|
Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
|
 Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2010 1:50 am Post subject: Japan Times article: saving Japan's [schools] |
 |
|
Specific to university setting, but applies not just to university, but also to junior and senior highs.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20100817gc.html
| Quote: |
This [mokuteki tassei kan, or the feeling of having achieved something], I suggest, is the key problem with the education system here. It does not provide that feeling of achievement, for several reasons. One is that Japan by nature is not a very intellectual society. The value of abstract learning for its own sake is weakly realized. In the science or engineering departments, students apply themselves. The problems are mainly in the liberal arts faculties.
Japan's groupism is another problem. Failing weak or lazy students and having them expelled from the allegedly warm and cozy bosom of the university group is almost impossible, both practically and psychologically.
Teachers, too, try to retain their group identity by playing up to students. The result is a version of the old communist regime joke that said the workers pretended to work and the bosses pretended to pay them. Here in Japan, often it is that teachers pretend to teach and students pretend to study. |
| Quote: |
| Japan's closed academic world needs to discover what almost every Western university knows � that if the carrot of self-improvement is not enough to make people study then it has to be the whip of failure. This means failure to graduate, and failure to find a good job. That kind of incentive does wonders to clarify the mind and spur motivation. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2010 2:19 am Post subject: Re: Japan Times article: saving Japan's [schools] |
|
|
| GambateBingBangBOOM wrote: |
| The value of abstract learning for its own sake is weakly realized. In the science or engineering departments, students apply themselves. |
I would not tend to agree with this.
| Quote: |
| Japan's closed academic world needs to discover what almost every Western university knows � that if the carrot of self-improvement is not enough to make people study then it has to be the whip of failure. This means failure to graduate, and failure to find a good job. That kind of incentive does wonders to clarify the mind and spur motivation. |
I agree with this thinking, but then again, I'm not Japanese. At least I try to put this into my English classes, especially when students are otherwise pushed along by their Japanese teachers. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
GambateBingBangBOOM
Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 2021
Location: Japan
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2010 2:39 am Post subject: Re: Japan Times article: saving Japan's [schools] |
|
|
| Glenski wrote: |
| GambateBingBangBOOM wrote: |
| The value of abstract learning for its own sake is weakly realized. In the science or engineering departments, students apply themselves. |
I would not tend to agree with this.
|
Actually, I didn't write that, it's from the article. And I think the article missed the fact that many of the students in the liberal arts faculties are pushed there by the education system because they don't study enough. The students in engineering and science tend to be the ones who try (at math and science). Many of the ones in the liberal arts (especially in the steamed private senior high schools, which in turn leads to where they are in university) are ones who didn't try at anything at all- there are exceptions, of course. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2010 5:31 am Post subject: |
|
|
I don't think the problem of liberal arts students not trying/not having tried very hard is unique to Japan!
I guess the standard "hardline" probably the world over is that arts subjects are, 'ultimately and economically-speaking', a bit of an indulgent luxury anyway, in spite of them helping furnish entertainment to the "real workers". |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2010 6:36 am Post subject: Re: Japan Times article: saving Japan's [schools] |
|
|
| GambateBingBangBOOM wrote: |
| Actually, I didn't write that, it's from the article. |
I knew that.
| Quote: |
| The students in engineering and science tend to be the ones who try (at math and science). |
I don't know about that. Maybe in comparison, but still...
I teach them, you see. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2010 6:51 am Post subject: |
|
|
But your Math and science students are studying (having to study) English though, right, Glenski? (Or are you teaching science in Japanese LOL).
Yes, I know that they need to master English (higher-level ~ ) to some degree to be able to get ahead in those subjects/fields, but you could forgive them for sometimes thinking that they'd prefer to be getting on with them via the medium of their native language ('This is Japan, and we have no real intention of working or even communicating with let alone living abroad' etc). |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
This page is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling.
Contact Dave's ESL Cafe
Copyright © 2018 Dave Sperling. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
