only nation that ascribes constitutionally to international
peace, the Allied Occupational Forces perhaps provided Japan with new
pedagogical options for societal goals to be aspired to cooperatively.
After the Occupation's decentralization of the Japanese education system
had been tentatively realized, the Ministry of Education, Science and
Culture set about interpreting the significance of new Constitutional
directives. Although Instrumental education was abandoned shortly
thereafter, Japanese pedagogy now has the technology available to
rediscover the merits of communicating democratic viewpoints through
education methodologies. The process of streamlining an out-of-date oral
English program may help Japanese pedagogy to generate renewed focus on
international cooperation through dialogue, rather than the prevailing
convergence on economic superiority through the mathematical and
scientific domination of high school curricula.
As I have established,
American utilitarian ideals exerted a great influence on the political
climate in the 'Land of the Rising Sun' even fifty years prior to John
Dewey's appearance on the scene. It still holds true that
Instrumentalism wields a prime influence on Japanese pedagogical
currents, and to this very day, Dewey continues to be the most well
known academic, bar none, to the Japanese educational administrator
(Kobayashi, 1964, pp.1, 154). If one is to undertake an accurate critical
examination of the Japanese school system, it would be impossible to
ignore the sway of progressive, liberal forces. The following section is
focused on Dewey's philosophical trend in Japanese education, and how this
has effected the Japanese student's current dilemma in the area of English
conversation instruction.
Chapter 2: Part One
Dewey's
possible contribution to a Japanese high school English conversation
program
1. Introduction
In this chapter I shall
attempt to establish a correlation between Dewey's progressive educational
philosophy (Instrumentalism), its influence on Japanese pedagogy, and
possible contribution to teaching English as a spoken language in Japanese
high schools. To accomplish this goal, I will examine and analyze areas in
the Japanese school system that already bear the mark of Dewey's
instrumental approach to education. This will benefit my elucidation
regarding the adoption of an alternative approach to rote memorization for
teaching English to Japanese students. This approach will also serve to
legitimize the value of experience oriented, problem-solving based
learning methods, as opposed to didactic erudition, for use in the
Japanese high school English teaching process.
I will show that
Dewey's epistemology and educational ideology can be oriented towards an
acceptable mode of teaching English conversation in Japanese high schools,
since Japan's pedagogy is already using instrumental methodologies to
transmit knowledge to the students. Concurrently, I will examine the
possibility for using liberal oral English teaching methods to diffuse
information regarding global ecological and societal issues.
I will take up this
analysis by briefly examining the twofold disposition of Japanese schools.
This will be attempted through a critical comparison of Japan's social
pragmatics of learning English conversation, with the functional value of
existing high school English courses. Next, I will examine the efficacy of
utilizing Deweyian philosophy of education to suggest possible
ameliorations in teaching English conversation to Japanese students, and I
will show how these possible amendments run concurrent with existent
political trends. I will conclude this section of the chapter by
establishing that, in part, the pedagogical espousal of an instrumental
approach in teaching English conversation may be valuable in helping
secondary students to establish their identity in Japanese society, and as
members of an ecologically aware international democracy.
2. a) Eliminating
dualities
In Japanese elementary
schools, learning is based on doing (Bonnaker, 1990). Students get the
chance to handle and manipulate their material, and many teachers will pay
individual attention to the needs of each child. The pupil is taught to
learn from an immediate experience of an object, and grows accustomed to
this mode of apprehension. In high school all this changes. No longer is
the student considered as an individual. Their future success in achieving
the highest examination marks possible is the sole concern of their
educators (Beauchamp, 1978, 1991). This rings truer for boys than it does
for girls, since the girl who is accepted to Tokyo University may have
trouble in finding a husband in the future (Bonnaker, 1990). Apart from
some private schools, the field trips and interesting 'show and tell'
classes that characterized the atmosphere of freedom in their earlier
learning years are all but gone. Most parents and many students are
wrought with anxiety during this period, for the expectations are high. A
male student who cannot keep up will be unable to obtain employment in a
reasonably prestigious firm, and may have to face the social degradation
of his family name; a heavy load to carry for a teenager, or a Japanese of
any age for that matter. According to Peter Frost, even Japanese pedagogy,
who for seventy years have placed so much emphasis on the examination
system of admission to university, still have plenty of criticism for it
when their articles appear in newspapers,
At least since the
1920's there have been repeated complaints in the Japanese press that
examination hell has prevented Japanese students from having a healthy
childhood, has blunted intellectual curiosity, has discouraged females
from applying to universities, has overlooked less academic leadership
skills, and has encouraged those students who finally do get admitted to
do almost no academic work in college. “The typical prospective examinee
has come to be close-minded and lonely,” wrote Tokyo University
Professor Shimizu Yoshihiro in 1963. “Even his parents tend to become
nervous and on edge.” Stress upon memorized facts,
added Shimizu's colleague Orihara Hiroshi in 1967, does not encourage
Japanese children to “hold a lantern to the unknown.” (Beauchamp, 1991,
pp.291-292)
Since the days of the
Samurai Class, social mobility and loyalty to the group have been balanced
by severe, abrupt testing, as in dueling, before which a young Japanese
boy would spend lesser periods with his mother, so that he could study
with a fencing instructor. In present day Japan, the intense interval of
testing maintains “a very noticeable gap between a relatively small elite,
who enjoy top jobs in the bureaucracy or modern sectors of the economy,
and the great mass of the populace, who are likely to remain in
agriculture or other traditional sectors of the economy and hence to have
less income, less prestige, and a good deal less security (Ibid.,
p.293). The maintenance of this gap puts a great deal of pressure on the
Japanese government,
to guarantee that
access to this limited elite will be decided in the fairest possible
way. This need for fairness, in turn, creates a tendency for access to
be decided by formal tests in which there are very objective “right or
wrong” answers for which a widely enrolled school system can prepare.
(Ibid.)
In consideration of
Frost's analysis, where would oral English programs for Japanese high
schools fit into this system? In Japan, existing high school
English conversation courses are actually lessons in two skills: hearing
and pronunciation. There is no true speaking of English in an interactive
manner, and although a few schools have native English speaking teachers,
most of the instructors are Japanese who have graduated from university
majoring in English Literature, and admittedly can not speak the language
(Sawa, 1991). In middle schools, English classes are based teaching
students vocabulary lists and some basic grammar. In high schools, since
English education in Japan was 'de-conversationalized' long ago, the
students are more than likely to be learning a set of preestablished
requirements (based on the Ministry of Education's Course of Study)
for the multiple choice English section of the National University
Entrance Examination. In most juku classes, privileged students also study
the English sections of previous admission tests from specific
universities.
English can be seen
as a screening device, a means of letting relatively uneducated people
know their place in Japanese society. It seldom is viewed as an
important means of communication ... The core of English learning in
Japan is the memorization of the meanings of individual words and
phrases to enable the student to fill in the correct word in a
particular box, or draw a circle around the correct answer, on crucial
examinations. (Wordell, 1985, p.73)
To a native English
conversation teacher in a Japanese high school, there are several
inconsistencies that seem to arise from the status accorded to foreign
persons, hence foreign languages, in many sectors of Japanese society.
Foreign teachers of English conversation classes must struggle with social
biases in Japanese culture, and with the internal conflict of ideals that
they've grown accustomed to in their own ethnic community. As school
administrators lack the technical knowledge required to formulate
effective oral English programs, it is usually the teacher's
responsibility to determine whether indifferent students should be taught
practical English usage, or simply prepared for exams using outdated
material (which, once more, is recommended by the Ministry of Education's
Course of Study) that seems antithetical to a course befitting the
appropriate utilization of English in daily conversation (Buckley, 1990;
Schoppa, 1991). Perhaps the response to this issue may consist of a
compromise, that is, a pragmatic application of the given curriculum to a
more realistic orientation.
In contrast to junior
high-school vocabulary lists, the high-school vocabulary lists contain
words and idioms (which the students must learn) that are usually
archaic, obtuse, and virtually useless. Although the first, and I
believe correct, reaction is to throw away the standard text, it would
do the students a great disservice to do so. They have to cope with the
material in tests; they will be judged with how well they have learned
the often useless phrases. No matter how distasteful the contents are to
you, you can alleviate some of their suffering by helping them to learn
what their school system has chosen for them. (Gunterman, ibid.,
p.127)
These words and phrases
that the students must learn have to be put into proper context, otherwise
they are not really being understood, only memorized. To Dewey, who was
devoted to hunting up and doing away with educational inconsistencies,
ideological dualities can be dealt with by using the principle of
continuity. He believed that the value of an experience was in its
educational quality. It is the direction that that experience will take in
the formation of the individual that determines its value in relation to
its practicality. In other words, mere acquisition of knowledge through
schooling has no goal-in-itself, since the ultimate aim of education is in
the integration of its subjects with society. Dewey's pragmatic philosophy
deems education as instrumental in forming in the individual qualities
that will help him to be better adapted towards dealing with the
circumstances of their lives. The meaning of an educational experience is
that first, it prepares the student for doing the same task in the future
and second, it precipitates the conditions for future learning, i.e., it
is not a final end but a constant process. Dewey maintained that the
knowledge one amasses in schooling must be relentlessly mastered anew so
that one can maintain a technical grasp of prevalent intellectual trends.
The reason for the continual questioning of one's ability to fulfill a
task is that, education in the skills required to perform that task was
undertaken out of context of their practical execution.
These questions
cannot be disposed of by saying that the subjects were not actually
learned, for they were learned at least sufficiently to enable a pupil
to pass examinations in them. One trouble is that the subject-matter in
question was learned in isolation; it was put, as it were, in a
water-tight compartment. When the question is asked, then, what has
become of it, where has it gone to, the right answer is that it is still
there in the special compartment in which it was originally stowed away.
If exactly the same conditions recurred as those under which it was
acquired, it would also recur and be available. But it was segregated
when it was acquired and hence it is so disconnected from the rest of
experience that it is not available under the actual conditions of life.
It is contrary to the laws of experience that learning of this kind, no
matter how thoroughly engrained at the time, should give genuine
preparation. (Dewey, 1938, pp.47-48)
Japanese high school
students are being prepared to succeed in gaining high marks in university
entrance examinations, and the development of memorization abilities,
which is used in methods for learning English reflects this. Although many
of them will probably be able to score high on annual company English
tests, they may never be able to communicate with an English speaking
person. The present trend is towards corporate sponsorship of English
conversation courses for those in middle management who have a chance for
promotion (Ichikawa, 1991). Secretarial schools also have to re-teach
English in courses that feature native English instructors, where 90% of
the curriculum is based on listening and speaking (Bonnaker, 1990). All of
this would be unnecessary if high schools adopted interactive English
conversation courses, that is, classes where English was actually being
spoken instead of just memorized or recited. The following passage,
translated from Japanese, is a summary of the root of the problem, as seen
by Dr. Ota Yuzo, who studied at McGill University in Montreal,
At the beginning of
the Meiji Era, the English language became an elective subject in
Japanese middle schools, but due to a lack of good teachers and proper
dictionaries, it was a difficult subject to teach. From the middle of
the Meiji Era to the mid Taisho Era, teachers skilled in the use of the
English language used texts and dictionaries that were more accurate,
and improved English education was available to Japanese students. After
the Occupation, there was a resurgence in the Japanese pedagogy's
interest in the English language, not only as the memorization of
vocabulary lists and rules of grammar, but as a tool by which
communication with foreigners could be initiated. During the 1950's and
sixties, Japanese wished to surpass the limits of formal education and
sought to communicate naturally using everyday English. Rather than
simply studying from books, individuals tried to converse with foreign
visitors to Japan in order to ameliorate their fluency in English, and
found themselves correcting the writing on placards and signs.
Unfortunately, the last twenty years have seen English become just
another subject required for the successful scoring of applicants on
university entrance examinations. It seems as if Japanese high school
students are not concerned with communication or understanding of
English from their hearts. In fact, soon after the examination period
has ended, the English that they studied so diligently is forgotten. The
author considers this to be a pity, since contemporary Japanese
disregard the use of spoken English as a vehicle to achieve
international friendship, for in its place, financial success has become
the sole personal and collective goal. (Ota, 1981, pp.281-82)
In most cases,
classroom learning of English conversation in Japanese high schools is
based only on the recognition of words, phrases, and idioms that will
appear in the listening comprehension section of entrance
examinations. These courses contribute nothing to students' usage of
English in actual conversation, and therefore have little or no value to
them if they find themselves in future situations where they may have to
communicate in English. The only possible way to rectify this situation is
to introduce a legitimate curriculum and methodology for teaching Japanese
students to speak English, one that can be employed by an English speaking
instructor, be they foreigners or Japanese natives. English cannot be
utilized as a true language unless it can be verbalized in a meaningful
and felicitous manner, and I cannot substantiate the Japanese pedagogy's
claim to have accomplished this based solely on examination scores.
b) Finding effective
techniques for communication
Lately, there has been
a boom in the use of English for television commercials. Usually they
feature some American movie actor or actress, or a famous Formula One race
car driver. Nine times out of ten, these ads are trying to sell cars or
cigarettes, and I wouldn't doubt that they are very successful, even
though not many people understand them. The reason for this, I believe, is
charisma. In Japanese society, a dynamic and vigorous personality is only
useful in the talent business, where unlike Western culture, entertainers
do not make large salaries. Japanese talent does have a great effect on
social trends though, and they never limit themselves to just one medium.
An entertainer who is featured in the latest film will also turn up on a
television drama, an instant noodle commercial, and billboard
advertisements on the local trains for a language school or new stereo
system. They usually make weekly appearances on variety or quiz shows, and
in magazine profiles, interviews and fashion spreads. Although foreign
media stars that speak little Japanese have no trouble gaining popular
appeal in Japan, Japanese talent are rarely known outside their own
country (Buckley, 1990). Since the deflation of Japan's economic bubble
late in 1989, advertising campaigns seem to rely more and more on
Anglicization to introduce to the public the influx of American and
European products, that the opening of the Japanese market has made more
abundant. As a result, Japanese entertainers and models may be seeking to
improve their oral English fluency in order to meet the needs of a rapidly
diversifying media.
English courses for
Japanese high school students are not geared towards helping these
youngsters to achieve any level of fluent communication of their ideas.
These classes are for the accumulation of memorized material that must be
successfully recognized during their crucial entrance examination period.
The basic texts for these courses, supplied by the Ministry of Education,
contain vocabulary and short stories wherein the appropriate idioms are
included, and these must be comprehended by the students. Mothers of these
students will try to make them as comfortable as possible, so that they
will be able to pass many hours each evening, and early morning, spent
studying these expressions. But apart from the context of the story they
have memorized, these pupils have no idea of how to use the idioms,
colloquialisms or expressions in actual speaking situations. The methods
of teaching these structures do not vary, since students are limited to
reading and hearing them, with the rare instance of pronunciation.
Recitation has been a common method of memorizing in Japanese schools
since the days of the terakoya, but in this case, the students will end up
making the same mistakes as their Japanese English teacher. At home, it is
often the case that their mother will study the same material as they have
in order to quiz them and help them to study. Often she will ask her
children not to reveal their private study methods to their classmates, in
order that they maintain an edge over them come exam time (Shimahara,
1979).
The mere absorbing of
facts and truths is so exclusively individual an affair that it tends very
naturally to pass into selfishness. There is no obvious social motive for
the acquirement of mere learning, there is no clear social gain in success
thereat. Indeed, almost the only measure for success is a competitive one,
in the bad sense of that term—a comparison of results in the recitation or
in the examination to see which child has succeeded in getting ahead of
others in storing up, in accumulating, the maximum of information. So
thoroughly is this the prevailing atmosphere that for one child to help
another in his task has become a school crime. Where the school work
consists in simply learning lessons, mutual assistance, instead of being
the most natural form of cooperation and association, becomes a
clandestine effort to relieve one's neighbor of his proper duties. (Dewey,
1990, pp.15-16)
English, in Japan, is
considered a language to be spoken with Caucasians, not with members of
one's own nationality. Therefore it is difficult to motivate the pupils to
attempt to communicate with each other, in a conversation class. The
teacher must be their guide in this respect, discovering new techniques
that will aid the student's intercommunication in the English language.
There are a variety of methods that will make this possible. Discussions
can be prompted through having the students fill out questionnaires about
themselves and about their classmates. This in effect is the first step in
communication, that is, wanting to find out something about someone else.
This method can prepare them for a conversation with an English speaking
person, and it aids them in developing the confidence to transmit their
own ideas to someone else, in English. The students will begin to realize
that talking about themselves can be fun and hearing about other people's
lives is an interesting activity. The teacher can expect some laughter and
shocked expressions when they discover facts about his or her own life, as
many of these ideas may be truly foreign to Japanese students. Finally,
teachers can gain valuable insight regarding the likes, dislikes,
personality, goals, and intimate lives of their students; facts which may
be utilized at a later time to help motivate students to speak more
freely, more often. Through actual communication in English, there is a
bonding that occurs between classmates and teacher that cannot be
duplicated in any other learning situation. This is the true value of
communication.
As a matter of social
philosophy and of scientific sociological doctrine, there is much to be
said for the proposition that the essence and lifeblood of human
society, that which makes our connections with one another genuinely
social, not just physical, is the existence of communication —
the fact that by means of language the net outcome of every experience,
the meaning of every discovery, the occurrence of every fresh insight
and stimulating outlook can be communicated to others, thereby becoming
a common possession. And the entire process of education has for its
foundation the fact that mind and character develop through contact and
intercourse. The pains taken in totalitarian states to use schools,
press, books, pulpit, public meetings, radio, and even personal
conversation, as a means for instilling a single uniform set of ideas is
a backhanded tribute to the identity of freedom of mind with the
existence of a free society. (Boydson, 1991b, pp. 179-80)
“Shigata ga
nai” has been a popular
Japanese expression for hundreds of years. Its meaning is the equivalent
of “C'est la vie” in French or “Nothing can be done about it” in
English. The statement characterizes the Japanese' everyday attitude to
their society, where not a whole lot can be done to change one's station
in life. It is a resignation of the power of personal obligation to a
higher authority. The examination system, a leftover from the time when
Confucian ideals were at the core of social interaction, even now
continues to form the locus for Japanese public identity. My friends tell
me that Japanese can communicate a complete feeling or request in a
glance, hand gesture or posture. I do not doubt this, for the skill that
Japanese mothers exhibit in controlling their children without having to
yell and scream, or use corporal punishment is obvious to any foreign
person who has ever traveled on a busy train in Tokyo. Nevertheless, there
is a limit to how much information can be transmitted between two
individuals that speak different languages. Hence, Japanese English
courses in high schools must procure interactive methods of teaching
practical English. Without the use of these techniques, the task of
learning the English language may be seen in Deweyian terms, as
diminishing the [Japanese] individual's ability to evolve into a member of
the democratic community (Dewey, 1916). Non-democratic teaching methods,
which are still being used to teach English in a rapidly
internationalizing Japanese society, may have to be eliminated if Japanese
high schools are to overcome their inability to create English speaking
citizens.
c) Creating a
natural environment
Communication is not
always a two-way street. With today's media explosion, the senses of sight
and hearing are undergoing a constant bombardment of input by television,
radio, print, and photographed images. No wonder taking the family up to
the mountains for one day in a hot spring is a popular way for urban
Japanese to spend their Sundays. High school contributes to this overload
of absorbed information as well. Since the 1970's the incidences of
nervous breakdown, suicide and school violence by Japanese high school
students before exam time has shown a steady rise (Beauchamp, 1991;
Bonnaker, 1990; Shimahara, 1979). In Japan, where high school students are
purported to be well behaved and socially adjusted, adolescent behavioral
problems have become a real nightmare (Bonnaker, 1990; Buckley, 1990).
This rise in radical
antisocial behavior by high school students may have something to do with
the Japanese attitude towards youth. The only word in the Japanese
language that expresses the equivalent adolescent or teenager is shonenki,
which literally translated means small-year-period . In fact, until the
age of twenty, the individual is still considered a child, no matter what
unequivocal hormonal changes have taken place. It is perhaps relevant that
children in Japan are quite independent. It is not uncommon to see an
eight or nine year old making it to school alone on a train full of
business men and women. Until the last year of middle school, students
have the freedom to play with their friends, participate in local sports
teams or become a regular member of school and recreation center clubs.
Play and art is encouraged in school classes. Once the first exam year
approaches, students are submitted to a hectic study schedule, both in
school and at home, that leaves them little time to blow off steam, relax
or be creative. Professor Ezra Vogel, Director of the East Asian Research
Center at Harvard University, explains shiken jigoku (examination hell) in
the following manner,
Preparation for
examinations is painful not only because one must make such sacrifices
but also because until one has finally passed entrance examinations
there is always the anxiety and fear that one may not make the grade.
There is no question that during this period of asceticism these
students absorb an amazing amount of facts. Not only do they master
their own language, literature, and history, but they also learn to read
English and become familiar with the history and culture of Europe and
America. Course requirements in mathematics and science are at a higher
level than those of comparable American schools. But at the same time,
students must sacrifice types of scholarship not measured by entrance
examinations. For example, since the examination is written and not
oral, a pupil studying English does not practice ordinary conversation,
but concentrates on reading, on fine points of grammar, and in some
cases, on pedantic expressions which are likely to appear on the
examination. Since examinations cover a full range of subjects, a child
who begins to show strong interest in one field usually will be
encourage by his teacher and his parents to broaden his interests so
that he can get fully prepared also in other subjects. Since multiple
choice examinations cannot measure original and creative thought, the
emphasis is placed on memorization. (Beauchamp, 1978, p.235)
Usually, the jukensei's
(entrance exam student) day starts at about six a.m., when their mother
will wake them up. They will usually study for an hour and then eat the
breakfast that she has prepared for them. Depending on the distance to
their school they may have to wake up earlier, but at most institutions,
the first bell is at 8:30. The school day lasts until 3:00 p.m. on Monday
to Friday, and 12:30 p.m. on Saturdays, with a thirty minute lunch period
during the week. Classes are fifty minutes long, and are held in the same
classroom, with five minutes for the teachers to change rooms, before and
after their courses. After school the students will spend one hour in an
extracurricular club or activity before heading to a prep school
(juku) to cram for their tests, and they'll usually arrive home
about 8:00 p.m.. At that time, a student will probably watch a little
television and take a nap before dinner, which will be at around 10:00
p.m., when his father returns home. After supper, he or she will continue
to study until midnight, then take a bath and prepare the next day's
uniform and textbooks. For this hectic schedule to run smoothly, the most
important element is harmony. The student's goal is to memorize as much
material as possible in order to score high on their examinations, and
they know this.
If, as in Japan, the
crucial motivating force is the next entrance examination, then the
primary purpose of teachers, by implication, is to disseminate
information to students. It is the duty of the student to absorb the
information in preparation for examinations. For this arrangement to
work most efficiently, students should be passive and teachers active.
(Rohlen, 1983, p.155)
There is not much
interaction going on in high school classrooms, and there is no time for
it. The feeling is that if everyone cooperates, then no time will be
wasted and they can all move together towards their goal. Thus the
language used for teaching English in high schools is Japanese. This saves
time and effort on the part of the teacher, who has to teach classes of 45
to 50 students at a time, and facilitates his or her ability to cover the
exam material in the allotted time period, with a minimum of friction. It
also contributes greatly to inability of the students to communicate using
the English language.
The Japanese high
school student today is perhaps more isolated than his or her prewar
counterpart, more given to the solitary activity of cramming facts into
his head ... independence and freedom of choice are not primary goals of
socialization. Hence, he is for the most part wholeheartedly acquiring
what he thinks he needs, and what society insists he needs, to succeed
later in life. (White, 1987, pp.161-62)
In my classes, I
allowed the use of Japanese for students to be able to explain to each
other the meaning of questions that asked them. I also let them answer my
questions in Japanese, but they (or their classmates, had to help them to)
make sense of their answer, and vocalize it in English. Although it was
not taboo to speak in Japanese in my English conversation classes, I did
not encourage it, in fact, I tried to assist the students to form their
thoughts in English by speaking to them in English. If this did not work,
there were a plethora of aids and substitute mechanisms that I had used to
get my point across. Among these were: the blackboard, on which I could
write, draw or scribble images and symbols that they recognized and
associated with my vocalizations; magazines and texts that were full of
photographs and pictures which were easily related to and talked about;
and videotaped movies, where situations occurred that students could
identify with, question and describe as compared to their own life
experiences. The last tool, the use of videos, was quite effective, as
these were in the English language, and didn't demand as much
concentration from the students as, say, reading a text would. I found
these valuable mechanisms for the transformation of the student's school
experience. Popular films, and ethnocultural exposés created an excitement
in the students when it was time to start class. If they tried hard in the
first part of class, they felt as if the movies were rewards in the second
half. When they weren't speaking English, they were listening to it and
watching others speak English in everyday situations. After each
video, we had a short discussion on what the students liked or disliked,
and what they found familiar or shocking about the film on tape. In this
way they were constantly exposed to English as a natural method to
communicate ideas, and were not limited to listening to my voice or
looking at their books. Furthermore, the discussion period afforded them
the freedom to express their criticisms regarding what they've seen. I
never tested them on their observations, I only required them to make some
kind of evaluation in English regarding their feelings, which in the long
term, I hypothesized, was the mark of actual fluency in a spoken language.
Indeed the level of
fluency that some students are able to attain in the time available is
painfully slow and tortured and only barely comprehensible. But whatever
progress is to be made in achieving fluency is up to the student. The
role of the teacher is to provide the language environment that permits
the student to try his wings, so to speak. The first requirement of the
language-learning environment is that it be in the language being
learned. (Wordell, 1985, p.174)
My only classroom rule,
one that was agreed to unanimously by my already overworked students, was
that more than fifty percent of the time they must speak English to either
myself or another student. The trick was to maintain this ongoing dialect
without using discipline. Personally, I empathize with the Japanese
English conversation teacher, who is tied down by his/her obligation to
the impending examination scores. I didn't ignore this fact completely,
only used a different approach. Students were in my class to develop and
perfect their English speaking abilities, so I concentrated on this task.
The more exposure they received to spoken English, the more they may have
grown to feel comfortable with the language. Their ears could become
accustomed to hearing English words, in different dialects, and most
important, they could begin to recognize their own errors in grammar and
pronunciation. Once they achieved this actualization, they could seek to
help other students that were lagging behind to correct their own mistakes
as well, and to do this, first they had to speak English correctly to
their classmates. The process became self-perpetuating.
A primary
responsibility of educators is that they not only be aware of the
general principle of the shaping of actual experience by environing
conditions, but that they also recognize in the concrete what
surroundings are conducive to having experiences that lead to growth.
Above all, they should know how to utilize the surroundings, physical
and social, that exist so as to extract from them all that they have to
contribute to building up experiences that are worth while. (Dewey,
1963, p.40)
Besides the principle
of continuity, Dewey believed that `the principle of interaction' was
equally as valuable in determining if an experience is truly educative.
According to him, it was not only the task to be learned, but the
conditions surrounding the situation in which the learner acquires the
task that are relevant to the degree in which genuine learning is
occurring. Dewey thought that since language is the tool by which we
exchange experiences, it must essentially be our primary vehicle for
socialization. The expression of ideas is by definition an interactive
process whereby we seek to identify with others. Therefore, language
should never be taught without interaction.
When it is taken away
from its natural purpose, it is no wonder that it becomes a complex and
difficult problem to teach language. Think of the absurdity of having to
teach language as a thing by itself. (Dewey, 1990, p.55)
If the language is not
taught in an environment where the communication of ideas and convictions
is the primary goal, then the ability to articulate spontaneously in that
language will not be developed. Moreover, according to Dewey, the
interactive learning environment duplicates the actual social setting
wherein true abilities may be put to their true test (Dewey, 1916).
d) Promoting a wide
variety of perspectives
There are two sides to
the justification for presenting an English conversation program through
diverse media. When teaching Japanese high school students, the first
problems may transpire if one encounters an overly fatigued class. My
final juku lesson begins at 8:00 p.m., just about the time when the
student's oppressive study schedule begins to take its toll on their
patience and attentiveness. When they're in this state at home, more often
than not, their mothers serve them hot coffee or tea, and one of a variety
of stamina tonics that are available over-the-counter in any Japanese
drugstore. These tonics contain high levels of caffeine and nicotine, as
well as anything from ginseng, to bull's blood and snake venom. I prefer
to serve them up a sensory cocktail that will not turn them into
chain-smokers or coffee-zombies in later life. To keep them alert and
interested in participating in the conversation it is important to change
the learning medium perhaps several times during the allotted study
period. It is up to the instructor to discern when the instruments of
learning must be altered, according to his or her assessment of the room's
ambience.
The other facet of this
varied contribution of media deals with creating in the students an
aptitude for adaptation to the many social realms where English may be a
useful spoken language. If they can understand English in any form, be it
written, spoken, screamed, sung or whispered, then they will be able to
make use of their own speaking proficiency to suit the situation. Also,
they will come in contact with tremendous variations in English accents,
intonations, lexicons, vernaculars and dialects, not to mention the
innovative terminologies that turn up as soon as a new technology is
invented or improved. Different professions use different vocabulary, such
as, a doctor, architect, engineer or lawyer. They have to be prepared for
the worst possible situation (a robbery for example) , one in which their
survival may be dependent on English comprehension (“Empty your pockets,
now!”) and to a degree, articulation (“Help! Police!”). At any rate,
native English speakers come from varied cultures and ethnic backgrounds.
There is a vast difference between Jamaican, Australian, Cockney,
Mississippian, maritime-Canadian and Hong Kong English speaking persons,
although the first language they learn is usually English. More often than
not, unless they listen very carefully they cannot understand each other.
Dewey writes that
varied perspectives must be made available to the student, so that he or
she can choose what is appropriate to make up their own educational
actuality. First, there are different types of personalities, for example,
the artistic, business oriented or scientifically geared student. For each
mind there must be an appropriate medium, which is to say, you can't fit a
square peg into a round hole. Try teaching the names of pro-wrestlers and
National Football League teams to a mixed group of girls and boys. The
boys love it, and are thrilled at the discovery of the English spelling
and pronunciation of their heroes' names; the girls are fidgety and bored,
several have their heads on the table, eyes half closed, and a few are
speaking privately to each other in Japanese. You'll be sure to see a
couple of boys falling asleep as well. Dewey has also remarked that
intelligence is the sum of our acquired habitual flexibility that allows
us to adjust to the myriad of circumstantial changes in order to promote
our concerns. Growth, as Dewey saw it, is the process of habitual
adaptation to these situations. Growth is the end of life, and education,
since it generates the habits that help the individual to grow all through
life, is an end in itself.
Habits take the form
of habituation, or a general and persistent balance of organic
activities with the surroundings, and of active capacities to readjust
activity to meet new conclusions. The former furnishes the background of
growth; the latter constitute growing. Active habits involve thought,
invention and initiative in applying capacities to new aims. They are
opposed to routine which marks an arrest of growth. Since growth is the
characteristic of life, education is all one with growing; it has no end
beyond itself. (Dewey, 1916, p.62)
The student must find
his or her special vocabulary with which ideas and feelings can be
communicated to the other classmates. It is also the vocabulary that,
according to their orientation, the student may make use of in a future
occupation or interest. Finally, by studying English conversation in many
different forms, the student will be able to adapt to almost any situation
once he or she finishes their schooling. This type of learning will
prepare them for a lifetime of speaking English as opposed to merely using
English to score high on an entrance examination. By the time Japanese
students reach their final year of high school, they are eighteen years
old, and in many ways, they have learned the essentials that they will
need to carry them through society. During the three years that make up
high school education, it is the responsibility of the educator to insure
that the process of learning is not left behind when the student leaves
the classroom and continues on into adulthood. According to Dewey,
Individuals differ
enormously in this stage, so much so that, in the latter stages of
schooling, the curriculum should be sufficiently differentiated for the
child to be able to learn only what is intrinsically congenial to him
... The suggestion is of continuity of growth in action. The task of the
teacher is to observe and help to maintain it and to refrain at all
times from breaking into it. (Boydson, 1991a, p.246)
e) Reconstructing
the curriculum to sustain its value
It has already been
established that the most useful mode of behavior for Japanese high school
students when attending classes is acquiescence to authority and
unpretentious acceptance of whatever the knowledge that must be learnt.
This type of timid deportment has no place in an English class where
speaking about oneself is the first step towards the mastery of
conversation. According to the students, they would rather be outside
camping, skiing, surfing, biking, or any other recreational activity that
can be enjoyed in a natural setting. But this too is impossible, except on
the rare occasion where we can organize an extracurricular field trip.
Students are motivated by their desire for the freedoms that cannot be
afforded them during this crucial period, hence, even the most introverted
youngster will find the necessary vocabulary and English expressions to
describe a school ski trip, visit to their grandparents country house or
an experience from elementary school like a nature walk. My city kids are
thrilled at the chance to bring in photographs from these occasions, in
fact, most of them keep several albums of pictures, and at a glance, the
observer cannot help but notice the gallimaufry of healthy smiling faces
among their group of friends and classmates. This is the type of
atmosphere that I try to maintain in my classroom, and even though I
cannot bring the mountains, forests and sea into the room, I can offer the
students a varied curriculum, based on environmental concerns, the
preservation of natural areas, and study of recreational activities.
To cover all these
areas in a meaningful way, it is necessary to use several textual
references, for example, one book on the summer Olympics, a cassette tape
and manual about ecology and conservation, newspaper articles from both
English and Japanese tabloids, and videotapes that deliver a message to
the students in dramatic form. We also do some role-playing using pictures
and photographs, which the students can describe as if the person or
situation concerned was themselves, a friend or family member, or a person
that they have just met. Of course, different groups are at different
levels of proficiency, and there are enormously varied capabilities
between the members of each class. Therefore it is important to try and
make the exercises as personal as possible, which can only be achieved
through an intimate knowledge of the students concerned. This is the
educator's challenge.
The pedagogical
problem is to direct the child's power of observation, to nurture his
sympathetic interest in characteristic traits of the world in which he
lives, to afford interpreting material for later more special studies,
and yet to supply a carrying medium for the variety of facts and ideas
through the dominant spontaneous emotions and thoughts of the child.
Hence their association with human life. (Dewey, 1990, p.141)
Another significant
source of meaningful learning can be drawn from multiculturalism, with
material that exposes the students to a variety of global ethnic
communities. There is no end to the availability of source material to
support this type of learning module. As the student discovers new facets
of living, he or she will be able to compare and contrast these cultures
with his or her own. The net result is an identification of their own
person with individuals from other ethnic backgrounds, and in this,
students can develop a reason for improving their English conversation as
a lifelong goal. The more curious they become regarding the world outside,
the more they long to interact with that world in order to gain a
more specific understanding of their own interests. They begin to develop
an international identification without even having to leave their
classroom, and the more bilingual they become, the better able they are to
fulfill their personal quest for global knowledge. Dr. Agnes Niyekawa, a
sociologist and linguist who has researched the use of English by Japanese
who reside in Hawaii, made the following observations in an article that
appeared in Mae Chu-Chang's Asian and Pacific American Perspectives in
Bilingual Education,
The flexibility of
being biliterate, bilingual and bicultural is not limited to the
cognitive domain but extends to general attitude as well ... The
monolingual monocultural person may assume that the values of one's
culture are universally shared by all human beings. In contrast, a
bilingual, bicultural person, being aware of the subtle differences in
the two cultures he or she is familiar with, is less likely to be
culture blind. The awareness of the relative nature of cultural values
seems to make it easier for a bilingual bicultural person to understand
and learn a third and fourth language and culture. In a nonhostile
environment, there appears to be a byproduct of having mastered two or
more languages and cultures. It is the mental capacity to deal with the
ambiguous, the unstructured with less anxiety and greater openness. In
other words, the biliterate, bilingual, bicultural person, especially in
two divergent languages and cultures like Western and Asian or Pacific,
not only has broadened his or her intellectual horizon but also has the
potential of growing personality to be more open and flexible.
(Chu-Chang, 1983, p.116)
I believe that the
preceding quote by Dr. Niyekawa illustrates the relevance that
Instrumentalism, as a science of education, has on the issue of
bilingualism for Japanese high school students. The importance of this
influence can be felt through the inquiring disposition that the students
develop as they progress along the course outline and the curriculum that
is offered to them. Rather than their previously exhibited blind
acceptance of the facts and figures that are fed to them by the school
system, they begin to question the accuracy of the material, which is not
surprising, for it exceeds by far the recognized boundaries of their past
experience. The school experience, in Dewey's view, either contributes to
forming habits that will be valuable to the students throughout their
lives, or simply, it does not.
The consequence of
formation of such habits is inability to control future experiences ...
How many students, for example, were rendered callous to ideas, and how
many lost the impetus to learn because of the way in which learning was
experienced by them? How many acquired special skills by means of
automatic drill so that their power of judgment and capacity to act
intelligently in new situations was limited? How many came to associate
the learning process with ennui and boredom? How many found what they
did learn so foreign to the situations of life outside the school as to
give them no power of control over the latter ... the trouble is not the
absence of experiences, but their defective and wrong character- wrong
and defective from the standpoint of connection with further
experience...It is not enough to insist on the necessity of experience,
or even of activity in experience. Everything depends on the quality of
the experience which is had. (Dewey, 1963, pp.26-27)
School can be a place
where students are prepared for facing any situation through the
development of intelligence, our critical medium of adaptation. By
simulating problematic situations which will appear whenever the mind
encounters unknown territory, the progressive school habituates the
student to adopting a problematic approach to overcoming the unfamiliar,
rather than fearing it. Perhaps this curiosity in the unknown is what
motivates the students to succeed in advancing through my program at a
quicker rate than their previous language classes and teachers
demonstrated. The instrumental approach to English conversation
amelioration may help to produce students that are self-motivated towards
improvement, for they are learning to pinpoint task-oriented goals from
within themselves, and are constantly being provided with variable
external conditions that provide active social challenges.
To Dewey, both
traditional and progressive education offer 'experiences' to each student.
The problem with the abilities acquired in the didactic milieu is that
they are arbitrary and disconnected from any of the activities that the
students may have to perform, to survive later on in their lives. To
rectify this problem, it is the teacher's task to provide a curriculum of
various participatory exercises that will help to prepare the students for
survival in a rather imperfect world, where flexibility, as opposed to
rigidity, is the indispensable and unique disposition of human integrity.
In the English conversation class, any learning mechanism that can be
utilized to replicate the authentic dialogue should be offered by the
instructor, and may prove to be an essential element in the determination
of the student's progress. Oral English teachers could include in the
student's curriculum: plays (that can be used in conjunction with
cassettes), novels on tape, and movie scripts that can be read by students
alternating with repetitive viewings of scenes from the respective film on
videotape. All of these sources can present problematic global issues to
students. As they begin to improve their English speaking abilities,
perhaps they will find that through their teacher's guidance, a new
vocabulary has empowered them with the necessary resolve to address these
problems. Rather than having students learn words strictly to grade higher
on entrance examinations, vocabulary can be relevant to pressing societal
issues, and help students to deal with the many perspectives that they
will approach in adult life as they will be entrusted with the maintenance
and reconstruction of their community. In Dewey's own words, “Standards or
guiding procedures of some kind are clearly necessary, if the notion of
active, flexible personality is not to be degraded to the level of the
unlovely jelly-fish (Boydston, 1991a, p.549).”,
In brief, all this
wide range of educational materials can be made to serve a common
purpose. They can be used to create both a need for a painstaking
reinterpretation or reconstruction of beliefs and attitudes, so as to
secure an integrated and coherent outlook or way of life, and also a
willingness to assume personal responsibility for this task of
reconstruction. (Ibid., P.556)
In the progressive
classroom, students are given the freedom to express their opinions,
dreams, goals and fears. High school students are mature enough to realize
that what they are being offered is not simply a chance to improve their
English speaking ability, but an opportunity to understand the world they
are a part of, so they may reach out become closer to it. They know that
speaking English feels good, and having the confidence to communicate with
people from other cultures gives these students a chance to exceed the
cultural borders of their own country and have the opportunity to
reconstruct and reform the world in a better way. This is a possible
application of Deweyian Instrumentalism on which the standards of a
progressive Japanese pedagogy could be modeled.
f) English
conversation as a vehicle of democratization
In Japan, the community
is the hub of all meaningful activity. Each person finds their own niche
accordingly, and their human value lies in the personal contribution that
they make to the maintenance of the whole of society. At present,
advancing up the social ladder is a reality for those individuals who can
graduate from the best universities only. The problem facing Japanese high
school student's is that university entrance exam grades are the sole
standard which determine the applicant's consideration and entry level
into esteemed Japanese corporations (for example, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, and
Sumitomo). Graduating from the Faculty of Law of Todai (Tokyo
University) is basically the only method by which one may be hired into a
managerial position in any of these companies, an accomplishment that
secures the social status of one's family and name. Hence the goal for
most parents is that their son receives a degree in International Law from
Tokyo Daigakku, and the whole childhood of their offspring becomes an
academic race towards this ambition.
In Japan there is still
little or no chance for those of the female gender to find a managerial
position in a large corporation, so many young women are opting for the
medical field. Medicine is the most respected profession in Japanese
society, but the hours and working conditions are both physically and
psychologically taxing. With a population of more than 100 million people,
most of whom are over fifty years old, Japanese hospitals are always
crowded. Because of this, a position at one of Todai's medical research
facilities is the most cherished and respected social level that a woman
can aspire to. Of course, these most respected institutions in Japan have
the responsibility of taking care of all of members in every sector of
society, since aneurysms and cancers are the country's number one and two
killers. Research to find the causes and possible cure for these diseases
is of foremost importance to the Japanese. As the average age of the
population ascends, the results of medical research becomes a matter of
national priority. (I.S.E.I.)
Although few students
can pass the two severe entrance examinations to Tokyo University, the
prospect is open to Japanese students who hail from any social sector.
Todai also happens to be one of the elite universities whose criteria for
acceptance insist that students' English hearing test results appear
within the 90's bracket, most other institutions require 80's or less.
English conversation courses are a two year prerequisite for graduation at
Todai, hence the value of graduating students to big business and
international medical research. In fact, the better one's spoken English
is, the more chance an individual has to eclipse the berth of one's peers
and be appointed to a higher office. In most large Japanese companies,
promotion, which means getting the chance to work in the International
Department, or at a branch office overseas, is determined by annual
English conversation skills examinations. There are many potential social
problems that may befall Japanese who achieve promotions to the latter
position, but these will be examined later on in this thesis. For now, it
is important to point out how important English fluency actually is, as
the core of social mobility for Japanese nationals. It is idiosyncratic
that the quintessential objective of this culture is being achieved by
only a handful of individuals, while the balance of society is encumbered
by the drudgery of meaningless bureaucratic tedium. According to Yushio
Tanaka in Japan As It Is, “Japanese children are probably the
world's hardest studying. This situation has spawned a whole industry of
special private tutoring schools called juku. You cannot get hired
by a good company unless you have graduated from a good university, which
you cannot get into unless you have graduated from a good high school,
which you...and so on with rigorous examinations at each level (Tanaka,
1992, p.131).” Tanaka further elaborated,
Academic credentials
are very important to succeeding in business in Japan. Not only is
graduation from one of the nation's top universities an important
consideration for anyone hoping to get hired by a big blue-chip company,
it is also important in climbing the corporate ladder. As the
competition for admission to the leading colleges and universities has
escalated, intense competition has developed for admission to better
high schools and even the more academic-oriented junior high and
elementary schools. The goal of all this fierce competition on entrance
examinations is to attain the lifetime security that goes with working
for a big company, but the extreme pressures this has generated has
distorted the educational process and sparked such major social problems
as school drop-outs and increased delinquency. As a result, a small
number of companies have decided disregard academic credentials in the
selection process. (Tanaka, 1992, p.229)
Although Tanaka's final
comment seems promising, the national university entrance examination
still holds a great power in determining the probable direction of most
Japanese high school student's futures (Sawa, 1991). The genesis of the
individual's resignation to the pencil pushing and desk work which is
characteristic of the typical Japanese salaryman or office lady can be
traced back to what may be characterized as a State manipulation of one of
their most creative periods in life, their high school years. Perhaps the
active English conversation class will serve as a relief from the fatuous
recitation and memorization that lend no genuine purpose to tangible
realities. Since most high school students will not be able to succeed in
getting high entrance exam scores, the only vocation that their studying
will have prepared them for will be sitting at a desk in an office and
writing figures in a book (Bonnaker, 1990). Although they will form the
important support staff for those lucky individuals who can create social
change, chances are their intellectual growth will stagnate, and the many
hours spent cramming and sweating over practice tests and textbooks will
have been wasteful. Dewey's instrumental view of education maintains that,
“the classroom is a kind of test-tube for social living (Boydston, 1991a,
p.541).” The Ministry
of Education, Science and Culture of Japan is currently trying to overhaul
the antiquated teaching practices of their pedagogy, and they may come to
realize, as Dewey had, that, “the important problem in education is to
fill education having a occupational direction with a genuinely liberal
content (Boydston, 1991b, p.259).” According to him,
When nature and
society can live in the classroom, when the forms and tools of learning
are subordinated to the substance of experience, then shall there be an
opportunity for this identification. (Dewey, 1990, p.62)
Dewey was adamant about
the school being the initial medium for the individual's introduction to
the only mode of living that promotes interactive communication:
Democracy. Japan's constitution and political configuration preserves the
democratic freedom of the citizens in society to have a free voice in the
control of their state. The Constitution also states that Japan will play
an active role in the advancement of peace among the nations of the world.
If Dewey were given the opportunity to consider these facts, perhaps he
would assert that Japan's institutions of education must be models for
Japanese society. Dewey believed that, school was responsible for
preparing students to participate in Constitutionally predicated
techniques of social interaction (Dewey, 1991a). Since, according to
Dewey, Democracy was the most conscientious state of affairs between
citizens and the state, school curriculum and methodology must reflect
this ideal (Dewey, 1990).
The great thing to
keep in mind, then, regarding the introduction into the school of
various forms of active occupation, is that through them the entire
spirit of the school is renewed. It has a chance to affiliate itself
with life, to become the child's habitat, where he learns through
directed living, instead of being only a place to learn lessons having
only an abstract and remote reference to some possible living to be done
in the future. It gets a chance to be a miniature community, an
embryonic society ... The aim is not the economic value of the products,
but the development of social power and insight. (Dewey, 1990, p.18)
The English
conversation course may be one of the last outposts of intellectual
freedom and creativity in the Japanese secondary school system. The
extraordinary problems that this raises for Japan's pedagogy can only be
justified if there exists no possible retort to the proposed evolution of
their educational design. If Japan is to continue to progress as a
democratic nation, escape the oblique equivocations of the entrance exam,
and respond to the international demand for economic and political
emancipation in order to face growing ecological concerns, high school
English conversation classrooms may have to become an area for the
development of transformational dialogue.
g) English
speaking Japanese and international relations
It is not unlikely that
as Japanese nationals improve their English conversational abilities, a
more intimate involvement in international relations by the private sector
may become evident. All Japanese are required to learn English as a second
language, but few are skilled enough in English conversation to be able to
communicate with Westerners or English speaking foreign visitors to their
country. The fact that Japan, a country that was leveled by the effects of
World War II, picked up her economy from a standstill in less than thirty
years, and is now a leading international economic power, still has
Western nations reeling. Only recently has Japan begun to feel the
pressure of global recession, although the Japanese have not been hit half
as hard as Canada, America, the E.E.C. or United Kingdom has. A reason for
this could be that the standard of living for the average Japanese (90% of
whom belong to the so-called `middle-class') trails behind that of Europe
and North America, although the nation's per-capita GNP is fourth in the
world among the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation's 24
top ranking countries (Buckley, 1990). On this basis, Japan overtook the
former Federal Republic of Germany to become the world's second largest
economic power. That was in 1968, and further trade surpluses resulted in
Japan succeeding the U.S.A. as the world's largest creditor nation in
1986. Still working hours and living standards may be considered to be
below par by Western standards (Bonnaker, 1990). Although the Japanese
government has begun to reverse its policy on imported goods, such as
manufactured items and agricultural products (to meet the needs of an
increasingly affluent society), the average Japanese worker still has more
working hours and less vacations than their European and North American
counterparts.
Japan is currently
working to redress its external imbalances as quickly as possible
through a steady process of structural adjustment toward an economy led
by domestic demand rather than exports. The Government is placing
special emphasis in this context on the expansion of domestic demand in
the categories in which Japan has lagged behind the advanced nations of
North America and Western Europe, particularly housing and
infrastructure. (I.S.E.I., 1989, p.42)
This nation has always
been able to function as a single body, and although the competitive
Japanese distribution network gives the impression that the country is
rocked with turmoil from within, it is precisely this dynamic system that
has helped to sustain their economic independence in the face of planetary
economic collapse. This strength may have made the Japanese a scapegoat
for envious developed nations who have not been able to fathom why Japan
has risen to such heights with a minimum of external diplomacy. Of late,
'Japan-bashing' has been a popular tool for accumulating voters in the
candidacy for America's presidential election. Japan's reaction to the
OPEC oil crisis of the 1970's was to withdraw from any political stance
that might put her own supply in jeopardy. In recent years she has begun
the process of reversing her policy, and has recently initiated
ground-breaking diplomatic links with Israel, a political move that would
have had dire consequences before the outcome of the Gulf-War. The process
is still a slow one, and political tempers are running hot.
The collapse of the
Japanese economic boom, which is known as the 'bursting of the bubble' has
not halted foreign corporations from seeking Japanese investment in
joint-economic projects. As a result of this confidence in the continuing
strength of the Japanese yen, more and more foreign people are heading for
the `Land of the Rising Sun' to seek economic opportunity. This presents
an unparalleled opportunity for the Japanese education system, as
increasing numbers of native Anglophones are available to teach English
conversation courses in Japanese high schools. The Japanese government has
already developed programs to promote this goal, some of which will be
discussed later on in this thesis. The chance for Japanese English
conversation teachers to study abroad, and by doing so, to ameliorate
their own spoken English is also being supported by the Government of
Japan (Ministry of Education, 1989).
English is an
international language of many dialects, none of which can claim to be
better than another. Some say that even Japanese English is due respect
rather than disdain. For practical reasons, one should try to learn to
speak the dialect or dialects that are most easily understood by
speakers of all the other dialects. But to be a truly international man,
one must be able to understand as many of the dialects as possible,
which skill can only come from listening to or engaging in conversation
with speakers of other dialects. For one's own fluency of expression, it
is sufficient to engage in conversation with anyone who can understand
the language. Being partial to a particular race or nationality is
undignified and unbecoming to someone hoping to become an
internationalist. (Wordell, 1988, p.178)
The democratic
environment of the classroom is an experiential stepping-stone for honing
their abilities to interact as free individuals in society, and as members
of a cooperative, communicating, and interactive international order. An
instrumental learning environment provides a paradigm for social
empowerment, which is not limited by national or ethnic boundaries, and,
according to Dewey, it is by far more fulfilling to the individual's
experience than didactic pedagogical traditionalism. Japanese live in a
democratic society, so the responsibility for pedagogical reform may not
be solely contingent on politically initiated reforms, but should also be
supported by the cooperative voice of individuals in society. According to
Dewey, economic needs dictate that individuals become more directly
involved in this task. These views have already found acceptance in
Japanese educational policy, and continue to be relevant for possible
reforms (Kobayashi, 1964).
We cannot blame our
Government or any other government for not instituting new policies as
long as the people themselves are engaged in the futile task of
identifying patriotism with isolation, and trying to obtain independence
without regard to the interdependence that now exists. It is for us, the
people, first to develop a genuine cooperative spirit and sense of the
mutual interests that bind the nations of the world together for weal or
woe — and at the present time so largely for woe. The principle of good
neighborliness is as fundamental in international matters as in the
village or city. The principle has now ceased by force of events to be
simply an ethical ideal. It has become an economic necessity. (Boydston,
1991a, pp.263-64)
With all these
international pressures bearing down on the Japanese, the primary concern
abides in entrance examination scores. Although academic achievement test
scores in English grammar are higher in Japan than most other nations,
most Japanese are still helplessly incapable of communicating with people
from other countries (Bonnaker, 1990; Ota, 1981). Until the rest of the
world learns the Japanese language, Japanese citizens who desire to become
more internationally minded may be obliged to improve their basic English
language conversation abilities. If the Japanese pedagogy wishes to
succeed in achieving this, they will have to uproot the structural
shortcomings that past developments in Japan's history of English teaching
have established, which are currently being maintained by the university
entrance examination system.
h) English
fluency as a common national interest in Japan
I have seen in the
Japanese a true desire to understand styles of living that are foreign to
their own. This is not merely a reflection of their financial autonomy,
but it seems to me, to be an honest curiosity and an expression of the
desire to become a more complete international person. Many adults are
discovering the learning of English conversation as an enjoyable hobby or
pastime, and I sincerely hope that this spirit of emancipation can find
its way into secondary education in the near future. I also believe that
because the Japanese people are highly educated as a result of their
twelve to sixteen years of intensive education, they are constantly
seeking more challenging information, and when the domestic contingencies
for the availability of this material become exhausted, they begin to look
elsewhere in pursuit of new intellectual
frontiers.
The Japanese appear to
be avid readers and concentrate extensively on reading about other ethnic
societies in books, magazines and comics. It seems that if they lack the
benefits for corporeal travel, they content themselves with the cerebral
journey that is distinguished by the written word, an all but extinct
medium in Western society. The grueling years of secondary education mold
the Japanese into perfect model citizens, on the whole, who are not only
polite and thrifty, but are not afraid of hard work. They will do
everything in their power to insure the proper education for their own
children, but they are also under great quantities of stress (Buckley,
1990; Duke, 1986). Perhaps to improve their children's chances of
scholarship and partly to enhance their own literacy, learning to speak
English has developed into a national past-time for countless numbers of
Japanese adults (Bonnaker, 1990). The government, recognizing the growing
need for a two to three year English conversation program at the high
school level, has begun to emphasize the multicultural and international
merit of study abroad programs for both secondary students and teachers
(Ministry of Education, 1989).
Paulston (1977) in
examining the relationship between bilingual education programs and
students, self-concepts concludes that `bilingually taught children
showed self-concepts as positive as—and more often, more positive
than—monolingually instructed pupils'. Studies that measured students'
bicultural attitudes also found them to be more positive than earlier
after two-to-three years of bilingual instruction. An Asian or Pacific
person in an English-speaking country is all the more likely to have a
more positive self-concept and identity if bilingual and biliterate than
if monolingual. Being biliterate means having gone through an arduous
process to become so, and ... a state thus achieved will not be taken
lightly ... Such a person can serve as the link, the
translator-interpreter between the two peoples. It is exactly
individuals with these abilities who are in increasing demand in this
interdependent world. (Chu-Chang, 1983, pp.114-15)
In Japanese culture,
the obligations of the social order are present in the everyday lives of
the people. All interactions are determined by the interrelations of the
subjects, and the basic values of etiquette, politeness and respect are
built-in to social behavior in ways that one would never bear to witness
in the West. Actually, it is so natural for people to act this way that
they don't realize it; after all, it is their culture. Automaticity of
daily rituals is common.
Japan is famous for
recycling more than 70% of its trash. People separate burnable and
non-burnable items into garbage bags, and put these outside on different
days of the week. I remarked to a group of students about how impressive
this was, and how it contrasts with recycling habits in other countries.
They were shocked. They had never even given this action any
consideration. Furthermore, they had absolutely no clue as to the purpose
for separating their trash this way. Through the discussion that followed
on the ethics of ecology and conservation, the students came to a
realization that infused their routine comportment with substantive
significance. They began to identify their actions with the meaning for
these, something that will never be forgotten. Furthermore, this complete
exercise was done in English, hence, the vocabulary and expressions
learned would be inexorably imputed in the student's memory, without pain
or pressure, and would continue to have social import, since this material
is associated with the everyday actions of all members of the student's
culture. It is in this realm that the merit of amalgamating democracy and
education becomes clear. In the words of John Dewey,
As far as school
education is a part of the required practical means, educational theory
or philosophy has the task and the opportunity of helping to break down
the philosophy of fixation that bolsters external authority in
opposition to free cooperation. It must contest the notion that morals
are something wholly separate from and above science and scientific
method. It must help banish the conception that the daily work and
vocation of man are negligible in comparison with literary pursuits, and
that human destiny here and now is of slight importance in comparison
with some supernatural destiny. It must accept wholeheartedly the
scientific way, not merely of technology, but of life in order to
achieve the promise of modern democratic ideals. (Boydston, 1991b,
p.275)
3. Summary
Ideas put forth by John
Dewey can help to pinpoint to an extent the social relevance of teaching a
two or three year English conversation program to Japanese high school
students, in particular, the justification of using a value laden
curriculum and interactive environment to achieve the goal of English
fluency. By offering the student's a hands-on approach to learning, their
quality of experience will help the to acquire the necessary skills that
are requirements in order to communicate using the English language in a
genuine situation.
Teaching English
conversation by using a variety of resources which are based on real-life
global and social concerns imparts to the students a vocabulary that will
remain useful for the duration of their lives, and will help them to
effectively transform the world they live in. Interactive, Instrumental
and Progressive Education is a precursor for the student's adult existence
in the democratic realities of Japanese society, and the global community,
so attitudes and conduct can be identified that will aid in the student's
pragmatic growth and survival. Since the Central Council on Education was
formed by Japan's Ministry of Education in 1967, they have been the prime
source of progressive educational reform throughout the 1970's and 80's.
According to Rhodes Scholar Leonard James Schoppa, the CCE has been the
Ministry of Education's,
...premier advisory
organ to deliberate on basic guidelines for the development of an
integrated educational system suited for contemporary society (Schoppa,
1991, p.172).
Between 1973 and 1978,
the ministry's Educational Curriculum Council evaluated the CCE's
proposals and put forth a set of their own reforms,
The final reforms,
introduced as a series of alterations to the curriculum, emerged from
this extended process. [Their] emphasis on 'education with room to enjoy
it' actually reflects the teacher's union's concerns about the pressures
of 'examination hell'. The bulk of these changes introduced in the new
curriculum were designed to lessen these pressures by reducing the
amount of material students were forced to learn under curricular
guidelines. The final curriculum package provided for a 20 to 30 percent
reduction in curriculum and a 10 per cent cut in the hours of academic
instruction...The reduction in the amount of material and number of
courses high school students were required to study was supposed to
provide them with flexibility to pursue a greater diversity of
specialized courses. Although this relaxation in rules did lead to some
increase in choice in upper secondary schools, however, the level of
specialization actually achieved in the schools was not greatly
enhanced. The large majority of academic high schools continued to list
more than the thirty-two credits as required. More significantly,
however, was the fact that many subjects not listed as required were
effectively mandatory. English, for example, was not listed as required.
Nevertheless, because it was on the university entrance exam, virtually
every high school student continued to study it - most for three years.
(Ibid., pp.205-206)
Progressive reforms
recommended by government organizations and committees have had only
nominal effects on the day to day lives of Japanese high school students.
Boards of education still have the right to refuse recommendations
suggested by the Ministry of Education based on current university
entrance examination requirements, hence, instrumental changes have been
stymied for the last twenty years. As a result, English conversation
classes have suffered, to a large degree, due to their insignificance when
applied towards admission to post-secondary educational institutions.
Although Japan's constitution is based on democratic freedom, Confucian
standards continue to influence social life to a large degree, for it is
through identification with responsibility to higher authorities that the
average Japanese may realize their aspirations and goals. Nevertheless,
this thesis makes the claim that Japanese achievements in scholastic
reform based on Dewey's philosophy have made important contributions to
the democratization of teaching standards and curriculum in Japanese high
schools. According to the research and sources cited in this thesis,
Instrumentalism has impacted on the Japanese pedagogy in both positive and
negative directions. In the following sections, I will attempt to
determine to what extent Dewey's ideas have been and may continue to be
appropriate in the evolution of Japanese pedagogical reorganization.
Chapter 2: Part Two
Dewey's
limited impact on school reform in Japan
1. Introduction
The progressive
approach to education has enjoyed a wide influence in developed nations
across the globe. Dewey had a hand in forming the national system of
education in the United States, and his educational philosophy continues
to be the predominant interest for American pedagogy and administrators.
Although Dewey originated the rationale and justification for the
compulsory nine year educational program, both in the U.S.A. and Japan
(from the Occupation period onwards), the Japanese pedagogy has been able
to teach a great deal more to their students in this period and they do
not have the grave discipline problems that American schools have had to
face in recent years (Rohlen, 1983). Although in 1951, MacArthur's Supreme
Command of Allied Powers claimed to have decentralized the Japanese
education system (Baltz, 1965), the Ministry of Education, Science and
Culture of the Government of Japan has been able to retain singular
control over school curriculum through its maintenance of the National
University Entrance Examination, and its key resource, the Course
of Study.
This study has already
shown that Dewey's instrumental approach to teaching may be of great value
when borne on the task of developing English conversation abilities in
Japanese high school students. In the following section I will briefly
examine the shortcomings of Instrumentalism when applied to the unique
cultural circumstances that predicate Japanese society, and in particular,
I will establish to what extent progressive methodologies have contributed
to Japanese educational reform. I will attempt to pinpoint the areas where
Dewey's philosophy could not be implemented and offer a rationale for why
it was impractical for Japanese educators to attempt such reforms.
i. The lack of a
uniform national educational system
Japan's national system
of education is based on both the Liberal Democratic government's Ministry
of Education, which diligently selects a corporate-oriented curriculum for
schools to use, and the left-wing Teachers Union, which represents the
voice of the pedagogy and is supposed to promote more democratic and
progressive educational standards. As a result of this ideological split,
exceptional determination for the organization of schools rests on
municipal administration's 'Prefectural Office of Education' . Since each
independent ward is made up of a mixed bag of political beliefs, the
disposition of that region's school entrance examinations may differ
drastically. Furthermore, American instituted educational changes, being
alien to Japanese culture, were all but eliminated during the 1950's, and
in their place, a powerful array of private schools began to spring up,
which in recent days, have become more autonomous than ever. During the
years previous to World War II, Dewey aired hopeful aspirations for
Japan's pedagogy, but could not deny that rather than having the national
character that America's system exhibits, Japanese education was
traditionally `nationalistic' . Dewey wrote an article for Social
Frontier magazine in 1935, Towards a National System of
Education, in which he explained his definition of this:
There is a
fundamental difference between a national and a nationalistic system,
and we must face the issue of whether we can have one without growing
sooner or later into the other. By a nationalistic system, I mean one in
which the school system is controlled by the Government in power in the
interest of what it takes to be welfare of its own particular national
state, and of the social-economic system the Government is concerned to
maintain. The school systems of Japan, Italy, the U.S.S.R. and now
Germany, define better what is meant by `nationalistic' education than
will any abstract descriptions. (Boydston, 1991a, p.357)
Although the Japan
Teachers Union tirelessly campaigns for a decrease in the pecuniary lean
of the meritocratic hierarchy, often onto the steps and through the front
doors of Japan's Diet building, the Ministry of Education still controls
school curriculum, and as each year passes, national examinations for
university entrance become increasingly mathematically and scientifically
oriented. The reason for the inability of progressive movements to have a
genuine effect on Japanese high schools is that the institutions of
Japanese culture have not the same national identity as those in Western
nations. According to Kobayashi (1976), there is no need for a uniform
national education system, because there already exists a countrywide
orderliness. In 1949, Frederick M. Kerlinger wrote Techniques of
Democracy, which reviewed the remolding of Japanese education by the
Occupation. He alleged that not only the education system, but as well the
attitudes of the people had changed from authoritarian to democratic
(Baltz, 1965, p.106). On paper, the Supreme Command for Allied Powers
Education Division could easily prove this, for according to their study,
Prior to World War
II, the fundamental aim of Japan's educational system was to
indoctrinate their youth with ideals dedicated to making them useful
servants of the State, and of society. The welfare of the individual was
secondary to that of the State. By 1944, the national government had
almost unlimited control of the public education system of the nation.
Occupation officials proceeded to decentralize both the
government and the education system of Japan. Decentralization of
education was legally accomplished by 1949, resulting from a series of
laws passed by the Diet. (Ibid.)
In the pre-Taisho Eras,
Imperial edict generated collective national identity. Perhaps the
Education Division of SCAP overlooked the fact that Japanese national
unity was already manifest in meeting the standards of university entrance
examinations. The challenge presented by these tests parallels ancestral
rites of passage and behavioral axioms, and their elimination may have
been purposely ignored by the Occupying authorities. Hence, one basis for
the adversity to justifying compulsory oral English programs for Japanese
high school students is deep rooted Meiji Era, and even Confucian
educational philosophies, which run concurrent with modern societal
realities. Kobayashi asserts that,
A fundamental
difficulty of Deweyian progressivism was that public education in Japan
had been conceived from an early period as being wholly and ultimately
for the good of the state. The Meiji oligarchs had been united in their
faith in the power of education to transform society; education as a
means for creating a moral society had been a part of their Confucian
tradition. With Japan threatened by foreign domination, they made
education an integral element in their program of building a unified and
strong nation. The nationalistic motivation for establishing schools on
an unprecedented mass scale had democratic implications in so far as
schools enabled more individuals to realize their potentialities of
growth in a wider area of choices, as well as to expand their familial
and provincial concerns into a larger, national concern. All these
consequences were liberating, but the aims were basically undemocratic,
since the growth of the individual was a means, rather than an end.
Education was primarily to make him a loyal and useful subject.
(Kobayashi, 1964, p.100)
ii. The difficulty
in selecting qualified oral instructors
The principal of the
prep school where I teach told me that twenty years ago, she and a large
group of bilingual English teachers petitioned the Ministry of Education
to make English conversation courses compulsory in Japanese high schools.
The Ministry created a bill which was introduced to the Diet for debate.
When the Teacher's Union caught wind of this, they pressured the
Opposition parties to form a coalition in contest to that bill. She said
that Japan's English teachers panicked, and threatened to strike if they
were forced to instruct their classes in the English language. The
coalition succeeded in vetoing the bill, and that was the last time the
issue has arisen. She believes that since entrance exams have become
increasingly difficult since that period, Japan's English teachers are
less capable to teach oral English now, than they were then. Dewey's
influence in Japanese education, on a political level, may still have
significance in this area, for unless Boards of Education can offer
positive input regarding the skills that characterize a high school
English teacher, Japanese students will never partake fully of the
benefits that learning a second language has to offer.
In union is strength,
and without the strength of union and united effort, the state of
servility, of undemocratic administration, adherence to tradition, and
unresponsiveness to the needs of the community, that are pointed out in
the same document, will persist. And in the degree in which they continue,
teachers will of necessity fail in the special kind of productive work
that is entrusted them. (Boydston, 1991a, p.161)
The ability of the
private sector to set educational policy, which was generated to offset
nationalistic prerogative, has not been able to contend with the
omnipotent examination system to this day, and will not succeed in
promoting progressive education until this system can be eliminated or
circumvented. Even though 95% of middle school students succeed in being
accepted, and graduating from a high school of some kind (Rohlen, 1983),
it might take four or five years before they can succeed in scoring high
enough on the entrance examination for the university of their choice.
Therefore many students are enrolling in English speaking colleges, in
Japan and abroad, for the two year period that it will take them improve
their conversation level to the point where they can pass the Test for
Oral English as a Fluent Language or TOEFL. After this shorter study
period they can score high enough on that fluency test to be accepted into
an American or Canadian University, which they can graduate from after
three years and catch up with their peers at home. These students usually
have difficulty entering Japanese companies because they have not
graduated from a recognized Japanese university. It is difficult, if not
impossible, for them to get teaching positions in the field of English
conversation because they are not Caucasian (Ibid.). Prefectural
guidelines for the hiring of English teachers (grammar and reading) are
quite standard, whereas pre-established requirements may or may not exist
for high school teachers of oral English, depending on the ward.
Still, for high school
students who choose traveling to a foreign country to improve their second
language skills as an alternative to studying in Japan, the number one
choices remain as Canada and the U.S.A., where English is predominantly
spoken.
According to the
Ministry of Education's 1989 Outline of Education in Japan, in 1987, 53.8
per cent of Japanese high school students studying abroad participated in
educational programs in the North American region, which amounted to
30,908 students out of a total of 57,484 individuals (Ministry of
Education, Science and Culture, 1989, p.69). From this figure the MOE's
report deliberated that, “In order that students may increase their
international understanding and improve their proficiency in a foreign
language, it is of significance for them to experience a school life or a
home stay abroad while in the upper secondary school age (Ibid.).”
In this context, with
a view to contributing to better mutual understanding and cooperation
with other countries, the Japanese government is actively undertaking
activities for educational exchange and cooperation with other countries
through Unesco, OECD and other international organizations. The
government is also strengthening a variety of bilateral programs,
including those for exchange of students, teachers, educational leaders
and others. (Ibid., p.67)
Furthermore, other than
the seeking out of residents of Japan who possess a passport from an
English speaking country, there are few options available to the Japanese
pedagogy in their quest for second-class, i.e. oral English instructors.
In order of priority these nations can be defined as, Canada, Australia,
New Zealand, Britain and America. This presupposes discrimination on the
Japanese part, by Western standards, but in reality, there is no other
method available to school administrators who cannot even determine the
fluency of members of their own society. The `de-conversationalized'
aspect of high school English courses forms the logic for the employment
of non-functional English teachers of Japanese origin, and for the
importation of inexperienced, English speaking foreigners through programs
such as JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) and Working/Holiday. The MOE
claims that these programs were introduced,
In order to help
improve teaching of English in secondary schools and to increase mutual
understanding between Japanese and foreign peoples. (Ibid., p.71)
Conversely, Laurence M.
Wag, who has been a teacher of oral English in Japanese schools since
1979, gives his opinion on why foreign teachers are hired into the
Japanese high school system,
A foreigner is likely
to be hired to teach English at a senior high school to enhance the
school's prestige, especially in its competition with other schools for
qualified students. For this purpose, a foreign teacher who looks
racially different from most Japanese people is likely to be given
preference over other applicants. A foreigner on the faculty makes life
interesting for all concerned, and a number of students are probably
made more aware of their `Japaneseness'. (Wordell, 1985, p.63)
As English conversation
has no value in the Japanese examination system, there has been no
justification of late for the necessity of Japanese English teachers to be
bilingual. Foreign teachers are seen as token `gaijin', or international
decorations on the educational cake (Wordell). According to the principal
of the prep school where I teach, there can be no positive change in the
system, like the adoption of an English fluency test, until the unilingual
old-guard retires, which according to their average age, she predicts,
shall occur within the next ten years. It is then up to the Japanese to
make the important modifications, that will encourage English speaking
members of their ethnic group to seek employment as English teachers in
both public and private high schools.
iii. Entrance
examinations have no oral English section
Dewey can have no
lasting meaning to the Japanese pedagogy because his theory of
Instrumentality cannot be applied to English language education. The
reason for this is that both high school and university entrance
examinations have no English conversation section. The academic dualities
and detachments that this maintains have no equal in any other society
where English is learned as a second language (Beauchamp, 1978, 1991;
Duke, 1986; Sawa, 1991). Within the school system itself, there are no
standardized tests that can be used to evaluate student's progress in oral
English, even in schools where English conversation is taught. The burden
for this falls on each individual teacher. Due to the size of classes and
of the lack of motivation on the part of the students, learning more than
the basics of pronunciation is not a practical goal, hence oral
examination is unnecessary. The Japanese government is really only
concerned with maintaining the country's edge in the field of technology,
and this fact, according to sociologist Merry White, renders
postindustrial Japanese society as defective,
because the corporate
and other hierarchies that produced a high level of competitive effort
during a period of rapid expansion are now stagnant and merely
reproducing themselves. Put another way, the tightly structured
relationship between the hierarchies means the creative use of talent is
not possible. (White, 1987, p.174)
With Japanese
expansion, one would think that the kikoku shijo, children who have
lived outside Japan when their fathers were posted abroad by their
companies, would have a great deal of opportunity and respect once they
return to study in Japanese schools, being internationalists. In reality,
they have been left behind academically, and in may cases are considered
to have forgotten the manners and etiquette that forms the sociocultural
definition of Japanese identity. These students can speak English and
would do very well on any fluency examination. Furthermore, they would be
invaluable as tutors for their classmates, considering the student/teacher
ratio at most schools. Finally, they are pragmatic realities for the
Ministry of Education, for they are the product of the elite sector of
Japanese society, those who have the skills to direct foreign trade, and
should be considered as far more advanced from utilitarian perspective.
Nevertheless, in most cases, they have less use to Japanese society than
even the foreigner does, for their is no category where they can fit in,
in Japan's harmonious stratification.
Rather than trying to
harness whatever talents and skills the children may have acquired
overseas, the ministry of education (sic) and the foreign ministry have
responded to the anxieties of parents by establishing `reentry'
programs: classes and schools to `reintegrate' these children to
Japanese life. So while the talk of reform insists on the importance of
global views and skills for Japanese children, the stigma attached to
cosmopolitism continues to plague the `accidental' international child.
(Ibid., p.175)
Dewey, who was a strong
advocate of both Internationalism and individuality in education, still
continues to have a great affect on Japanese pedagogy in an ideological
sense. Parents of students must usually give up their dream for their
child to become a member of an international community, in order to face
the acerbic actuality of entrance examinations. Dewey believed that
schools alone were not responsible for the progressive development of the
child's intelligence (Dewey, 1990) and his public advancement of this
opinion generated the parent interest groups that came to be known as
Parent Teacher Associations. Among the Occupation period changes
instituted by the Americans was the installation of the mechanism for
P.T.A.'s in each prefectural ward. These bodies are presently functioning
as a forum where the aggravated parents of jukensei (students
studying for entrance examinations or juken) may voice their
concern to representatives of their municipal office of Education.
The Japanese high
school years are defined by a fixed set of incontestable realities
centering on the exam system. The path is straight and narrow. Students
stick more closely to family and school. Choosing not to study hard is
severely penalized. A culture of diligence results in acceptance rather
than experimentation and is oriented to external, not internal
realities. Diligence means outward conformity to the system, persistence
in the pursuit of its goals, and significant self-denial. To Japanese,
these are crucial aspects of maturity. Dewey, one assumes, would be
disappointed. (Rohlen, 1983, pp.315-16)
There is no interest in
integrating English conversation with the examination system, as the
individual concern for the significance of learning English does not run
concurrent to its articulation.
iv. Native English
teachers in Japanese high schools
The Japanese that I
have spoken with have expressed their opinion to me that North American
English is easier to understand than the Queen's English, which they
believe, includes both Aussie and Kiwi, the English dialects of Australia
and New Zealand respectively. It is probable that, if an individual
receives enough exposure to a dialect, then its comprehension will follow
unequivocally. The explicit exposure that most Japanese receive to spoken
English is by way of their television sets. The visitor to Japan will note
that, as previously mentioned, many commercials use North American English
partially or in their entirety. Furthermore, since American trends figure
strongly in Japanese culture, the American and, by geographical
association, Canadian dialects are of exceeding importance to Japanese who
aspire towards bilingualism. Dewey insists that the aim of education must
not be external to its process. Japanese high school education may be
characterized by memorization of facts and equations and compliance with a
senior's authority. In the life of the Japanese adult, expertise in these
activities increases corporate endurance value, that is to say, how well
one will fit in (Bonnaker, 1990; Sawa, 1991). Dewey intended this
methodology to be applied towards democratic strategies of education, to
be used in democratic societies. The Japanese experience of high school
education, as well as their corporate vicissitudes are strictly
meritocratic, so the Japanese pedagogical application of Dewey's
Instrumental learning approach digresses from his original intentions. R.S
Peters echoes this view in the following comments,
The analysis both of
'aim' and 'education' should reveal the inappropriateness of conceiving
of an aim of education as some end extrinsic to education which
education might lead up to or bring about. On this general point I am
very much in agreement with Dewey ... Aims can also relate to principles
immanent in procedures of education, such as freedom and individual
self-origination ... The justification of principle is one thing: their
application in concrete circumstances is another. (Peters, 1973,
pp.27-9)
Another point is that
since Dewey's educational philosophy stems from liberal thought and ideas,
educators who are familiar with his curriculum have already attempted
educational reforms in Taisho Japan, which failed due to government
military pressures (Aso, 1972; Kobayashi, 1964). Would a progressively
oriented be able to effectuate a great deal of openness in today's
Japanese high school, where the freedom of thought and ideas is not
encouraged? Perhaps a
movement towards examination deregulation could inaugurate an exponential
improvement in the use of English in everyday life on many levels of
Japanese society, as memorization of English grammar could be replaced by
conversation classes. The unfortunate factuality is that although in
theory, the Japanese Ministry of Education (1989) claims that high schools
are ready for such monumental reforms, in reality, the examination system
may still bolster didactic teaching methods.
Elementary and
secondary education placed stress only on the percentages, the odds of
success in passing tests for admission to a higher-division school and
then to college. There has been no training in real debate that enables
the students to construct their own opinions and clearly explain their
views ... students are taught to learn set formulas by rote instead of
being encouraged to do original thinking and experimentation. (Sawa, The
Japan Times, 1991)
The previous comment by
Kyoto University's Professor Takamitsu Sawa is a commonplace attitude
among academics, who frequently voice their objections to the system they
are a part of in newspaper articles and 'letters to the editor' of
prominent publications. Nevertheless, quality educators are being lured
away from positions in Japanese high schools by the superior salaries of
the corporate sector. The Japan Teachers Union does not consider
foreigners as apropos members, and most schools don't even require final
grades for conversation classes (Wordell. 1985). So the system, once again
perpetuates its own losses. Those North American university graduates who
would be potential candidates for English conversation instructors usually
reconsider, since “the salary is less than half that of a bank employee .”
(Sawa, 1991)
The North Americans
that end up teaching in Japanese schools usually don't have the
credentials that are required to enter the corporate sector, and until
recently, college certificates were not even a prerequisite. Hence quality
instructors are rare, and the gap must be filled by Japanese nationals,
otherwise oral language courses shall remain at a practically nonexistent
level in secondary institutions. Perhaps there is a misunderstanding by
those who are responsible for creating national university entrance
examinations at Japan's Ministry of Education that English is must be
assimilated grammatically and syntactically, and can this can be achieved
without any reliance on oral comprehension. If this is true, it may be at
the root of the lack of importance in teaching English conversation to
Japanese high school students. According to Niyekawa, “One of the
misleading basic assumptions of the generative paradigm is that language
is a logical system rather than a cultural phenomenon (Chu-Chang, 1983,
p.3).”
Asians trying to
acquire English as a second language, (should be) concentrating on
pragmatics and the speaker's world view, since pragmatics and world
views are not always logical and consistent, we will inevitably find
idiosyncrasies in an account of the structure of a language
(Ibid., pp.19-20).
The importance of this
last point is apropos to the problems Japanese high school students have
in speaking English. Dewey asserted that the educative experience must be
instilled with real-life issues. Japanese students of English may never
reach their true potential to utilize English this language unless quality
educators are able to associate learning tasks with the global
communication of particular ideological trends. These trends deal with new
vocabularies and concepts that are constantly changing the face of modern
English, and empower educated individuals to gain access to data regarding
transcontinental phenomena. At the time of writing this, Japan stands at
the threshold of the Twenty-first Century, and the paradigms of Freedom
and Ecology have begun to replace 'scientific progress for fiscal gains'
as the government deliberates on educational reform in a national
recession. Japanese families should not be obliged to undergo radical
changes in their lifestyles in order that English conversation become a
core subject. High school students, though, have the right to understand
what the ability to communicate with other nations entails, and in this
way, they may be able to make future political choices for themselves and
their own children; choices that may affect Japaneseness in synergy
with the world we all must share. According to the Asian Cultural Centre
for Unesco, Tokyo, Japan's current educational reforms most fundamental
idea's are,
firstly, to carry out
actively the transition to a lifelong learning system, secondly, to
develop educational programs in which emphasis will be placed on
individuality, and thirdly, to make our education system cope with such
changes as internationalization and computerization. (Ministry of
Education, Science and Culture. Government of Japan, 1989, p.78)
v. Dewey's utopian
approach to pedagogical methodology
In Dewey's
Progressivism, the dichotomy of the practical being compliant with the
theoretical is constantly being rebutted. This method is used to support
his assertion that individuals must derive meaning from social
interaction. Dewey asserted that democracy was the social condition in
which interaction between individuals could best be encouraged, hence, the
cultural value of an educational experience should be based on the degree
to which it maintained the exigencies of affiliated living.
Instrumentalism is
based on Dewey's theory of learning. He asseverates that any means by
which the acquisition of habits that upgrade the individual's ability to
survive in their society occurs, is moral. The intellectual activity of
learning, forms habits that aim at solving problems, therefore, according
to him, intellectual growth = advanced problem solving ability. Dewey's
philosophical assertion was that there can be no truths in themselves,
only `warranted assertions', which are claims that can only be validated
by the degree in which they are beneficial to the attainment of some
objective. Craig C. Howard contends that,
Progressivism grounds
itself in Dewey's naturalism, in his theory of instincts, habits and
intelligence, which translates itself uncritically into the acquisitive
and instrumentally oriented ideology of growth. There is no point in
Dewey's thought from which we can determine the difference between
growth and decay. In that respect he is naively optimistic concerning
the fortunes of human development in the twentieth century. (Howard,
1991, p.104)
Howard asserted that
Dewey was naive because he did not examine the connection between
instrumentality and morality. His philosophy was too wholesome and too
optimistic for social realities that also must be contended with. This
rings true not only for attempts to apply Deweyian educational reforms in
Japanese society, but in any contemporary educational setting. Moreover,
his influence may have only perpetuated the problems in Japan's 20th
Century school system, because Dewey's concept of learning was influenced
by the progressive views at the turn of the 19th Century. Taken literally,
Instrumentalism circumscribed learning to an adaptation for social life,
and curriculum had to have practical aims. In lieu of his leverage on
Japanese education, intuitive learning strategies (especially in the realm
of English instruction) are basically obscure. In this way, Dewey's
influence may have contributed to the importance of the university
entrance examination, which is the foundation in which this thesis claims
that high school Oral English programs have been neglected: Japanese
university entrance requirements conceive of pragmatic erudition as
determined by its significance to technological progress, and English
conversation abilities are on the periphery of the scientific domain.
vi. The Pedagogical
incongruity of Japan and North America
Why has Deweyian
educational philosophy failed to sustain democratic learning environments
in Japanese high schools, even though it is associated with former
Japanese educational reforms? To deliberate a solution to this problem,
three educational systems must be briefly surveyed. These systems all
occur in political environment's similar to Japan's, that is to say,
Liberal Democracies. Hence, in a very basic sense, Instrumentalism contends that the educational
values of these programs may be similar to those entrenched in the
Japanese educational system. Let us determine if this is so.
Educators in America,
Britain and Canada have written a great deal about their own education
systems. With the growth of the British middle class, education has now
become a means to acquire social advancement. The mastery of technical
skills qualifies the student for entry into elite institutions, which in
turn improves the chances of social mobility by being hired into the upper
ranks of large institutions. Finally, the average student is drawn from
the children of increasing ranks of salaried, white-collar workers, who
value education as the route to possible vocational advancement.
Graduation from the ultimate institutions of learning, Oxford and
Cambridge, has been the dominant criterion that could guarantee a top
corporate position.
Educational
credentials have become a key currency in the competition for
life-chances. For employers, they signify a certain level of competence,
and at the higher levels, of prior socialization into managerial and
professional attitudes. For potential employees they offer some passport
to privileged occupational positions. The growth of state bureaucracies
from the late nineteenth century onwards has been similar in its effects
to the bureaucratization of the private corporation, in creating an
increasing demand for certified manpower. The modernization of the
higher civil service, with its examination-based, predominantly Oxbridge
entry, occurred at the beginning of the modernization and expansion of
the universities. (Rustin, 1986, p.35)
If the British
meritocratic system seems familiar, it is probably because, as previously
examined in Chapter One of this thesis, Japanese pedagogy and politicians
of the Meiji Era travelled abroad to study foreign education systems in
order to set standards for their own, which they themselves were in the
process of establishing. The American model for education has been, and
continues to be the Declaration of Independence which guarantees
the sovereign rights of free individuals within American society. Freedom
and equality are considered by the American people to represent the
quintessence of justice itself. The middle class, with their upgraded
level of education, may have succeeded in destroying the ritual and moral
connection of `the family', and in its place, education becomes our format
for the inculcation of value to new members of
society.
Equality in this sense,
is the tantamount right of American peoples from vastly differing cultures
and ethnic groups to have access to education. According to University of
Chicago professor Alan Bloom, one result of this dogma is that students
have become timid, as they have no faith in the observed set of
ethnocultural circumstances that they are born into. At the outset of the
American education system, this concept of 'liberty and equality' was
exciting and new for every sector of society, but in recent, troubled
times it has become artificial and sophistic, as students waste their best
years in complacent high school environments. Scholarships have become
easily available to students who cannot afford college, but the best
institutions utilize Scholastic Aptitude Tests as their primary
requirement for admission. There is no intellectual excitement connected
with higher learning, only financial security in a recession scourged
economy. Bloom, in his book The Closing of the American Mind: How
Higher Education has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Minds of
Today's Students, expressed that to his dismay,
Harvard, Yale and
Princeton are not what they used to be- the last resorts of aristocratic
sentiment within the democracy. The differentiations based on old family
or old wealth have vanished. The old wounds that used to be afflicted by
the clubbable on the unclubbable, in our muted version of the English
class system, have healed because the clubs are not anything to be cared
about seriously. All this began after World War II, with the GI Bill.
College was for everyone. And the top universities gradually abandoned
preference for the children of the alumni and the exclusion of
outsiders, especially Jews. Academic records and tests became the
criterion for selection. New kinds of preference- particularly for
blacks- replaced the old ones, which were class preserving, whereas
these are class destroying. Now the student bodies of all the major
universities are pretty much alike, drawn from the best applicants, with
'good' meaning good at the academic disciplines. (Bloom, 1987, p.89)
In Japan, Todai, Keio
and Waseda Universities are still considered to be, as Bloom put it,
'aristocratic last resorts'. According to sources such as Sawa (1991) and
Ota (1981), the entrance examination has perpetuated economic divergence
within Japanese society. Those families which can afford to send their
children to private academies, juku and cram schools, and provide tutors,
furnish them with better chances than the average student to enter one of
the three most respected institutions of higher learning. Furthermore, in
Japanese high schools, teachers tend to grant more attention to excellent
students than average achievers, or those students with great potential,
but who have learning difficulties, which tends to widen the gap between
high scorers and higher scorers on university entrance examinations
(Bonnaker, 1990; Beauchamp (1991). Beauchamp commented that,
American education is
usually characterized as a system of mass education, with uneven
qualitative levels; while European education is often viewed as elitist.
The Japanese have adopted elements from both and have molded a unique
system which, although having some serious problems, comes closest to
being both a mass system in which meritocracy is a fundamental
principle. (Beauchamp, 1992, p.37)
In light of Beauchamp's
view regarding the Japanese education system, a concise survey of Canadian
education will follow. Like most societies with Liberal Democratic
governments, the control of Canada's schools is under provincial delegated
authority. Compared with Britain and the U.S., Canadians spend more on
education, which may be a result of the fact that a higher percentage of
Canadian people are attending school, than citizens of either of the
former two nations (Lockhart, 1991, p.98). Regardless of this wonderful
accomplishment, the Canadian government has failed in all its
attempts to establish a Federal Bureau of Education since 1892, and Canada
remains as the only advanced country in the world that lacks this
institution (Ibid., p.99). The reason for the absence of national
educational policy by the nation that, per-capita, has the most expensive
and widespread educational system, is the inability for Federal and
Provincial governments to cooperate on an accountable level
(Ibid.).
This has resulted in
two problems. First, the teaching profession is considered as one of the
lowermost social positions, and as a result, teachers have almost no
authority in their classrooms. Second, government support has abandoned
support for smaller public schools, on the basis that they are not
efficiently run. These factors have prompted the provincial opening of
massive central schools, that have become impersonal `factories' of
education, and in particular, there is a growing mobilization of the
public-sector's support for expensive private schools, where disciplined
schooling can be administered in more effective manners. The
disorganization of secondary schooling forces the issue of accountability
on Canadian teachers. Although, over the past twenty years, student
enrollment in public schools has decreased by 15%, this has been met by a
60% increase in private school enrollment (Ibid., p.104).
The trend towards
more direct public subsidy of private education may be motivated as much
by growing public concern with public school accountability as by a
carry-over of elitist thinking. However, the concerns of those who
maintain faith in public education as a prime instrument of social
equity are justified by the evidence that private options, publicly
funded or not, tend to reinforce existing social inequalities.
(Ibid., p.105)
Unlike Canada, the
Japanese federal government has a Ministry of Education which organizes
school curriculum, but similar to Canada's situation, the Japanese are
also experiencing a boon in private school enrollment (Buckley, 1990).
Herein lies a possible clue to solving the problem approached at the
outset of this section, why Deweyian educational methods fail to
precipitate sustained reform when applied to the Japanese education
system. To summarize, the British system still uses an entrance
examination system to determine acceptance to a few elite
universities. The American system bases admission to their Ivy League
colleges on grades achieved in aptitude test scores. The Canadian
system, with no central authority, has cultivated the inception of
private learning institutions, where education can be administered
to the students on a disciplined basis. The Japanese educational system,
with its resemblance to the British, American and Canadian systems, places
the most emphasis on the National University Entrance Examination, which
eliminates any divergence in curriculum from the Ministry of Education's
Course of Study. This has been further precipitated by the
Confucian emphasis on examinations as the sole marker for social
mobility, which forms the basic distinction between the Japanese model
and the Western one. Deweyian Progressive influences are incongruous with
Japan's unique social trends. Instead of creating more democratic
classroom environments his influence may have instilled the entrance
examination with unequivocal power, as high school curriculum, engineered
towards selective university admission, has become obsessively scientific
in response to Japan's fiscal necessities.
vii. Effects of
Japanese interpretation of Progressivism
Dewey laid down the
foundation for his progressive educational philosophy in the first twenty
years of this century. It was during this same era that Japan marked her
greatest boons in attendance to secondary education (Rohlen, 1983).
Furthermore, Dewey's writings in the post Second World War period
encouraged pedagogy to become the political ideology that helped to
provide support for the rebuilding of the world's peaceful order. One of
the first `social reforms' initiated during American Occupation was an
elimination of the 75% of Japan's pedagogues, who were career military
officers (Ibid.). These two fundamental influences of progressive
education had a great deal of sway in political circles. According to
Nancy C. Whitman, professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the
University of Hawaii, based on Deweyian models, SCAP ushered in major
revisions to the Japanese education system for,
during the American
Occupation of Japan, compulsory education was extended to the ninth
grade. This change terminated the differentiation of students by schools
and mathematics curricula after elementary school. The junior high
school now embraced students with a wide range of mathematics ability.
The educational thought of John Dewey influenced the content of the new
mathematics program. Emphasis was given to practical mathematics in
daily living as compared to mathematics as an academic discipline.
(Beauchamp, 1991, p.147)
Dewey's educational
philosophy was aimed at improving a stagnant system of rote learning. The
Japanese educational system was inspired more out of necessity than
anything else, as resourceful political entities of a new state were
forced to deal with unprecedented numbers of educated youngsters, all of
whom were potentially eligible for higher education. There are many
political concerns that differ between the American student's ultimate
quest to be independent from their pedagogical dogma, and the Japanese
pupil's intense desire to become integrated with society by acceptance
into the educational system. The fruits of socio-political changes in both
nations led to psycho-social distinctions that were drawn from the altered
pedagogical realities. While in the U.S., students and teachers have
become nonchalant about learning (Bloom, 1987), in Japan there is a
desperate movement to amass the maximum erudition humanly possible. During
Dewey's early days, science was considered the new frontier in which
education would serve as a social pioneer. As the pedagogical interest in
science and technology wanes among American students, it has become the
prime motivator for their Japanese counterpart. Government interpretation
of progressive ideals, for Japanese students, is mostly responsible for
this emphasis, which remains a highly mystical phenomenon in the eyes of
American observers. Dewey's educational philosophies continue to appeal to
Japanese pedagogy as they seek to understand their own educational system
and the system that was imposed on them, or according to Kobayashi, a
revival and application of the ideas that influenced education during the
Taisho and late Meiji Era. In Kobayashi's own words,
An important factor
that helped to stimulate interest in Dewey was the American Occupation
of Japan. Many of the educational reforms were considered by the
Japanese as based on Dewey. Although there may have been some Occupation
personnel who preached Dewey directly, it was the Japanese themselves
who took the main initiative in the study of Dewey because they believed
that it was necessary to examine Dewey in order to understand the
American-type educational system which was being transplanted into
Japan. Finally, the Japanese today seem to find much of Dewey's
philosophy meaningful in understanding Japanese existence. They are
beginning to appreciate his criticism of traditional philosophy of
education, and society. (Kobayashi, 1964, p.156)
Still, there has been ,
of late, a waning in the Japanese educators interest in John Dewey. Thirty
years ago, Kobayashi wrote the prophetic statement that, the current
dominance of Dewey in the study of educational philosophy will decrease,
as the Japanese reexamine their own traditions, continue to widen their
interests, and face new problems (Ibid., p.157). He believed that
this trend would be healthy, if enriching philosophical alternatives could
be provided. After all, Democracy, whether it be American or Japanese, is
grounded on the toleration of diversity. Kazuo Yoshida, who contributed to
the summer of 1983 issue of the American Journal of Popular
Culture, stated succinctly the differences in cultural traits of
Americans and Japanese:
One would attribute
to American culture, for example, freedom, equality, effort-optimism,
democracy, individualism, abstract rationalism, technology, virtuous
materialism, fast food and so on. One would assume that Japanese culture
would include group consciousness, close identification between man and
reality, seniority, institutionalism, harmony, etc. (p.121) (Wordell,
1988, p.12)
This thesis advances
the proposition that, cultural exigencies are responsible for the enormous
incongruities between Deweyian Instrumentalism and the Japanese
educational system, since the former has failed to have an enduring
impression on the latter. The vicissitudes that are occurring in the
Japanese system are perceivable in the abundance of grammar and syntax
oriented high school English courses, in contrast with the lack of oral
English programs for Japanese high school students. In a nutshell, this
may signify that the egalitarian aspect of compulsory secondary education
in Japan has been undermined by admission requirements to top universities
which are contingent on students developing advanced rote memorization
skills, rather than the ability to specialize in a particular application
of their knowledge.
The reasons for the
Japanese identification with implicit, practical goals, while American
education seemingly holds a highly ideological bias, can be understood
when one critically examines the written languages of the Japanese.
American students must learn a total of twenty-six Roman characters,
with which their whole vocabulary can be expressed in writing, this grants
them considerable freedom for the pursuit of other activities, whether
they be scholastic, recreative, or may I add, antisocial. In Japan, like
America, students also have to learn syllable systems, three of them in
fact, with the combined systems of hiragana and katakana
adding ninety-two more characters to that of romaji (the Roman
alphabet), which was taught during the Meiji and Taisho Era, and
reintroduced by SCAP during the Occupation.
Japanese children
have to learn kanji, the Chinese characters, in addition to the
syllabaries. During the first six school years, they learn about 900 of
them, and in the following three years in junior high school they learn
the remainder of the 1,850, which account for roughly 96 percent of the
running text of newspapers. Since each kanji has usually two or
more alternate readings, the task of learning to read is made that much
more complex. Yet incidences of reading disability in Japan are rare
(Makita, 1968; Sakamoto and Makita, 1973). The Japanese writing system
of the mixed script of kana and kanji is considered highly
efficient for reading, since kanji represent the meaning carrying
content of words, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, and
tend to stand out when surrounded by kana. (Chu-Chang, 1983,
pp.100-01)
Learning kanji means
the learning of symbolic representation of conceptual units. This is a
task that must be mastered at the preschool level by Japanese
children. While learning the phonemes and morphemes (units of sound) of
the Roman system, native English speakers must rely primarily on their
sense of hearing, logographic writing systems like kanji are highly visual
representations of complete ideas and feelings, hence the emphasis for
Japanese people on the faculty of sight. In fact, so much emphasis in the
school system is put on the memorization of kanji, Japanese students find
it very difficult to think of English in terms of a verbal language,
rather than that of a symbolic system. Most of the study of English, as
has been noted before, consists in the memorization of a word/idiom
vocabulary, which mirrors techniques utilized for memorizing kanji. So,
English has been reduced to the level of an unspoken language, similar to
the study of Latin by Westerners. The influence of Instrumentalism now
becomes quite clear, as the English language, not unlike kanji, is studied
toward the goal of passing written tests, and reading text. In The
Japanese School (1986), Benjamin Duke wrote that although American
high school students are only required to study a foreign language for two
years, 90 per cent of their Japanese counterpart's study English for six
years.
The study of English
in Japan, however, extends far beyond the classroom of the school. The
demand for private classes in English is overwhelmingly from elementary
children through the adult community. Many university students thrive on
the income from private English tutoring of elementary and especially
junior and senior high school students, the so-called jukensei,
preparing for the exams. Native speakers of English are in great demand
to offer language lessons, sometimes at exorbitant fees, whether they
know anything about teaching English, and most do not. Private English
schools abound. English teaching in Japan has become an entire industry
in itself as a result, in part, of the examination requirements. (Duke,
1986, p.159)
If literacy was the
only use for English, then the Japanese educational system would have
justified the subsuming of progressive educational methodologies for
learning the English language, but far from being a `dead language' like
Latin, English is initially used for verbal communication. In America, and
many other countries, the ability to speak English is essential to release
ethno-cultural groups from the inability to communicate, by forming a
common base which can be learnt and understood by anyone. This may be
an optimistic point of view considering the racial violence that
characterizes large American cities, but to the Japanese, who are in need
of a vehicle by which they may promote reciprocal international
understanding, the mastery of spoken English has unequivocal value.
According to the study by Eloe, Lewin and Morris (1988), from grade seven
on, the Japanese student must study English every week for several hours.
Nevertheless,
the emphasis in
English classes at Japanese schools is on grammar and reading
comprehension, and not on speech. Most high school graduates can read
and write what they want to communicate, but cannot say it. From our
experience, most educated Japanese adults understand English grammar as
well as most American high school teachers of English, though they are
not proficient at, or even capable of, simple conversation. A recent
international survey showed that while the Japanese are in the top 5% of
English-language comprehension among peoples of the world, they are in
the lower 20% in conversational ability. (Wordell, 1988, p.37)
Progressivism, like
English, looks great on paper, but it is a different animal when put to
the test of hard particulars of practical use. Japanese problems with
teaching practical English stem from exegetic decisions made at the
political level. In both the case of teaching English conversation to
Japanese high school students, and of Dewey's Instrumentalism put to wont,
a major obstacle has been that the concept of `aim' has been misconstrued
with the meaning of the term `purpose' (Peters, 1973, p.12). While
aiming is an active mode of direction, a purpose is an intended
result. According to Peters, in Dewey's philosophical quest for the
reconciliation of the practical with the intellectual, he ignored
critical reflection: the champion of morality, which doomed
progressive education to an erroneous lapse into over-scientification.
Education in Japan has already run this course, since the Occupation.
Thus, Japanese educators of the 1950's and early '60's were caught up in
this philosophical dilemma as they tried to put Dewey's Instrumental
teaching approaches into practice. Duke supports this claim since he
regards that Japanese teaching methodologies were based,
on the theories
emanating from the great U.S. educational reforms instituted by John
Dewey. In the postwar period the traditional one-way method of teaching
gave way here and there to techniques utilizing student participation
and student initiative. In many a classroom, children were encouraged to
speak up, ask questions, give opinions, confront each other with varying
viewpoints. Criticism was applauded, free discussion promoted,
individual student activity nurtured. The child was encouraged to take
an active role in the learning process rather than be a passive note
taker. The teacher-centered or subject-centered classroom was to be
reoriented into the child-centered classroom. The traditional was to
become the progressive. The future worker of Japan was to undergo a new
type of democratic education based on U.S. ideals. Alas, it was
unnatural. The enchantment with pupil-teacher relationships was short
lived. The intrinsic value of the individual has deep roots in Japanese
social customs. Individuality per se does not. This distinction, as
viewed by a non-Japanese, remains a key element of the social structure
of this nation and an elusive concept difficult to analyze. (Duke, 1986,
p.162)
viii. Japan's value
of education is not `personal growth'
Dewey opined that the
growth of the individual was the sole aim of society, hence, the sole aim
of education was to minister to this process. The reason for Japan
overtaking Germany and now the United States it terms of technology is
that Japanese education puts less stress on abstract goals, and more
stress on fundamental basic understanding. Japanese international
competitive dexterousness is the outcome of precise control on a
micro-societal level. William Bonnaker wrote that it is resolve which is
the pedigree of Japanese national character, and resolve alone which is at
the root of Japan's system of education.
The successes of that
education system are legendary: 99.99 percent attendance rate, virtually
100 percent literacy, number-one in the world on achievement tests in
science and math, 94 percent rate of students making it to high school,
of whom over 94 percent of those will graduate. The American School
System, in comparison, leaves over 20 percent of its citizens
functionally illiterate, drags American students further behind Japanese
students every year in math and science, compulsorily passes even the
hopeless from junior high into high school, so that only 70 percent of
students who start high school finish. Moreover, once the Japanese
students are bound directly for industrial jobs from high school, they
give Japan the very asset most American managers say they themselves
lack: an educated, capable and committed workforce. What's less well
known in the West are the draconian means by which the Japanese achieve
their successes, and the mortal price they pay for them. (Bonnaker,
1990, pp.181-82)
The entire Japanese
student population must learn the technological rudiments of mathematics,
science and physics at a very young age. The consequence of this
nation-wide concentration on interdependent progress is that there
are now more than twice as many engineers per capita in Japan, as there
are in America (Rohlen, 1983). Contrary to both Rohlen's and Bonnaker's
often pessimistic view of Japanese educators, the fact remains that the
Japanese education system is the most efficient in the world. While the
United States based macro-economics on an abundant influx of skilled
immigrant labor, research innovation and laissez-faire social politics,
Japan has had to build her economic system from scratch, with one hundred
plus million people being the blue-chip factor on which domestic and
international economic growth has been contingent. According to Rohlen,
Japan has always seen
human resources as fundamental. As a resource-poor late developer, she
had no choice. The recent minister of education, Nagai Michio, once said
to me, 'When I was Minister I always had one overriding goal—the
independence of the Japanese nation.' He meant that he viewed education
primarily as a critical factor in the defense and prosperity of his
country. (Ibid., pp.324-25)
The Japanese are a
proud and independent nation. Their pride comes from their ability to
maintain this economic and cultural independence, and grows out of the
social nexus that drives their economic machinery forward. Nagai was the
minister at the time when the principal of my prep school was pushing for
English conversation to become a standardized, compulsory part of
educational curriculum. Nagai agreed with her and her colleagues and set
about trying to internalize these goals pedagogically.
However, the
insularity and ethnocentricity of Japanese corporate life and the
inertia of the bureaucracy of the ministry of education forestalled any
genuine change. The topic, however, is a popular one, especially among
educators and social commentators who have lived or traveled overseas.
These people usually dwell on an abstract need for `international'
children, rather than on any personal benefits to be gained from
mastering a foreign language or other cosmopolitan skills. (White. 1987,
pp.174-75)
These external aims
must be voiced in an abstract manner, because they cannot be equated with
Japanese education's infrastructural organization. The high school system
is efficient because the growth of the individuals within this order is
aimed at the improvement of national economic welfare by ameliorating
scientific advancement. Everything in the Japanese high school student's
education is geared for this purpose. The idea that as an aim of
education, personal growth must be acquiescent to societal advancement,
has only recently been challenged by Japan's Ministry of Education,
Science and Culture. Instrumentalism had its day in the Japanese
educational arena, but the effects of Deweyian educational philosophy may
still be manifested on several societal levels up to the present time.
The insight that
students tend to learn more readily when the content of their learning
is directly related to their immediate experience may or may not be used
to further the goals of personal growth. The pedagogical techniques that
increase learning rates can be ripped from their normative context and
used to accomplish `socially useful' but personally destructive ends. To
the extent that science is seen as the epistemological standard by which
all other forms of knowledge are measured, the practical human interest
is either extinguished or reformed. (Howard, 1991, p.81)
Since Japanese high
schools aim at readying students for corporate life, the study habits that
they are encouraged to develop are intended to engender in them the
ability to become engrossed in repetitive work without getting bored, or
making careless mistakes. The routine memorization and testing induces
students to be well behaved, attentive to detail and motivated toward the
same goal: entrance exams. The Japanese school year consists of six day
weeks, with a forty-one day summer vacation, during which many students
attend summer classes and prep schools. Schools and classes are separated
according to academic ability, which usually is the determining factor in
the race for university admission. The momentum effectuated by this race
is appreciated by both parents and teachers, who do everything possible to
help students to avoid tangential issues and concentrate all the student's
time on learning. Roger Buckley, author of Japan Today, claims that
the Occupation's bid to democratize Japanese education backfired, since
indiscriminate legislation paved the way for meritocratic discrimination.
A decent education is
crucial to the life chances of young Japanese. Since Japan can be
loosely defined as a meritocracy where one's first job after graduation
is often one's only one, many Japanese are eager to compete for the
undoubted advantages that entry into a prestigious university can bring
in terms of career and even marriage prospects. Parental wishes for
their sons to aspire to a top-ranking university are inculcated from a
very early age. Admittance to a good high school is a virtual sine qua
non for future success, since without competent teachers and a
competitive atmosphere only the exceptional pupil will be able to make
it. The failure rate for entrance to Tokyo or Kyoto National
Universities is inevitably very high, but it does not deter the
ambitious from attempting to reach the pinnacle. (Buckley, 1985, p.88)
On a political level,
the Ministry of Education supplies the high standards of curriculum that
help school administrators to mobilize students in the learning process,
organize classes, and eliminate excess digressive activity. The aggregate
of all this exertion as examination hell approaches, may be
exhibited in the lack of means by which students may learn to deal with
external stress in a productive manner, and this carries over into the
corporate sector. Where there is no room for error, there can be no
therapeutic technique by which an individual may vindicate failure.
The problem of youth
suicide in Japan centers on those who do least well in school, who
cannot keep up, and who tend to drop out early. Low academic
performance, dropping out of high school, and leaving school after ninth
grade are closely associated with broken families, poverty, and other
environmental factors, as well as with learning problems, personal
instability, and difficulty in peer relationships. Undoubtedly, the
accelerated pace of Japanese public education up through ninth
grade, the preoccupation with exam preparation, and the great
significance of educational achievement to adult careers and status
accentuate the problems of low achievers. (Rohlen, 1983, p.333)
In the 1970's, when the
movement to have English conversation institutionalized within the
Japanese school system failed, school-related problems accounted for one
quarter of youth suicides (Ibid., p.334). Now, twenty years later,
one wonders whether with increased pressures to succeed academically,
Japanese society is on the verge of a social crisis. As our
technologically progressive civilization gradually destroys itself through
environmental negligence, the Japanese youth are also floundering in an
intellectual wasteland. It may be possible that this thesis proposes a
method by which solutions may be propounded to resolve both problems
concurrently. A possible answer, which is relevant to the suggested
educational reforms, is in the direct communication of values that occurs
when two individuals are engaged in a face-to-face conversation. The
Ministry of Education's Course of Study for Japan's secondary
schools offers educational objectives that are based on the Fundamental
Law of Education and the School Education Law (Ministry of Education,
1983, p.121). This text infers that Japanese Education is aimed,
at realizing the
spirit of respect for human dignity in the actual life of family,
school, and community, endeavoring to create a culture that is rich in
individuality and to develop a democratic society and state, training
Japanese to be capable of contributing to a peaceful international
society, and cultivating morality as the foundation thereof...To make
students consider the relationships between matters and phenomena in the
natural world as well as the harmony among them, and realize the
influence of the natural environment on the existence of human beings,
thereby heightening students' interests in preservation of the natural
environment. Also to deepen students' understanding of biological
phenomena and to develop a positive attitude towards the appreciation of
life ...To develop student's basic ability to understand a foreign
language and express themselves in it, to deepen their interest in a
language, and to help them
acquire the basic understanding of the daily life and way of thinking of
foreign people (Ibid., p.103)
In fact, the Japanese
high school has yet to carry out on a practical level the goals toward
which it prototypically aspires. Study according to previous state
university admission entrance examinations dominates high school
curriculum and restricts the extent to which parents, schools and society
consider the significance of fluency in spoken English in Japan. To date,
a network for Japanese progress in cross-cultural communication already
exists, in the availability of English as one of the world's leading
languages of verbal interaction. It is up to Japan's Ministry of
Education, as well as both ward and prefectural boards of education, to
institute the changes that will help Japanese high schools students to
catch up with this global reality.
3. Conclusion: The
lack of oral English in Japan's schools
John Dewey has had an
incontrovertible and inveterate influence on the Japanese schools system,
most notably in secondary education (Kobayashi, 1964). The instrumental
approach to learning has been carried to its corporeal extreme in the
Japanese education system. In Progressivism, the value of a learning
experience is determined by the degree to which it promotes free and
intelligent, reflective inquiry. The problem of Dewey's philosophy is that
empirical activity which furthers the faculty of investigation is shackled
to an external valuation. There is no consideration to whether the student
is enjoying the subject to be studied, and I suppose Dewey asseverated
that this consideration of instrumental learning would be taken for
granted. Nowhere in the Japanese secondary education system does the
contention exist that learning should be fun. With all the positive
scholastic results that Deweyian Progressivism's influence has achieved in
Japan since the late Meiji Era, the last forty years of Japanese
pedagogical philosophy have suffered from the same ailment as Howard
claims Instrumentalism has: The long-term goals of society as a collective
unit, may have become incongruent with the short-term aims of its
individual members (Howard, 1991).
This confusion in Mr.
Dewey's theory of inquiry reflects a characteristic weakness in the
liberalism of the nineteenth century—a weakness which his philosophical
reconstruction of that tradition as never entirely overcome. The source of
the confusion is an assumed freedom of indifference and the supposition
that values are objectively indeterminate apart from individual preference
or interest. The weakness of liberalism, as a philosophical doctrine, is
its inability to accept the full consequences of this notion of freedom,
which is nevertheless implicit in its traditional assumptions (Boydston,
1991b, p.399). Dewey is moving in the right direction when he seeks
objectivity in the evidence for value judgments, his social
behaviorism leads him to ignore one very important kind of evidence,
namely, that concerning the immediate quality of the experience of value
itself.” (Ibid., p.407)
There are few slow
lanes in the Japanese high school student's race for university admission,
only educational expressways. In the midst of this intellectual tide that
permeates every aspect of 'Japaneseness', the child's delight in learning
has been cast aside. English conversation is not included in school
curriculum because it is considered anomalous to the task of erudition.
There are no exams that can measure its skill, no texts that can guarantee
its attainment or amelioration and finally, no teachers that are qualified
enough to teach it. This is because speaking is considered an inefficient
waste of time, while true socially productive work is conducted in a
silent, deliberative manner.
Considering that
geographically, Japan is a very small island who's more than 100 million
individuals are concentrated demographically in four large cities, one can
understand how improvements in social cooperation can improve the
exploitation and distribution of what, up to very recently, have been
extremely limited resources. But in contemporary times, there has been no
shortage of anything in Japanese society, anything that is, except perhaps
enjoyment in learning in the case of secondary education. Forty two years
ago Gilbert Highet wrote,
Anyone who teaches
should realize that it is a serious matter to guide another person's
life. Professional teachers, politicians and authors especially have
great power to do influence people of all ages for good or evil. An
author should not write novels or plays irresponsibly simply to earn
money and gain a reputation. If he does this, he will discover toward
the end of his life that he has wasted his talents on works which he and
the majority of his readers will despise. The surest protection against
that possibility is to ask how your ideas could possibly be misused or
misunderstood. And like all teachers, he must think not of himself, but
of all the people he is trying to teach. (Highet, 1969, pp.121-22)
I am not surprised that
Japanese English teachers feel guilty because they cannot speak the
language, but I do not believe that because of this, blame can be laid on
them for not teaching English conversation to their students. They are
part of a system, a system that, as I have shown in this thesis, may be
maintaining merit-based incongruities instead of supporting parallel
development for both improvements in student's individual strengths and
scholastic abilities. A primary obstacle to constructive reform is
embodied in the Japanese pedagogical view that learning equals
memorization. An outcome of this conviction, when applied to university
admission is that regular high school graduates, who are perhaps equally
intelligent and creative as their counterparts who've had the opportunity
to attend private academies, cram schools, and juku, are lacking the
memorization skills necessary achieve high enough scores on entrance exams
to top universities, which excludes them from employment in top
corporations (Bonnaker, 1990). A further obstacle is that, to the Japanese
professional, learning English does not necessitate speaking the language
(Ibid.). The consequence of this is that although Japanese
understand the structure of English, they cannot use it for communication.
Bonnaker concludes that,
English (Eigo) has a
special status in Japan. It manages to be everywhere and nowhere. By the
time a Japanese student graduates from high school, he has had six or
seven years of it, and will get another two to four years of it if he
goes to university. Yet it will be very unlikely after this, say, decade
of English, that he will be able to converse intelligibly on even a
beginners level. Such prodigious incompetence, though, is not really his
fault. Except for some diplomats and company men whose work will take
them to English-speaking countries or put them into regular contact with
English speakers in Japan, there is little need actually to learn
English. Students, who prepare from middle school on for the English
part of 'Examination Hell' tests, and specialists (such as medical
doctors and scientists, who must learn English to keep up in their
fields) often learn to read and sometimes write it well
but may not be able to vocalize so much as a single coherent sentence.
Beyond these cases, English is more of a minimal social insignia - like
our wearing at least thongs and a T-shirt to enter a restaurant - than a
practical tool. In fact, Eigo in Japan is now much more than an
indigenous social formula than a foreign language. It is often more
important to be seen taking English than either to learn or fail to
learn it. (Bonnaker, 1990, pp.218-19)
Bonnaker and Niyekawa
(Chu-Chang, 1983) are in agreement regarding the issue that, for Japanese,
learning English must include the accumulation of syntactical knowledge
with collateral development of conversational skills. This final obstacle
is one which I believe shall exhibit the most serious ramifications.
Reforms are due in the methodology by which English is taught to Japanese
high school students. The most distressing concern is regarding the
popular view that learning English consists in memorizing rules of grammar
and syntax, and developing the ability to recite out-dated idioms. High
school English conversation course curriculum may prove to be an effective
aid for educating young adults towards increased awareness in global
environmental deterioration. If the Japanese government has established
that the injection of capital into ecological programs may be one of the
only apropos techniques for global improvement, then from the onset, it
has ignored a major asset in this confrontation. Interaction of public
interest groups and youth organizations through bilateral colloquium may
be another avenue by which realistic progress in ecological awareness may
be affected. By improving their Oral English skills, Japanese high school
students may have the opportunity to travel abroad, communicate with
students from other countries, and question their own nation's progress in
global environmental preservation.
If values are
presented as received truths, rather than as the consequences of arduous
critical thinking by particular people struggling with timeless
questions of human existence, those upon whom such truths are bestowed
certainly will become `value illiterate'; they will be unable to `read'
the signs and symbols of their times. (Howard, 1991, p.118)
The Japanese Ministry
of Education, Science and Culture has placed priority on establishing
English conversation programs in every high school. A small part of
government capital intended for scientific and technological research
could be better used, if diverted by the Ministry to form a symposium that
could study how improvement to high school English programs could be
supported by adding an oral section to university entrance examinations.
This investment would serve not only in maintaining an already productive
scholastic system, but could be used to establish an educational
research fund for the foundation of an efficacious conversation
module that could be instituted on a national basis in existing English
language courses. The proposed budgetary changes must be initiated by
support from the Teacher's Union, for without its cooperation, English
will remain as a 'ghost' language for Japanese citizens. Finally, parents,
or at least, concerned mothers must also support these reforms to the
existing system, so that each one of their children who enters the
Japanese education system will graduate with a life-long ability to
communicate using the English language.
Perhaps when these
improvements are instituted, Japanese may begin consider themselves as
true internationalists. Improved English communication may permit further
generations of Japanese citizens to better contribute to the inauguration
of a new era of cooperation through their effortless exchange of
ecological strategies. The Japanese have already realized that their
advanced research capabilities in the area of technology are a byproduct
of their excellent system of education. The time has come for the
scientific field to return some of its expertise to Japanese pedagogy, so
that intelligent learning media can be put to use in the realm of English
language education, in particular, through the creation of Oral English
programs for Japanese high school students.
Chapter 3: Conclusion
Using Bruner to
create a conversation module for Japanese high school English teachers to
use in class
1. The problem
Simply stated, the
problem that faces the Japanese high school education system is: how
positive changes may be initiated. The system has a strong tendency to
perpetuate its defects because the progressive ideals that inaugurated it
have become too deeply ingrained in the society that it has created. The
strength of the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party in a country where most
people live according to traditional, conservative beliefs, is
characteristic of a cultural heritage that is based on the separation of
thought and action. Victor N. Kobayashi stated Japanese pedagogy's failure
to effect any enduring Progressivist revisions to their curriculum and
methodology when he wrote,
Part of the pessimism
of some Dewey scholars concerning the faith in social reform is due to
the strong weight of tradition which they feel, and which they are proud
of, yet which they consider hinders progress. Japan not only has a
complex economic system, but a heritage of undemocratic thought which
continues to persist and to dominate much of Japanese life, and liberals
feel helpless at times in their impatience. Then, too, they note the way
in which many of the democratic reforms of the Occupation have been
undone so quickly and easily or have proven to be ineffective. Not all
share in this pessimism, however. Japanese studies of Dewey reveal a
wide variety of interests and interpretations. (Kobayashi, 1964,
pp.148-49)
The Japanese have always
been very open-minded towards the assimilation of new and foreign ideas,
take for example, Chinese logographs as the primary writing symbols (as
mentioned earlier, Japanese must learn between 1600 and 1800 Chinese
characters from kindergarten until the third year of junior high school),
golf, tennis and baseball as the most popular sports, and the
'Makudonarudo' {McDonalds} `Big Mac', Japan's most popular
fast-food, which contains both beef and milk (until recent times both
foods were taboo in Japanese society) (Bonnaker, 1990). Even though these
imported notions have essentially remained true to their Western
counterparts and sustained popular appeal, imported Western educational
ideas, such as Instrumentalism, were subjugated to indigenous
modifications by the Japanese pedagogy. According to Beauchamp,
Although we cannot
directly transplant or borrow foreign pedagogies or policies, we can
learn from them. The best example of this is probably Japan. At least
since the eighth century, and especially during the first decades of the
Meiji Restoration (1868-1912) and again during the American Occupation
(1945-1953), Japan selectively decided what was worth importing
from the West and, rather than tear it out of its natural context and
replant it in Japan, proceeded to analyze and understand Western ideas
and adapt them to the Japanese environment. (Beauchamp, 1985, p.28)
These foreign concept
may have been modified according to current social modes of interaction
which were developed as early as the Yayoi Period (300 B.C.E.-300
A.D.), when the introduction of rice planting and metalworking techniques
widened the division of labor, and have resisted change for two millennia
(I.S.E.I., 1989, p.4). Finally, Japan's indigenous religious order,
Shinto, is complemented by both Buddhism and Christianity. It is a popular
saying that the individual is born Shinto, has a Christian wedding, and is
buried as a Buddhist. But most Japanese do not live according to religious
exigency, rather, they tend to conform to the preestablished social norms
of behavior.
The Japan of both the
Meiji Restoration and the American Occupation was influenced by
progressive changes that called for an abandonment of traditional
lifestyles and political structures of the Edo Period (1603-1868), so that
modernization could be approached at a more rapid pace. Dewey's pragmatism
was an effective philosophy to fuel this force of change, because it
encouraged the renunciation of establishmentarian limitations, for the
evolution of social liberty. As Bloom puts it,
Dewey's pragmatism—the
method of science as the method of democracy, individual growth without
limits, especially natural limits—saw the past as radically imperfect
and regarded our history as irrelevant or as a hindrance to rational
analysis of our present. (Bloom, 1987, p.56)
The freedom of
education, in the Deweyian sense, took place in order to liberate
individuals from the flawed authoritative systems of their past. Since
national education (1890) was developed during the same period as Japanese
confederation (1889), progressive ideas were grounded in the era's
political realities, the transfer of power from the Shogun to the Emperor
and Diet (Sansom, 1950). But in 1945, the Americans reapplied this
philosophy. Predicated by the fear that Japan may revert back to
militaristic political control, the Occupational authorities sought to
disengage the dominance that the Ministry of Education had over Japanese
schooling. In fact, the Fundamental Law of Education (1947)
specifically prohibits any link between political parties and the
pedagogy (I.S.E.I., 1989, p.90). The Occupation aimed at implementing
liberal social reorganization through the introduction of child-centered
educational strategies,
As an observer of the
Occupation has pointed out, the Occupation was not an ordinary military
project merely limited to disarmament and reparations; it was a
'saturation-type operation' intended to affect all aspects of Japanese
culture, with consequences that would survive the eventual signing of a
peace treaty. Japan had threatened other nations with her military might
in a disastrous war; her militaristic tendencies were viewed as an
expression of her authoritarian tradition. The Allies hoped that Japan
would be transformed into not only a peace-loving nation, but also into
a democratic state, for it was believed that a democratized Japan would
contribute to international order. Thus the Occupation became one of the
most enormous experiments in 'social engineering' ever conducted in any
nation. (Beauchamp, 1978, pp.181-82)
The idea may have been
that, without the control of any large political force, Progressive
education would return Japanese society to a natural, peaceful state. The
educational reform imposed by the Americans on the Japanese is not the
first philosophy of this type, but strangely enough, it suggests a
dogmatic sympathy with Social Anarchism's libertarian ideals of education.
This may not be a coincidence, for the same ideals were borne out of
History's great revolutions against monarchy, and the Occupational
authorities that formed the new Japan during the late 1940's were
searching for a political state that would effect the maximal split
between the Japanese Emperor, and his subjects. Since the philosophical
pillars of Anarchism were the beliefs that first, individuals are
naturally good (an opinion shared by many, but not all Libertarians), and
second, that they are naturally social, the logical substitution of this
idea for previous educational influences would serve to rid Japan of its
'evil' political institutions. According to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,
An integral part of a
collective existence, man feels his dignity at the same time in himself
and others, and thus carries in his heart the principle of a morality
superior to himself. This principle does nor come to him from the
outside; it is secreted within him, it is immanent. It constitutes his
essence, the essence of society itself. It is the true form of the human
spirit, a form which takes shape and grows toward perfection only by the
relationship that every day gives birth to social life. Justice, in
other words, exists in us like love, like notions of beauty, of utility
of truth, like all our powers and faculties. (Woodcock, 1986, p.22).
After the death of Peter
Kropotkin in 1921, libertarian solutions to political oppression became
popular among Japanese intellectuals like Hatta. Kropotkin emphasized that
just as life is characterized by growth and change, since individuals are
living in a natural society distinguished by mutual agreement, it, too,
must continually readjust and develop, without the constraints of ruling
authority, but stimulated by science and innovative ideals. Both Kropotkin
and Michael Bakunin believed that revolutions were brought on by mass
impulse, that rigid political organization hampers natural evolution (Lowe
and Moeshart, 1990, p.47).
William Godwin did not
share this spontaneous and naturalistic view. On the contrary, he took the
standpoint that education was the key to liberation from political
authority, which he believed negated life. To Godwin, the anti-social
tendencies in members of society would be kept in check through public
self-censorship, a perfect model for Japan. In fact, the Americans'
transfer of pedagogical control from the federal government, to the
independent ward offices, so that education was directed by small social
groups, seemed equitable in part with Godwinian social anarchism. Godwin
maintained that, by no means should a system of education fall into
political hands, hence, the independent school was the ideal learning
unit.
The project of
national education ought uniformly to be discouraged on account of its
obvious alliance with national government... Had the scheme of a
national education been adopted when despotism was most triumphant, it
is not to be believed that it could have forever stifled the voice of
truth. But it would have been the most formidable and profound
contrivance for that purpose that imagination can suggest. Still, in the
countries where liberty chiefly prevails, it is reasonably to be assumed
that there are important errors, and a national education has the most
direct tendency to perpetrate those errors and to form all minds upon
one model. (Ibid., p.73)
Leo Tolstoy was an
author with great vision who had great respect for Godwin's progressive
educational theories. Like Bakunin and Kropotkin, he also wished to
reverse the relationship between the common people and the aristocratic
stratum of society. In the 1870's he became involved in experimental
libertarian education, which promoted free exchanges of information
between teachers and students. His writing is characterized by a
back-to-basics morality, which was supported by his belief in the
fundamental moral nature of revolution, as opposed to the violence of
political authority. Although John Dewey supported the elimination of
didactic teaching methods, he was in discord with Trotsky's doctrine
concerning the worthlessness of political regimes. Nevertheless, Dewey was
appointed Chairman of the sub-Commission of Inquiry that went to Mexico
City in August of 1937 and January of 1937 to procure the testimony of
Trotsky regarding the charges on which he was convicted in the Moscow
Trials (Boydston, 1991a, p.310). The charges brought against Trotsky: that
he collaborated with the Germans and Japanese to assassinate the Soviet
Union's political leaders- were determined to be unjustified. Furthermore,
Dewey did not feel that he was the right choice as director of the
inquiry, for although he empathized with Trotsky's plight, he could not
acquiesce with the radical tenets of Trotskyism. In the outcome of the
committee's investigations his comments were:
Personally, I have
always disagreed with the ideas and theories of Trotsky and I disagree
with him now, if possible, more than ever. It is undoubtedly true that
Trotsky has adhered more closely to the pure Marxian line than has the
Stalinist regime. His insistence upon the permanent revolution or a
series of proletarian revolutions in all countries is sufficient proof
of this. From my point of view—that such revolutions inevitably defeat
their own ends—this means that, by adopting the Trotsky direction,
American radicals would be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire
(Ibid., p.334) ... I looked upon the Soviet Union as a social
laboratory in which significant experiments would be worked out. Before
the Depression ... in 1928 to be exact, I visited the Soviet Union ...
and upon my return wrote a series of articles in which I presented the
favorable aspects of what was being accomplished (Id., p.335) ...
The germs of educational freedom which certainly existed at that time
have been, according to reliable reports, all but completely destroyed.
(Id., p.336)
Due to the
socio-political changes brought about by the Second World War, a new type
of education was being formed that encouraged the endurance and acceptance
of freedom, liberty and peaceful cultural transformation. The Japanese,
who were without a technology of production, could not rely on a system
based on historical materialism, because of their traditional pride in the
island's independence (Beauchamp, 1978). Furthermore, since Deweyian
Instrumentalism seemed to the Japan's pedagogy (circa 1952) to contain
revolutionary liberal ideals, those who opposed the Occupation's reforms
had Progressive teaching systems all but eliminated (except for the
experimental schools of the early sixties) (Baltz, 1965; Schoppa, 1991;
Traynor, 1983) A reason for
the transient nature of SCAP's educational policy could be that, although
Progressive education was based on Dewey's liberal scholastic reforms,
natural philosophy, which was the basis for his beliefs, maintained that
if given the opportunity, individuals will spontaneously do what is good
for their society (Howard, 1991). Progressive and liberal educational
strategies have been enduring influences on Japanese pedagogy because
Dewey, like Marx before him, “never fully freed himself from optimistic
illusions about human nature (Conway, 1987, p.209)”. In other words, since
laissez-faire idealism may not present students and teachers in Japan with
sufficient challenge, extreme renditions of educational strategies
affiliated with liberal-style learning have not been tolerated (Duke,
1986). Problem-solving, interactive approaches to learning soon prove to
be inefficient and un-critical to the Japanese pedagogy, as summarized in
the following passage by Professor Shimahara,
Experimentalism, with
which John Dewey's philosophy was generally identified, was the most
influential underlying orientation of the new education in Japan. A
major problem confronted by progressive college professors and other
leaders in the postwar education, therefore, was to translate
experimentalism, developed on foreign soil, into the radically different
matrix of Japanese culture...By 1950, Japanese educators were beginning
to express their impatience with the transplanted progressive education,
since they were discovering that it did not work in Japanese culture.
These negative reactions toward progressive education were growing in an
emerging social and political situation, which had affected the course
of Japan's history...Methodologically, the uniformity of cognitive and
motivational orientations of the students, as well as the teachers,
began to be stressed again; teachers employed behavioristic conditioning
to impart skills, knowledge, and attitudes. Thus during the course of
the 1950's, the original orientation of postwar education disappeared
from most schools. Japanese education had quickly adapted to the demands
of the political, economic, and social institutions of Japan —
institutions central to the cultural core. Thereafter, the fundamental
orientation of Japanese education has not greatly changed up to the
present time. (Shimahara, 1979, pp.66-67)
To Japanese educators, a
surviving image from the post-war era, the reabsorption of public vitality
within the domain of communal society, was transformed by civic
despondency, to a strictly socioeconomic concern. Japan's retort was that
a technology-based education was the only institution that could alleviate
a resource deficient, war-torn domestic economy. The only beacon of
optimism was in mass education towards national fiscal improvement. The
external influence on Japanese society that relegated education to civic
responsibility could not persist after the San Francisco Peace Treaty
(1951), by which national autonomy was restored. The dilemma for the
Japanese was that their guiding force of prosperity, the Emperor, no
longer could be followed as a living example of harmony and national
identity.
Loyalty to the Emperor
did not necessarily involve international cooperation, peace or
democracy, though they were certainly associated with the Emperor in
that situation. Irrespective of the fact that these central ideas of
Western liberalism won favor in Japan during the Taisho Era (1912-1926),
the fundamental contradiction between them and the demand for absolute
obedience persisted. (Lowe and Moeshart, 1990, p.66)
The Japanese have always
thought of themselves as one people, and as social control must be
difficult for an island brimming with 100 million souls, an institution to
guide pedagogical prerogative was obligatory. Since the Emperor's decree
was constitutionally impotent, the Ministry of Education's curriculum
guide, the Course of Study, became Japan's exclusive pedagogic
creed in the national process of economic reconstruction.
2. The solution
Modern day Japan's
fiscal problems have to do with production surpluses. In the area of
agriculture, there is a surplus of rice, in education, a surplus of
knowledge. The corporate machinery that the post-war era created continues
to reproduce itself, therefore reinforcing both commercial egocentricity
and societal asymmetry. As these concerns can be interpreted as
precipitates of a corporate encroachment of Japanese education, a possible
solution to the Japanese inability to communicate in English consists in
discovering a new theory of instruction that will maximize the
humanization of learning. This theory, which should be supported by
political reforms to Japan's current education system, may be forged with
a focus on the modernization of bilingual education. Specific reforms must
be concerned with the liberalization of English language programs with the
aim of improving communication between Japan's Japanese speaking majority,
and the nation's English speaking cultural minorities. Beauchamp
maintained that,
A political rationale
lies behind virtually every form of education, but it is especially
evident in the controversies surrounding bilingual education. Bilingual
education is more than just learning another language, it also involves
the redistribution of power. As Jerome Bruner suggested in his 1969
Saturday Review article, “A theory of instruction is a political
theory in the proper sense that it derives from the consensus concerning
the redistribution of power within society — who shall be educated and
fulfill what roles.” It follows, then, that although arguments favoring
bilingual education invariably talk about preserving the culture and
literary traditions of speakers of minority languages, and may
accomplish that goal, it is fundamentally redressing political and
economic power between the haves and have-nots. Thus one of the major
reasons why the dominant group in a country refuses to learn the
languages of its minorities is simply the reluctance to grant prestige
or status to these languages, and by extension, to those who speak them.
(Beauchamp, 1985, p.10)
In Japan, it is not the
case Japanese refuse to learn English, actually, high scoring on the
English section of university entrance examinations may determine
candidates acceptance to national universities. In truth, the political
reality that Japan rejected the pedagogic reforms of the Occupation may be
expressed in the truncated nature of Japanese scholastic English. English
is a language to be understood and read, but not to be spoken, hence, by
association, English speaking people cannot be communicated with, and the
Japanese government may more easily censor foreign influences, and adapt
them for inculcation to the general populace. Paolo Freire originated the
term, `the banking concept' of education, which implies that students are
to be receptacles for the deposit of information by the teacher (Freire,
1972, p.45) Furthermore, in his critical view of revolution, he considered
that if an oppressive force is the architect of the social change, then
the revolutionary act is only a instant in that society's history, and
contains no emancipating import. This type of revolution does not promote
a continual process of liberation, because revolution is, by nature,
educational, critical and transformational of the culture it traverses.
For education to
transform the student's world it must be critical, thus, the student will
be constantly reevaluating their circumstances in order to discover
meaningful opportunities to liberate themselves from oppression. This idea
of education as liberating praxis stems from the cognitive act. The
student is not simply memorizing the teacher's information, but is
learning to question it. As the student and teacher exchange information
in this problem-solving dialogue, they are making the curriculum part of
their own reality, they are learning to find the words with which they can
name their own world (Ibid. p.145). The leaders of the educational
revolution cannot say the words unaccompanied, they must say them together
with the people.
The fact that leaders
who organize the people do not have the right to arbitrarily impose
their word does not mean that they must therefore take a liberalist
position which would encourage license among the people, who are
accustomed to oppression. The dialogical theory of action opposes both
authoritarianism and license, and thereby affirms authority and freedom.
There is no freedom without authority, but there is also no authority
without freedom. All freedom contains the possibility that under special
circumstances (and at different existential levels) it may become
authority. Freedom and authority must be considered in relationship to
each other. (Ibid.)
Freire, as Dewey, and
Marx before him, accepted the Hegelian axiom that every state of knowledge
is achieved by a re-ordering of preceding states (Barnes, 1976, p.100). In
1957, Noam Chomsky re-ordered preceding concepts of language education,
when he put forward his first rules, principles and generative procedures
regarding linguistics. This reassessment was based on his analysis of the
basic units of grammar (George, 1989). During the same period, Jean
Piaget's study of human behavior sought to determine how children can
learn knowledge which adults present to them for their own ends. Much of
his work centered around how language is instrumental for children in
coming to terms with past experiences, and relating these to new ones
(Barnes, pp.81-83). Contemporary writers like Edward Sapir and L.S.
Vygotsky were influential in the linguistic field due to their hypotheses
regarding how speech guides action by the formation of new meaning
(Ibid., p.100). The importance of language in cognitive
development, Jerome Bruner's linguistic theory, forms a cornerstone in the
study of how thinking is related to (and according to Bruner influenced
by) speech. Bruner holds in common with both Sapir and Vygotsky that
language is,
a means by which we
learn to take part in the life of the communities we belong to, and a
means by which we actively reinterpret the world about us, including
life itself. Through language we both receive a meaningful world
from others, and at the same time make meanings by reinterpreting
that world to our own ends. (Ibid., p.101)
Language is the
exclusively human tool that makes reflection on our culture possible. It
is a symbolic method for presenting our circumstances in a rational way,
that upon reflection, allows for the construction of modifications that
open avenues to future improvement. The bulk of Bruner's research deals
with formulating a teleology of language acquisition, which is reflected
in his views towards the creation of a high-performance curriculum. The
value of this pursuit, according to James Britton (1970), is not that a
sequence of learning is established, but the determination of how the
anticipation of a particular outcome can be formulated, according to the
reappearance of events or segments in that sequence that exhibit a
tendency towards repetition. Bruner believed that in the stages of
learning, action and perception were interlocked in two ways. First,
the enactive system, where action and perception occur
simultaneously; second, the iconic system, in which perception is
liberated from action. For the purposes of this thesis, I will concentrate
on the linguistic consequences that this system ramifies, for I believe
that it is of utmost importance to Japanese English conversation teachers.
In Bruner's terms, the
stages refer to the establishment of the third system of
representation—the linguistic system—upon the foundations laid by the
enactive and iconic systems. Bear in mind also Bruner's point regarding
the mismatch between the systems: it is a kind of inequilibrium that
will not let the child rest, but prompts him to further exploration,
further growth. (Britton, 1970, p.207)
Bruner considered verbal
behavior as the fundamental `tool' that we use to liberate
ourselves from past experiential constraints, by communicating freely with
others, and in this way, environmental transformation may be impacted.
Beginning at an early age, children discover that speech is the most
productive method by which external change may be occasioned. Hence,
children become natural learners, and master the art of predicting the
consequences of their demands. As pupils, their ability to ask questions
and formulate hypotheses should be encouraged, rather than impeded. It is
the craft of the contemporary teacher to provide students with the
technically challenging stimuli that will encourage them to develop this
natural inquisitiveness.
Bruner was right that
the `intrinsic motivation' which arises when we become personally
interested in a topic is an immensely more powerful spur to learning
than any `extrinsic' rewards or sanctions which the teacher can provide
(Barnes, 1987, p.138). It is discoveries such as this no doubt that
prompted Bruner to speculate on the importance of tool-using as a
transitional stage on the way to a full application of the organizing
principle of language to the raw material of experience. (Britton, 1970,
p. 213)
This applies directly to
Japanese pedagogical problems, since federal regulations for entrance
examinations emphasize English language proficiency. Japanese students, on
the other hand, are experiencing an across-the-board limited English
speaking or non-English speaking status (LES/NES), and therefore come
into conflict with international pedagogical standards. Bruner's
research in this area exhorted him to develop culturally and socially
specific diagnostic programs for the bilingually challenged student, in
which the remedial sequence is immersed in materials that tap the
student's interest in culturally diversity (Cole and Bruner, 1971). During
the Occupation, both allied and Japanese educational reformers attempted
to make the use of romaji compulsory in all subjects, that is to say, the
Japanese language would be written in the same characters that we use to
write English. This type of reorganization was supposed to reintegrate
Japanese society with worldwide educational goals, for according
Post-Taisho politics, the elimination of romaji from school curriculum was
paramount to the rejection of Colonial domination by American and European
ideologies over Japan.
The whole problem of
romaji, so sorely in need of some sort of serious scientific analysis,
was as far removed from the touch of sound experiment as ever. The
problem remained where it had always been, in the domain of emotional
claims and counter-claims, with violent clashes of opinion, with
unbalanced charges fraught with ill-will and with little being
accomplished. (Trainor, 1983, p.319)
The three year program
(1947-50) to reintroduce romaji as the sole written language in Japanese
schools was deemed a failure, due to the Japanese deep identification of
their national character with their three writing forms (Duke, 1986).
According to Aso and Imano (1972) the Japanese Ministry of Education,
aware of failure of both the pre-World War II and Occupation reform
programs, insured that the value of romaji would remain simply as a
requirement for university entrance examinations, and this may never
change. Although the Japanese pedagogy can claim across-the-board
second-language education, high school students are limited to acquiring a minimum
level of English biliteracy, just enough to sustain Japan's race
for technological superiority. Bruner's study concluded that programs
which are designed to,
maintain one's native
language and culture while gaining proficiency in English should be
developed in recognition of the cultural bias of the standard English
curriculum in schools. This approach seeks to diversify the curriculum,
to avoid limiting the development of LES/NES children. (Chu-Chang, 1983,
p.164)
Bruner believed that
education must be a more effective method of social change than
revolution, particularly in light of the almost instantaneous diffusion of
information that our Computer Age makes possible. School, then, can be
seen as a frontier for the diversification that is imperative, if students
are to be prepared for the myriad opportunities that will be presented to
them in contemporary life. Hence, in contemporary educational programs,
global views may serve as the predominant strategy by which educators
could present meaningful curriculum to their students, and in that way,
help them to deal with their world. In Education for a Global
Society (1973), James M. Becker offered his advice regarding
ecology-sensitive curriculum,
Expert
environmentalists differ in their views of the stability and resilience
of ecosystems...Some insist that the solution to environmental problems
lies in more scientific knowledge and better technology and better
technology, others see socio-economic morality or the strengthening of
spiritual values as the best hope. There is, however, general agreement
among the experts, at least, that environmental problems are becoming
increasingly worldwide and, therefore, demand a global approach...the
diversity and richness of the human environment and the interplay
between natural forces and man's dreams and aspirations wight well serve
as a major focus of global education. (Becker, 1973, pp.41-42)
Instead of concentrating
solely on theoretical models of English usage, it is up to future Japanese
educators to continually adapt the curriculum, and their methodology, in
order to keep up with sweeping global changes. Techniques must be
ascertained that intersperse comprehensive and interactive learning
strategies throughout school life, so that Japanese secondary students may transcend
the incongruities of classroom languor (which may have reach their apex in
English courses).
We have been negligent
in coming to a sense of the quickening change of life in our time and
its implications for the educational process. We have not shared with
our teachers the benefits of new discovery, new insight, new artistic
triumph. Not only have we operated with the notion of the self-contained
classroom but also with the idea of the self-contained school—and even
the self-contained educational system ... If a sense of progress and
change toward greater excellence is to illuminate our schools, there
must be a constant return of wisdom and effort to enliven and inform
teacher and student alike. (Bruner, 1979, pp.125-26)
In the method of
learning a subject there are three processes that operate almost
concurrently. According to Bruner these are, acquisition of new
data that usually runs contrary to the student's existing beliefs;
transformation of that data into terms that students can examine,
in order to exceed the limits of its comprehension; and evaluation,
which is checking whether the procedure employed by students to control
that data has succeeded in achieving the aims that they had set forth. The
degree to which a learning period can be sustained is dependent on the
outcome that the students expect from their endeavors. As early as 1967,
the Japanese Ministry of Education called for a reevaluation of pedagogic
standards and practices, according to the expanding needs of the new
information-centered society,
Japan's schools
education has made giant strides over the past century, and the degree
of dissemination in this country is very high by international standards
as well. This has played an important role in the growth and development
of our country as a modern state. Meanwhile, as to existing school
education, not a few problems are being pointed out in relation to both
its system and substance at the moment or a score of years after the
inauguration of the new education system, and a comprehensive
examination of school education is now being called for. Furthermore,
the rapid development of technological innovation and the complexities
of society require that school education solve a growing number of new
problems in the years ahead. Accordingly, it is considered necessary at
this juncture to reexamine the past achievements of our country's school
education, clarify the problems involved and thereby establish measures
for improvement. At the same time, it is essential to study fundamental
measures for the comprehensive expansion and improvement of school
education from a long-range point of view in order to meet the future
progress of our country and society. (Aso, 1978, pp.97-98)
The Monbasho's
educational reform agenda took the shape of an university entrance
examination expansion policy (Tanaka, 1992). As this thesis has previously
shown, this approach eventually resulted in the use of high schools as
mechanisms that upgrade students' retention of mathematical and scientific
data. While at present, the ideal learning situation in Japan is the
jam-packing of as much information into the student's waking hours as time
permits, Bruner would assert that there is no guarantee that the data is
being assimilated, and even if it is, it may not have any meaning to the
students beyond the examination period. To remedy this, he suggests that a
curriculum must center on issues that are valuable to the members of a
society, and adds that students should be encouraged to question these,
and develop alternative modes of considering data, based on their acquired
knowledge.
If information is to
be used effectively, it must be translated into the learner's way of
attempting to solve a problem (Bruner, 1966, p.53) ... Unless the
learner also masters himself, disciplines his taste, deepens his view of
the world, the `something' that has got across is hardly worth the
effort of transmission (Ibid., p.73) ... It has been remarked
that words are invitations to form concepts. It can equally be said
that the combinatorial or productive property of language is an
invitation to take experience apart and put it together again in new
ways. (Id., p.105)
In the Japanese pursuit
of educational excellence, two fundamental difficulties should be
confronted according to Bruner's view. First, the guidance of learning
toward `average' pupils, so that all children will be able to fit in, and
succeed at developing their own individual skills. This has a special
significance when English learning is confronted with actual verbal
ineptitude. The Japanese Ministry of Education recognizes the bicultural
import of bilingual education, and the benefits that this type of learning
accrues. Garcia asserted that,
The societal benefit
of bilingual-bicultural education is greater than what, at first glance,
is apparent. As we enter the fourth quarter of the twentieth century, we
recognize the urgency of cross-cultural understanding. Our society and
our globe are shrinking in social distance, requiring more human contact
and better communication. (Garcia, 1976, p.49)
Nevertheless, students
that are gifted in the area of oral English are basically on their own.
Mathematically or scientifically gifted students have abilities that are
recognized as intrinsic to university admission, but the student who can
speak English well, for whatever reason, may have to sacrifice their
maintenance or improvement of this special skill to afford more study time
to other disciplines. According to recent sources (Ministry of Education,
1989), the Monbasho is willing to concentrate more on bilingual education,
However, the
identification, definition, and nurturing of verbal talent has proven
far more troublesome than that of some other types of giftedness. Verbal
talent, by its very nature, resists precise definition. Unlike
mathematical talent, which some educators — albeit unfairly — define
narrowly as skill in solving spatial and quantitative problems, defining
verbal talent evokes such seemingly intangible qualities as insight,
inspiration, and creativity. Much like the concept of creativity, verbal
talent is viewed by some s a personal attribute and by others as an
intellectual process. (Fox, 1982, p.9)
The fact is that
modifications to university entrance examinations so that an oral English
section may be included may be either impractical given present
technology, or many years away. This brings us to the second major
difficulty, the training of teachers in techniques that will serve to
stimulate students' interest in school, so that they will find more
independent goals for learning, that is to say, internal motivations that
stem from the teaching methods. Curiosity in learning has waned in
Japanese high schools because the curriculum continues to be a reflection
of the government's concentration on progress in the fields of science and
technology. Economic demands of the past forty years may have contributed
to the seemingly meritocratic nature of university admission, and since
the collapse of Japan's bubble economy, fiscal recovery may have surfaced
as a current political aspiration. But according to Kobayashi, this
economic power has,
become a source of
trouble for Japan, both on domestic and international fronts, as can be
seen in the environmental crisis by pollution and the international
trade and monetary tension...Many of the difficulties that the Japanese
people are finding in the present international community, both on
national and individual levels, can be attributed to their inexperience
in [linguistic and cultural] multiplicity. As Japan's international
activities expand, such difficulties will increase further unless this
handicap is overcome by some organized effort, among which education is
of prime importance. To be effective in this new task, however, the
national education must first overcome some of the traditions which have
developed in the past closely related to the mono-racial composition of
the Japanese. (Kobayashi, 1976, p.173)
Bruner's theory
contributes a great deal to the construction of a viable alternative. At
the core of this prescription for change, is the recruiting of teachers of
non-scientific topics that recognize the motivating effect of using a
dramatic personality in the classroom. Also relevant to this program is
the `denaturing' of the curriculum, for Japanese students that
would entail material which negates the stress and paralysis that result
from purely didactic instruction. Bruner maintained that students will
become superior assets to society if they are encouraged to be creative in
school, whereas, if their curriculum is limited to passive learning, they
will remain dependent on the institutions that exploit their energies. It
is the task of socio-linguistics to identify problems such as these so
that in the long-run, culture-specific solutions may be proposed. To
paraphrase Bonnaker (1990), for the majority of members in Japanese
society, the problem of unilingualism may lie at the heart of their
inability to transgress from this cycle. It is Bruner's conviction that
social maturity stems from the educational spiral, for with the proper
guidance, the old becomes a spring-board for the new.
If a curriculum is to
be effective in a classroom it must contain different ways of activating
children, different ways of presenting sequences, different
opportunities for some children to `skip' parts while others work their
way through, different ways of putting things. A curriculum, in short,
must contain many tracks leading to the same goal ... Finally, a theory
of instruction seeks to take account of the fact that a curriculum
reflects not only the nature of the knowledge itself but also the nature
of the knower and of the knowledge getting process. (Bruner, 1966,
pp.71-72)
This process begins with
the teacher. Bruner conveyed this idea in many ways, but his most
outstanding influence in this area was Whitehead, who “once remarked that
education involves an exposure to greatness (Bruner, 1977, p.91).”
Teachers are models for students, who personify the traits that they
identify with in their educators, be they good or bad. Television and film
also serve as effective images for students to follow, even if their
communication is in a unilateral sense. The computer, as well, is a great
dramatic tool that saves students the time of memorizing knowledge, so
that they can get on with the exercise of manipulating it. The
curriculum's program can be highly personalized to each student's needs,
and in Japan's case, may take some of the load of having to speak English
off the shoulders of the Japanese pedagogy. Finally, computers save time,
for while students are undergoing a learning sequence, the machine can
provide immediate feedback or correction to them. Playful activity is one
of the first methods that children use to explore their world, hence, the
value of games should not be underestimated in an educational setting.
A program for a
teaching machine is as personal as a book: it can be laced with humor or
be grimly dull, can either be a playful activity or be tediously like a
close-order drill (Ibid., p.84). Games go a long way towards
getting children involved in understanding language, social
organization, and the rest; they also introduce a theory to these
phenomena. As for stimulating self-consciousness about thinking and its
ways, we feel the best approach is through mastering the art of getting
and using information—learning what is involved in going beyond the
information given and what makes it possible to take such leaps.
(Bruner, 1966a, p.95)
The key to stimulating
self-consciousness is presenting students with contrasts to their present
society or culture, and arousing their curiosity in these. The outcome
will be their participation in novel modes of relating to the world.
Contrast is transmitted through symbols and themes that appear in
conceptual categories. Alien landscapes, economies, ecologies and daily
necessities that can be presented to Japanese high school students through
English documentaries (i.e. The Vanishing Rainforests), model
exercises (planning a trip, cleaning the neighborhood), talks and
discussions, contrasting film loops (Inuit life vs. Kalahari Bushmen) and
supplementary kits (such as computer games or guessing games like 21
questions), all lead the students to an identification with how language
transcends ethnic barriers. Identification, for passive Japanese learners,
would provide patterning for coping with conversational situations
rather than merely written ones. Bruner states that in selecting the
curriculum, the first criterion should be the consideration of 'the
psychology of the subject matter' and second, the degree to which that
pattern fosters 'the personification of knowledge' for the students
involved.
Just as concepts and
theory serve to connect the facts of observation and experiment in the
conventional disciplines of knowledge, so great dramatic themes and
metaphors provide a basis for organizing one's sense of man, for seeing
what is persistent in his history and his condition, for introducing
some unity into the scatter of our knowledge as it relates to ourselves.
(Ibid., p.163)
Not unlike Dewey,
Bruner's ideas have met with skepticism in many circles. Behavioral
psychologists in the field of linguistics have contended that Bruner's
teleological arguments for the function of perceptual mechanisms as guides
for behavior are largely equivocal, and that perception ought to be
encapsulated (George, 1989, p.17). Author and professor, Charles Wordell,
who taught English conversation in Japanese high schools for five years,
believes that Japanese pedagogy would be doing the students a great
disservice by modifying the curriculum or methodology, and he exhorts
future teachers of oral English not to expect too much from their
students, and to stick to teaching them the basic units of speech, nothing
more. Wordell maintains that the Japanese high school English conversation
classroom,
is no place to present
a full-blown cross-cultural study ... Young Japanese realize that in
Japanese organizations their first duties are to learn who holds the
power, how things are done, and how to avoid offending anyone ... Those
who challenge the system may win a minor victory—only to find the
results did not merit the effort. (Wordell, 1988, p.13)
Wordell's view is not
uncommon among teachers of oral English in Japanese high schools, for the
administrational and bureaucratic walls that they run up against, combined
with the pressures from panicked mothers who fear that problematic
learning will reduce their child's chances of examination success, create
an oppressive emotional burden. In Japan,
Success or failure on
examinations is not only the success or failure of an individual but of
his family. The self-sacrifice, anxiety, excitement, and happiness or
sorrow that attend examinations are fully shared by parents and
siblings. It is assumed that the child is successful in large part
because of his parents' help and community recognition for success or
failure is accorded to the parents as much as to the child himself. But
beside the applicant himself, the most involved person is the mother. In
listening to a mother describe examinations, one almost has the feeling
that it is she rather than the child who is being tested (Beauchamp,
1978, pp.225-26)...The Japanese Ministry of Education contributes
indirectly to examination anxieties by pressing schools to raise their
standards, and the schools in turn pass the pressure on to the
families...The school teacher who wants to please his superiors and who
takes seriously his responsibility for his pupils' futures will want to
do everything he can to insure the child's success. This inevitably
means that he will advise the mother to have the child study harder and
to sacrifice other activities that might interfere with studying...The
cost to the individual is the anxiety and pressure which he must endure
at the crucial point of admission (Ibid., p.237).
At any rate, one would
hope that in any schools retaining an oral English program, administrators
are open to any ideas or methods that could ameliorate their student's
English language fluency. The Ministry has already instituted several
programs to keep second-language instructors familiar with global updates
in their field. The government recognizes that it is becoming increasingly
important for teachers to brush up on their professional competence and
teaching skills in order to maintain quality education. Teachers who are
distinguished by making continuous efforts to improve their skills should
receive administrative recognition equivalent with higher remuneration. To
date, professors of oral English are still at the bottom of the ladder in
terms of seniority . Overdue structural reforms in the area of teacher
training are slowly being encouraged by the government. “Nevertheless the
most valuable educational achievements will depend on the spontaneous
creativity of the educators themselves” (Ibid., p.395).
In order to help
school teachers broaden their horizons in an international perspective,
the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture every year administers a
program for providing a large number of elementary and secondary school
teachers with an opportunity to visit other countries for one month or
for a half month. The Ministry also administers a program for sending
several secondary schools teachers abroad with a view to contributing to
an increase in mutual understanding between Japanese and foreign
peoples, as well as to the promotion of education for international
understanding. In addition, as part of in-service training of
foreign-language teachers at universities, the Ministry conducts
programs for sending a number of these teachers (teachers of English,
German or French) to countries where the language of their specialty is
spoken. (Ministry of Education, 1989, p.70)
Although the Ministry
claims that their reform programs are effective, it is still up to the
competency of the respective ESOL instructors to select effective
materials from the national Course of Study in order to teach their
Japanese students. The Teacher's Union must find a way to support ESOL
instructors, be they Anglophones or Japanese, in acquiring the competence
to utilizing the mountains of available curriculum, not just the sources
deemed worthwhile by the Ministry, furthermore, oral English study should
not be limited to the use of books alone. Oral English instructors must
find the confidence to present their curriculum by utilizing 'new
educational technologies' if valuable modifications are to be affected.
According to Bruner,
To attempt a
justification of a subject matter, as Dewey did, according to the
child's social activities is to misunderstand what knowledge is and how
it may be mastered (Bruner, 1979, p.121). There exists today a pragmatic
sense of how, on a broad scale, to measure the success of a particular
curriculum—or even how it is working in a given region or for a
particular group of children. The pragmatism will one day be converted
into a more systematic way of proceeding, and that day will be hastened
if we take seriously the task of building a theory of instruction
(Bruner, 1966, p.171). The intelligent use of money and other resources
now available will depend upon how well we are able to integrate the
technique of the film maker or the program producer with the technique
and wisdom of the skillful teacher (Bruner, 1977, p.92)
Bruner's
cognitive/developmental psychology based educational strategies taken into
consideration, perhaps in the future Japanese high schools should not be
limited to teaching oral English in structured classes, but should also
offer new options to students. The possibilities include English immersion
classes: The results of Lambert and Tucker's (1972) experiments in
Montréal with English speaking children in French immersion classes were
encouraging (Chu-Chang, 1983, p.108) and could be applied towards Japan's
pedagogical needs. Other alternatives may include exchange and home-stay
programs with native English speaking countries. Hawaiian's of Japanese
descent are fluent in both English and Japanese, and have established
institutions in which exchange students can receive “the equivalent of a
Japanese high school education, including Japanese history, geography and
literature (Ibid., P.114).” Finally, special schools are being
created abroad specifically to meet the needs of Japanese high school
students, curriculum is taught in English, but the students maintain
contact with members of their own society and peer group, so pressures to
conform to Western styles of living are greatly reduced. Under mounting
pressure by boards of education, the Ministry was forced to amend,
the Enforcement
Regulations for the School Education Law to institutionalize study
abroad by upper secondary school students by enabling them to study at
secondary schools abroad without taking a long leave of absence or
leaving their school, and by allowing their upper secondary schools to
recognize their study abroad as part of the credits leading to the
completion of their upper secondary school course. Further, in order to
facilitate the successful admission in upper secondary schools of
children who are returnees from a long stay abroad and whose number is
increasing under 'internationalization' trends, the Ministry in October
1988 made some amendments in the same Regulations to provide these
children with more opportunities to enter, or transfer to, Japanese
upper secondary schools. (Ministry of Education, 1989, p.86)
As early as 1985, the
Ministry began to grant university entrance qualification to students who
had attended special training schools. These high school students, who
were recognized as equivalent to upper secondary school graduates, and who
completed their courses at schools designated by the Ministry, have paved
the way for Japanese high school students who exhibit a marked interest or
above average skills in oral English (Ibid., p.87). It is now the
responsibility of the Ministry to legislate new amendments to the School
Education Law that would encourage the expansion of funding for the
creation of many more government-sanctioned courses and special training
schools.
3. The method
The educational impasse
that has been exposed in this thesis, specifically that requirements for
admission to Japanese top universities have impeded Japanese high school
students from acquiring English conversation skills, may be surmounted if
, at the very least, a compulsory program of oral English could be
included in every Japanese high school's curriculum, and this must be
legislated in by members of the Japanese Diet. Constitutional changes may
have to be enacted, but the fact is that the Liberal Democratic Party's
Ministry of Education must form effective policies on educational reform.
If it cannot do this, then it is up to the Socialist Party and the
Teachers Union to summon up enough support to carry an educational reform
bill through the government legislation process. The attention that the
Japanese devote towards insuring the highest entrance examination scores
for their children is paramount, but the Ministry's allotment of funds to
the creation of more complex and mathematically demanding requirements for
university entrance (in the name of scientific superiority) must not limit
fiscal spending in educational and environmental sectors. According to
Ichikawa Shogo in his article Financing Japanese Education,
the commercial world's
interest in the education budget results from its profit motive in the
fields of school architecture, school textbooks, teaching materials, and
aides. Groups such as the Federation of Economic Organizations, the
Japan Committee for Economic Development, the Japan Federation of
Employers,' Associations, and the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry
also attempt to influence educational policy when they see their
interests at stake. Their requests usually reflect their interest in
manpower planning and employment stabilization, promotion of science and
technology, preservation of the social order, and administrative reforms
designed to decrease the size of governments. Owing to its financial
contributions to the LDP, the world of commerce and industry enjoys a
close intimacy with the ruling party, resulting in its having an
important voice in the formulation of educational policy.
(Beauchamp,1991, p.92)
Perhaps the LDP is
disregarding the most important uses for science and technology, which may
evidently be in the area of education. The following example may shed some
light on the root of this enigma. In 1982, the government funded Institute
for New Generation Computer Technology began its ten year project to
develop a 'fifth generation' computer that could handle machine
translation and expert systems. Their aim was,
to create a machine
whose functions imitate those of the human eye, ear, and mouth and which
solves problems with a thought process resembling that of human beings.
This project is being conducted on the basis of international
cooperation, with many foreign researchers participating, and the
results are being shared with researchers around the world. (I.S.E.I.,
1989, p.75)
Ten years of research to
bring computer technology to the point where it can replace two or three
years of practical human learning! Perhaps the funds that went towards
this project could have been utilized in a more realistic and productive
way, if they were invested developing a module for the teaching of Oral
English in Japanese high schools. This module would make use of advanced
computer technology, among other learning tools, and could also function
on the basis of international cooperation. In fact, both Japanese
educational researchers, and experts on teaching oral English as a second
language from abroad could collaborate in order to write the programs, and
integrate a global network of communications satellites, to make this
program available in other nations as well. Alas, much of the famed
technological revolution in artificial intelligence has been wasted on the
development of elaborate home video games. Benjamin Duke elaborates on
this touchy subject,
In a nation that has
achieved international notoriety for its highly developed computer
industry, the diffusion of computer assisted teaching, and computers
themselves, in Japanese schools seems incongruous. In contrast,
computers in the classrooms constitute the litmus test for evaluating
the standards of a school in rapidly increasing numbers of U.S.
communities. Even elementary schools with at least one computer are
becoming common. American youth at all levels staring glassy eyed at the
computer screen in the classroom symbolizes a modern school preparing
for the era of high technology. Not so in Japan. “MYCOM,” the
microcomputer, is gradually finding its way into the tiny homes and
minuscule apartments of Japan. But computer penetration into the public
schools has barely begun. For example, according to the pertinent office
of the Ministry of Education, only 0.1 percent of the elementary schools
and 0.9 percent of the junior high schools were equipped with computers
in the mid-1980's for a grand total of 121 out of 45,054 public schools
at the compulsory level. From all indications, it will be quite some
time before computer-assisted teaching, a popular concept in the United
States, becomes widespread in Japan. There seems to be little
disposition so far by Japanese teachers to employ modern technology
currently flowing from Japanese factories for classroom teaching
purposes. (Duke, 1986, p.152)
Duke proceeded to relate
that if Japanese fail to modernize their antiquated education system, they
could be facing their economic Waterloo in the Twenty-first century. In
English classes, not much oral practice in required, in fact, few language
laboratories with their tape recorders, so abundant in the U.S., are
installed in Japanese high schools. “Such facilities could provide the
students with an opportunity to hear spoken native English and to imitate
correct pronunciation” (Ibid., p.154) To take this idea one step
further, with the widespread installation of high school data-bases in the
near future, the Japanese student could have a direct line, via terminal,
to a nationwide and worldwide grid of English conversation exchange, and
guided by a skilled teacher/technician, this student could
interchange a variety of experiences with other students, and then discuss
results in class. This network could also be made available for global
deliberation on environmental topics, and students could encourage each
other to contribute their ideas and solutions through multi-terminal
connections. Films, games and live camera link-ups could be broadcast
digitally, and students would be able to view each other as they speak.
The system could also be used to evaluate students on vocabulary,
grammar, pronunciation and current affairs. The teacher, who would
have undergone special information systems training, would be present to
assist and support the students, and supply them with written materials,
such as vocabulary lists, that would supplement their practical learning.
Parent/Teacher associations and administrators would be able to fill in
for teachers, and supply assistance at data bases located in cultural and
social centers, for students who become interested in studying with the
networked system after school hours. In Japan, teachers will have to take
the lead in order to accumulate the necessary specialized skills to become
guides of SECAT (my acronym for Systems for English Conversation
Ability Testing). In Japan, the government must,
strive to help people
acquire information literacy through both formal non-formal education,
and to help universities and other educational institutions train
experts who will take the lead in creating and developing an
information-intensive society. To this end, the government will promote:
the improvement of the curriculum related to information science and
technology; the provision of information equipment; the enrichment of
the in-service training of teachers; and the research and development of
model software for teaching and learning. (Ministry of Education, 1989,
p.133)
Furthermore, because of
world time zones, there should be link-ups with other high schools at
varying time periods over the two to three year program, this way students
will become familiar with many different English dialects. Data bases
could be installed in prep schools and technical colleges as well.
Finally, the system could also be used to teach Japanese and other
languages abroad with students acting as tutors for language learners
based in foreign countries. The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture
of the Japanese government recognizes the inevitable spread of the new
information media to the education sector of society, and has already
begun to accept the policies of the National Council on Educational
Reform, which put forward the following objectives in 1989,
The first objective is
to help people acquire information literacy, in other words, the ability
to select needed information from among the vast volume of information
available and make use of it efficiently. To this end, the Ministry will
help enrich teaching about information at each school level. In
addition, outside formal education, it will expand non-formal education
programs for the development of information literacy. The second
objective is to utilize new information media in educational activities.
To this end, the Ministry will conduct research and development work on
high quality educational software and on computers suited to educational
purposes. It will also promote the development of new learning systems
using new information media. The third objective is to train
progressively those who will assume leading responsibilities in an
information-sensitive society. To this end, on the basis of the
projected future demand for information engineers, The Ministry will
formulate a plan for the training of engineers and researchers, related
to information processing, mainly at the higher education level. Based
on this plan, the Ministry will set up and expand necessary faculties
and departments so as to meet the demand from society. The fourth
objective is to encourage educational and cultural facilities to become
more information-oriented. To this end, the Ministry will conduct
studies on the idea of making educational facilities more 'intelligent'
as recommended by the National council on Educational Reform. It will
help furnish educational and cultural facilities with new information
oriented equipment, and help universities create information networks
for presenting information about individual universities. Further, as
data bases are expected to be more and more important in the
information-intensive society, the Ministry will promote the creation of
various data bases. (Ibid., pp.126-27)
For the purposes of this
study, I have concentrated on how English conversation ability could be
improved by Japanese high school students, but the idea that the proposed
module be reserved for adolescents seems wasteful, and perhaps future
studies may examine how a scientific approach to learning may help
Japanese to acquire English speaking skills at younger ages. I personally
hope that others who have studied ideas such as this will be able to
transform and evolve them into even more promising possibilities. The most
important aspect to be considered in the success of Japanese high schools
students to improve their English conversation skills may be the enriching
experience that will follow their ability to communicate interculturally
with their peers. Close ties of friendship and understanding will follow
from this international exchange of ideas and compassion that will prove
invaluable to future cooperation on methods by which imminent ecological
deterioration may be averted. The beneficial effects of socialization on a
friendly basis during adolescence have been well documented by researcher
Thomas J. Berndt who claimed that,
children interact more
frequently with close friends than with other classmates. For this
reason, research on friends interactions has greater ecological validity
than research on nonfriends' interactions. Stated differently,
friendship is a special relationship but is also the prototypical peer
relationship. Moreover, because of their distinctive features, friends'
conversations are likely to have a greater impact on children's
reasoning and behavior than conversations with nonfriends. Consequently,
researchers will obtain the most powerful and most valid tests of
hypotheses about the contributions of close peer relationships to
sociomoral development when they focus on interactions between friends.
(Kurtines, 1987, pp.298-99)
If Berndt's hypotheses
are valid, the Monbasho's proposed educational reforms such as
“downplaying the emphasis on entrance exams, beefing up moral education,
countering delinquency, upgrading teaching-credential requirements, and
making various other changes to give students a 21st-century
internationalist perspective (Tanaka, 1992, p.127)” should include the
development of face-to-face oral English programs, and their related
information-sensitive modules. This thesis has examined from a critical
footing the scientific pedagogical contributions of John Dewey in the
history of Japanese education, which may be supplemented by methodological
recommendations put forth in the linguistic theory of Jerome Bruner's
cognitive/developmental psychology. It has been suggested that a
reexamination of the Deweyian educational philosophy
{Instrumentalism/Progressivism}, augmented by a critical reevaluation of
suggested educational reforms according to Brunerian proposals
{problem-solving methodology, use of technology as learning aid, teacher
as guide}, may be conducive to the quest for a program that may help
Japanese high school students to overcome the structural deficiencies in
their society that inhibit the acquisition of oral English. Based on this
research, an ESOL module could been proposed that, making use of both
'intelligent' educational media networks and the creation of data bases
for global, cross-cultural dialogue with other students, may be useful for
achieving this purpose. The addition of competent educators (SECAT
guides), challenging stimuli, and the utilization of ecologically
significant curriculum could refresh the Japanese pedagogical system with
a new, more humanistic goal for learning oral English. Yushio Tanaka wrote
that,
While agreeing that
American-style education contributed to Japan's postwar development,
many [Japanese] people feel this is a good time for retrospection and
review. (Ibid.)
The proposed core
reforms may help Japanese English teachers to transcend the limits of an
antiquated university entrance examination system, and encourage pupils to
confidently intuit solutions to environmental problems by exercising their
individual verbal skills in discussion with their foreign counterparts. If
Japan's students are to improve their abilities to conduct dialogue and
cooperation on an international basis, awareness of global ecology could
become a curricular vehicle by which high school oral English programs may
be established. Until this standard becomes the status-quo, the sharing of
eco-rich content with their peers over a network of personal data bases
would be one way for Japanese youth to contribute effectively towards
positive global change.
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