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Dogs and Demons :: Керр Алекс
Страница: 212 из 270In February 1996, Azby Brown, an American teaching at a Japanese architectural college, noted these results of a study he had done: When he tested his architectural-design graduate students, he found they could not read hundred-page Japanese tracts, or summarize longer books. No one recognized the Guggenheim Museum, or knew in what century the Phoenix Pavilion, the famous Heian temple featured on ¥10 coins, was built. Only one student knew when World War II had taken place. They didn't know what Islam was and had never heard of Muhammad. One student thought Christianity started in A.D. 600.
Professor Duke is right in arguing that the Japanese educational system succeeds in producing a «loyal, literate, competent, and diligent worker,» but he is wrong in believing that this success lies in how much Japanese students know. It is precisely the lack of independent knowledge that makes these workers so loyal, competent, and diligent. They have not been taught analytical thinking, the ability to ask unusual or creative questions, a sense of brotherhood with the rest of mankind, or curiosity about and love for the natural environment. The blame for modern Japan's environmental disaster falls squarely at the feet of the educational system, because it teaches people never to take personal responsibility for their surroundings. This leaves none but a few rebellious souls to notice or cry out when rivers and mountainsides are paved over.
Aware to some degree that the Japanese public suffers from this kind of ignorance, the Ministry of Education has dreamed up another «demon,» the concept of shogai gakushu, or Lifelong Learning. The idea is that as the number of older retired people increases, the nation should give them the chance to study in their old age: English classes, tea ceremony, or other hobbies. Lifelong Learning suits the Construction State well, for it justifies the building of countless multipurpose Lifelong Learning Halls, but there is one little problem that lies in the word «lifelong.» Take people who as children in school were discouraged from thinking for themselves. Deny them the time then and later, as working adults, to develop interests of their own: how can you expect them suddenly to acquire a taste for learning in their old age?
Nothing is more difficult to change than a policy that once worked and works no longer. Training people to be corporate drones succeeded in an era when manufacturing was the source of all wealth, and Japan could easily and cheaply import technology. But with a new age of services and information management dawning, and with software becoming a huge and costly industry, flexible and inventive minds are called for, yet flexible and inventive minds are exactly what the Japanese system tends to stamp out.
Professor Duke is right in arguing that the Japanese educational system succeeds in producing a «loyal, literate, competent, and diligent worker,» but he is wrong in believing that this success lies in how much Japanese students know. It is precisely the lack of independent knowledge that makes these workers so loyal, competent, and diligent. They have not been taught analytical thinking, the ability to ask unusual or creative questions, a sense of brotherhood with the rest of mankind, or curiosity about and love for the natural environment. The blame for modern Japan's environmental disaster falls squarely at the feet of the educational system, because it teaches people never to take personal responsibility for their surroundings. This leaves none but a few rebellious souls to notice or cry out when rivers and mountainsides are paved over.
Aware to some degree that the Japanese public suffers from this kind of ignorance, the Ministry of Education has dreamed up another «demon,» the concept of shogai gakushu, or Lifelong Learning. The idea is that as the number of older retired people increases, the nation should give them the chance to study in their old age: English classes, tea ceremony, or other hobbies. Lifelong Learning suits the Construction State well, for it justifies the building of countless multipurpose Lifelong Learning Halls, but there is one little problem that lies in the word «lifelong.» Take people who as children in school were discouraged from thinking for themselves. Deny them the time then and later, as working adults, to develop interests of their own: how can you expect them suddenly to acquire a taste for learning in their old age?
Nothing is more difficult to change than a policy that once worked and works no longer. Training people to be corporate drones succeeded in an era when manufacturing was the source of all wealth, and Japan could easily and cheaply import technology. But with a new age of services and information management dawning, and with software becoming a huge and costly industry, flexible and inventive minds are called for, yet flexible and inventive minds are exactly what the Japanese system tends to stamp out.