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Promoting peace through education 1

Peace as a Global Language: Peace and Welfare in the Global and Local Community
Promoting peace through education
“Peace Education: a Pathway for the Culture of Peace”

Naoko Kakuta
International Education Resource and Innovation Center(ERIC), Tokyo


1. Introduction: Are we different or same?

“ERIC, an educational NPO based in Tokyo, has translated “Peace Education: a Pathway for the Culture of Peace” into Japanese. While translating, strong commitment of Christianity shuttered the efforts to publishing it. Do I have such a strong position? If not, can you teach peace? If such a strong commitment is a must for peace educator, it will be very difficult to promote peace education in Japan. What do you need to be a peace educator?
Through this workshop, I would like to gather ideas for “additional chapter” for better promotion of peace education in Japan.”

Above is the summary I submitted.

I should first describe why I became interested in this topic. It was Betty Reardon who said “Use ideals as educational tools” in her speech at Peace as Global Language general session. She said concepts such as peace has to be told time and again so that to achieve as real. What you cherish should be told otherwise it will not be known whether it is important or not.

The audience, including myself, was very much impressed and she was surprised that such idea touched people. But, as time has shifted, it is now said in Japan, patriotism/nationalism is an ideal to be taught at school. So, what is the difference? Using ideals as educational tools. Is talking “peace” and talking “nation” the same or not?

It is easy to say “peace is global language whereas nationalism is not”. We have to agree that nationalism may not be global language, but it is an universal language shared in many nation-states in the world. Nationalists will say that every nation has the right to honor their nation and their ancestors and their history. It is, at least that what anti-“ianfu” discussant propose.

Japan has the right to honor the death for the nation and their honor should not be shadowed by “ianfu”, which can be commonly fond near military bases and during wartime. “Ianfu” are, as these discussants argue, simply sex workers, being recruited, transported and stationed at their will and , much more, being paid. Japanese Imperial Army was not such a devil described by Korean and Chinese, but it was simply an normal army. Japanese ancestors who fought for the nation and dead should be honored as such. This is a typical emotion behind anti-“ianfu” arguments.

Nationalism is an ideal used before and during World War Second in Japan to mobilize people into war and recruit all the power of the nation to win the war. Modern nation states are the base for modern war, therefore nationalism played important role in mobilizing and recruiting soldiers.

Therefore, we have to be careful using ideals as educational tool. It is a sword with two edges. The more the teachers seek “right” thing to teach to the students, the easier they inclined to use nationalism as “right” ideal to preach, too.

If teachers’ teaching style is “talk and chalk”, what we call “knowledge-based” approach, ideals as educational tools could be top-down order or demand, which could easily leading to one way cramming. How to teach become much more important and also environment at schools to accept diversity of opinions and tolerance for differences.

So there are questions to consider:

What have to be the difference between using nationalism and peace? Is the difference clear or not?

More in general, what are the principles to differentiate ideals from other ideals? Is there any?

What went wrong when we used “nationalism” as an ideal for educational purpose?

So, it is essential to ask ourselves what are the ideals to be used for educational tools and, more over, how to use them. My workshop at Peace as Global Language 2013 was an attempt to show one way of teaching values as educational tools.


2. Ideals as educational tools:

Before going to the workshop program, let me summarize ideals and concepts in education.

First publication of ERIC was “World Studies” developed by Simon Fisher and David Hicks for development education in U.K.. The pedagogy of this textbook was learner-centered experiential activity-based approach.

Right after the World War Second, the pedagogy of experiential learning was introduced in Japan, but quickly died out under the criticism of “crawl around messy experiential approach”, saying that discussions among inexperienced children do not lead to anywhere meaningful.

The experiential approach used in activities of “World Studies” had lists of “what WS want to teach”, although the activities were learner-centered and group discussion was employed as teaching methods.

These10 principles were:
Interdependence
Fairness
Similarity and difference
Communication
Cooperation
Power shared
Conflicts
Causes and effects
Social change
Values and belief

Looking at these principles, one should acknowledge that skills and values and point of views are mixed in the list. It can be pointed out that this list is not perfect.

Yes, it is true, that this list is very much mixed, but what is important is that WS showed way to teach “concepts” through experiential learning activities. Experiential learning takes four steps, generally.
1.First, experience.
2.Second, reflect.
3.Third, conceptualize your finding
4.Forth, apply your findings to the next step

Through these steps learning experience will lead learners from awareness to action. The activities of WS were designed to find these above mentioned concepts at the third step of conceptualizing. Therefore, these activities were successful sharing the important concepts for us to live on this Earth with other people.

It is not only “World Studies” which used learner-centered activity designed to discover concepts through cooperative learning.

PLT, Project Learning, first started in 1972 from California, U.S.A., used the concepts discovery learner-centered cooperative learning teaching method as well. The first list of concepts were mixed, like World Studies was so, but in 1992’s revision, the concepts were focused on ecological understanding of the world and simplified.

Diversity
Interdependence
System
Structure and scale
Pattern of change

When I introduce these concepts in Japan, some would argue that “limitedness” to the list. The Earth is an closed system which has limit to development. But that too could be expressed in “system”, I think.

These are concepts to understand the basic eco-system on which we depend upon, and if we understand the basics the concepts could be applied when we face environmental issues. It is expected that learners will become conscious citizen who will ask themselves “Is this action threatening diversity? If so, what should I do?”

Another example of teaching values through learner-centered activity-based approach is “Living Values” in Canada. Their list is;

Peace
Respect
Love
Tolerance
Happiness
Responsibility
Cooperation
Modesty
Honesty
Simplicity
Freedom
Unity

You could quote many of such, but let me introduce one more of such attempt, Dr. Kagan’s, since the virtues are categorized into personal, interpersonal and social. He is also a preacher and teacher of cooperative learning approach, Kagan’s Method.

personal virtues
1.courage
2.good judgment
3.integrity
4.self-discipline, impulse control
5.perseverance, self-motivation 

relationship virtues
1.caring, kindness, courtesy
2.cooperativeness, helpfulness
3.honesty
4.respect
5.understanding, tolerance

community virtues
1.citizenship
2.fairness
3.leadership
4.responsibility
5.trustworthiness, loyalty

U.K.’s national curriculum gives the followings as its core value for education:
1.Truth
2.Honesty
3.Justice
4.Trust
5.Sense of duty

Today, we know that ESD, education for sustainable development, challenges our values and demand that we should live up to the values which will enable us to live harmoniously on Earth with other living things and people. Therefore ESD is said to be value education.

Materialism, consumptionalism, short-term benefit-mind are the values we developed through modern industrialization, which threaten the co-existence of lives on Earth.

ESD demands the following values to be shared and acted up to by all the people of the world. It is the goal of ESD to share the same values. The list is not complete, yet. They are not as sophisticated as PLT’s. So here is what I myself have compiled.

Visions:
Sustainable development
Social justice and fairness
Human rights
Citizenship, such as participation, responsibility and rights
Better quality of life

Actions:
Interdependence
Diversity
Power shared
Communication
Conflicts, peaceful resolution
Cooperation, collaboration
Values and understanding
Beliefs and actions
Causes and effects
Consideration for future generation
Uncertainty and precautious approach

These values and visions, concepts and principles are to be learned through experiential cooperative approach, so that to know oneself, incorporate other’s view points and shared social visions to nurture one’s own set of values. Values should be taught through experientially and cooperatively.

Knowing that such should be the way for values, I wonder whether nationalism education will go toward that end.


3. Goals of Education-individual or society?

To act up to your value is something very difficult for Japanese. It was Jifuji Misumi, who analyzed that Japanese values system is relative. Values shift according to TPO.

“Seishin-shugi”, spiritualism is put before rationalism. This is the history from the Meiji Era, when western science and technology were introduced to Japan, when it shifted national boundary and opened the nation to the world. The power distance between Japan and the Western World was so big that the tops of new Meiji Government were eager to catch-up. The innovations introduced at that time were:
Industry
Legal system
Government system
Social system
Culture
Education
Military

In order to build up a modern nation, national education system was introduced starting with compulsory elementary school and then junior and senior high school which were for the elites, and on top, universities. There were national universities, but also private universities were established by the people who experienced Western world.

Education was very important to overcome the regional local loyalty based on the “Han” and introducing the idea of “Japan” throughout the country. Also it played major role to introduce “Standardized Japanese” since many of the Han provinces spoke dialects which were very difficult to understand. It was an acute demand from the military that the soldiers could speak standardized, common language among themselves.

Education was pretty much top-down. Teachers were quickly recruited and promoted at Shihan Gakko, teacher training schools, and dispatched nation-wide, equipped with nationally standardized textbooks.

Things western decorated the educational scene at elementary schools, such as western music and western musical instruments, piano, organ and violin, photos of Emperor and Empress and the words from the Emperor on education, “Kyouiku Chokugo”. New terms and new ideas were introduced to local community through national education system.

With such a hurried systematic renovation, in order to combat the identity crisis of the nation, the emperor system was brought out as the symbol for unity of the nation, the root. Also, “Wakon Yousai”, Japanese spirits with western skills, was stressed that even if Japan looks westernized, the spirits should stay as before.

At the time of Meiji Era, many of the former dominant class felt deep loss against power acquired by westernization.

This history, also, makes it hard for Japanese to act up to “values”. Which value? You’d always have to ask yourself. The former or the latest?

But it was not only at Meiji Era such a wind blown over the Japanese Archipelago. Tamotu Aoki, an anthropologist, describes the four layers which characterize Japanese culture overtime in Japan. Nothing of each layer died out in Japan, he points out, and you can observe such in every day thing, language, thinking, rituals, ceremony and so.

First layer is animism. Every grass, every tree have spirits.
Second is the religious and spiritual influence of Buddhism and
Third is political ethics of Confucius
Forth is the Western technology and science

Every system and technology cannot stand alone. Skills have their own value system behind. Could spirits and skills divided? Japanese Archipelago located at the edge of the Continent is the last resorts for wind to blow bits and pieces. You should not forget that the sea currents as well washed ashore and common culture were carried out and spread on these oceanic high ways.

With all these complexity affecting value system of Japanese, one of the biggest pressure is social role system in Japan. It is more important to play your role than to act on your individual values and judgment. This idea of “Yaku” developed through Edo Era and has not changed through Meiji, Taisho and Showa into Heisei, the discussant argues.

It was revealed at the time of Eastern Japan Earthquake took place. Social ties which united people were supported by strong feeling of responsibility for “yaku”.

It is almost like growing up is getting some roles in your life. Socialization is equal to become a worker. You’d hear “Shakaijin” at the celebration of twenty-year old. Shakai means society and jin is person or people. Shakaijin is not the same as citizenship. Shakaijin is a set of collective roles, a worker, a family member, a citizen, a voter and so on. In each role, there are expected ethics to act up to.

Citizenship are for the common values which I have introduced. Shakaijin are for the organization he/she belongs.

Another discussant for relativism and universalism is Toshio Yamagishi , a social psychologist. He argues people in monotheism culture trust others based on the universal values, whereas in Japan people trust each other based on the relationship. You know him/her and his/her background, therefore you trust him/her. He calls the former “Trust society” and the later “Secure society”. You are secured in a role-based relationship dominant community. You know what to expect and you know what is expected for you.
His research also reveals role ideas for people to act up to as values which dominate the act and deed of people.

Even development of self, or individual, as educational goal is regarded negatively today, since developing self leads to individualism. Individualism is regarded as not taking one’s role given in an organization. Roles and relationships are more important than self.

So, educational goals are at stake, today in Japan. Is education for individual development or for role in a group, community, and society?  Of course, education is for individual as well as for society. Socialization is a must for an individual to survive.

But then, what is the difference between putting individual first or society first?

Education is a complex social endeavor for out best survival and also for well-being. But the outcomes and results are also complex. Although the outcomes of education are measured and evaluated often and in many ways, we would all agree that the real outcomes of education come much later. For ESD, the effects of education can only be measured when the children learning today become environmentally and humanely conscious global citizens as they turn to be grown-ups 10 years later.

Such characteristics of education demands educational researches be done consistently, persistently and reflectively.

If the goals of education are not consistent, educational researches could not be consistent, as well.

In the environmental education in U.S.A., guidelines for excellence are compiled through NAAEE, an umbrella organization for promotion of environmental education in U.S.A.. Evidence-based approach for good practice is a necessary condition.
Basically speaking, these guidelines are based on the philosophy of development of self.

If we are to put society first as educational goals in Japan, much efforts are needed to prove that such educational goal is workable for sustainable development.

If the educational goals need to be reformed, all the educational researches should be geared towards them. That should be the arguments of educational reform.

4. Values behind skills: something common and universal

Although values are complex in Japan and it is not rational at all, there must be something in common with the rest of the world, of course. We are human.

The activity-based learner-centered program development started with “Humanization of Education”, an educational reform took place in 1980’s in U.S.A. It was flower children who lead the move. It was regretted that the science education reform took place in 1970’s were largely for the human resources development for science renovation, aggravated by “Sputnik Shock” in 1969. U.S.S.R. was leading before U.S.A.

Education is for human, not for science. And science should be for human, not for the nation.

Another educational reform movement took place in an developing country simultaneously. Modern education system introduced into developing countries were, just like the education reform took place in Japan, to induce economic and social development with western technology and system. The gap between the developed and developing was large and the catch-up was felt acute. Developing countries were oppressed and exploited.

Why is this?

Paulo Freire started education for the oppressed. It was the same idea behind the humanization of education in U.S.A. Teach what is necessary for learners to live and prepare for the next step.

This, too, was experiential, learner-centered, dialog rather than monolog by teachers, collective, collaborative and activity-based.

Consciantization, Freire stressed, is the key. And that can be facilitated through dialog, discussion and reflection.

These reforms changed the philosophy of education itself.
by eric-blog | 2014-03-05 13:32 | ☆よりよい質の教育へBQOE
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