War Stories
During the speech writing correcting season, I have found that 60% to 70% of the entries I am put in charge of deal with the same topic. And there are two really popular topics that just swap in and out of the majority position. These topics are eco-friendly / anti-global warming stories and pro-peace / anti-war stories. Neither are particularly surprising to me, knowing Japan.
Also not particularly surprising is that Japan focuses on war stories that foster empathy and paint it as the victim. The most obvious case is in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hiroshima seems to be the focal point around here, though that may just be a geographical bias - more students have actually been to Hiroshima than to Nagasaki. The other stories that are routinely used in the classroom as well as in contests are those where the ground war hit Okinawa. Never mentioned are the military excursions in Southeast Asia, Pearl Harbor, etc. And I suppose I can understand that. But the lopsidedness is pretty sad sometimes.
I’ve read countless stories of children being killed, digging graves for family members, and people asking for water. It makes me choke up on occasion. (I got out of teaching a class earlier because I didn’t feel like I could correctly “enthusiastically” explain the vocabulary earlier without disrespecting the lives lost in the story and making light of a really grave situation. Also, the fact that I’m American can be awkward too.) The good thing is that students here all agree on a basic truth of life: war is awful. We definitely agree on that point.
on September 17th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
It’s a planned effort to turn kids into pacifists. The history books at the junior high school I was the ALT for mentioned the suffering inflicted on Asia, but teaching them about how people in their own neighborhood were burning to death or starving probably has a stronger effect.
on September 21st, 2008 at 9:08 pm
It’s tough to discuss topics like that with kids, especially if they’ve been educated in such a way that their world view is fairly one-sided.
But, it’s easy to see why some of them tend to have a slanted view when you consider some of the horror stories they’ve likely heard from family members and/or other adults who lived through the period.
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on September 27th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Unfortunately, there’s lopsidedness in our own education systems, too. For example, I was never taught about Britain’s war crimes during its occupation of Germany after World War 2.
on September 30th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
We had this story when I was an ALT. About a girl whose hair was falling out. I would choke up while we read it, but the kinds didn’t even get the English of the story, so they would just kind of look at me odd.
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on October 13th, 2008 at 11:55 am
[...] War Stories [...]
on October 23rd, 2008 at 8:41 pm
When they mention the ground war in Okinawa, do they reference the atrocities done by Japanese soldiers against Okinawans? Doubt it, but anyway…
National curriculum causes lopsided knowledge. You can’t teach humanities (many answers to one Q) like you teach math (one answer to one Q). But I’m sure you’ve already gotten a sense of this…
Right-Wingers in Japan often cite this kind of pacifist/victim curriculum as continuously self-imposing an inferiority-complex on the Japanese psyche, and I can understand that viewpoint. Their solutions though, also lopsided.
on October 24th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Shaun - not in the books I’ve read. Though, obviously, that’s a really small amount. And to be honest, once in a while they will have a kid befriend an American photographer / soldier / etc. too. I really like the way that you put it - you can’t teach humanities like you teach math. Well put! I’m going to steal that for use in conversation sometime. Ha ha.