Educational Reform
I am feeling very uneasy about Prime Minsiter Abe's proposed reforms. I wonder, is it really necessary to teach love of country and about how beautiful Japan is? In my experience, most Japanese people already think that this country is the best place on earth and that Japanese people are superior to all others. Does that really need to be emphasized in the classroom? And what will happen to my son? Will he be despised because he is only half Japanese? I thought we were just starting to get past that kind of thinking in Japan, but what with all this talk of forced nationalism and nuclear armamament, I'm starting to get very worried.
posted by Gaijin Mama at 3:20 PM
2 Comments:
Have you seen the documentary "Atarashii kamisama"? It's about a neo-nationalist punk rock singer and does a nice, nuanced job of pointing out some of the contradictions in the Japanese brand of nationalism.
You might also like the book "In the Realm of a Dying Emperor" - it's both stories about a few anti-nationalist people in Japan, and the author's own recollections of her childhood (her name is Norma Field, and she's a biracial professor at the University of Chicago). It's not a new book (1990?), but it's still pretty relevant.
Thanks for the tip on the movie. I'll check it out. I read the book, but it's been so long that I could probably read it again and find something new.
Although I'm kind of worried about the "reforms," in retrospect, not much has changed since the previous reforms. It seems that the Ministry of Education issues vague dictums that the teachers at the bottom don't really know how to interpret, and they are already so busy, that they just go on with what they were doing.
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