特色のある科目

愛知県立大学 特別講義 英語連続セミナー

第8回(12/16)

講演
  • 講 師  Jon Catanzariti(幼児教育学校ミライノハコ)
  • 演 題  Preparing the Learners of Today for the Society of Tomorrow
感想

英米 1年
I had thought Japanese education is a bit better than other countries in the world. However, I realized it’s not true any more. Japanese government members are all old and the education system in school hasn’t changed for a long time. When I went to Australia and took classes in junior high, they were completely different. They were using their computers, they had their own thoughts, and the most different thing was students discussing almost all the time. Teachers didn’t talk for a long time like Japanese teachers. In Australia, there are a lot of immigrants. I think that’s the reason why they can accept new things right away. However, in Japan we don’t have them so much. He said, “If you have something (different), you’re not Japanese.” That idea keeps Japan still doing the same thing. If we change that kind of old-fashioned thought, I think we can change.

英米 2年
Thank you for such a fantastic presentation. You translated all my thoughts and worries on Japanese education. My Japanese homeroom teacher was so amazing that I wanted to be a teacher too. Later she told me “Don’t do this to yourself, you won’t have a life.” She worked a lot, but I loved how she cared so much for her students as her own kids. I hope Japanese education expands its horizons for better education and working conditions as well.

英米 2年
Now, the Japanese government is trying to protect ladies’ status in society. Nevertheless, most politicians are men. I don’t think this situation can solve women’s problems. If they want to help ladies, they have to get female politicians and hear their opinions. Furthermore, the government is also trying to upgrade English education in Japan. However, most politicians are over 50 years old and it has been more than 25 years since they finished their education. Maybe they don’t know well about the current situation of schools, so they need ideas and the power of youth. But Japanese people’s prejudice is such that young people or women are not suitable to politicians in distributing Japan’s potential for the future.

フランス 3年
Thank you for your interesting presentation. Now, I’m studying Spanish and I love it. But I don’t know what I want to be in the future. I just want to use Spanish in my job. I had thought that language was just a tool for communication but I found out that language is not only a tool, throughout using language. By communicating with people from other countries we can get a lot of ideas, points of view, and opinions. I’m getting better as a person thanks to languages. So, I want children in school to learn other languages and I want the Japanese government to change for those children.

スペイン 2年
Thank you for your talk. Since Japan is a small island, and we have a history of national isolation, we tend to have images of almost everything. We tend to stay with those, having no changes, no questions and no improvement. That’s sad and I don’t want it for me and my children. We need to make a change because this is our future and our country. We can’t just sit and wait for adults who we don’t know to improve the situation. We have the power. We can do that. This talk inspired me a lot. It makes me feel like I need to change myself for my future. And that starts from now.

スペイン 2年
Thank you for your presentation. At first, I was surprised that you didn’t use a power-point for your presentation. Although, listening to what you said I realized that it was my stereotype of how a presentation goes. I was aware of some stereotypes in Japan, but I didn’t think about how it would affect us and our society. Recently a famous K-Pop singer Hara committed suicide because of the hate in the society towards her. It is not the only reason but there are many other celebrities that suffer from how society sees them. Also, I heard that Japanese in general think too much how others think about them. And I think that is from our social images. This presentation made me rethink how I see and think about our society.

教育福祉 3年
I really enjoyed today’s topic and it reminded me of a discussion that I did in education class before. I think some Japanese teachers or experts in education think we should not use technology a lot in a school. Because, as you said, we do not need special knowledge or skill to teach any subjects if students become used to technology like computers, iPads to learn subjects. I understand new technology can help students’ learning, but I am afraid that some teachers will not work hard and rely only on technology.

看護 1年
Today’s lecture has many surprising facts: I thought Japan is educated compared to other countries because japan has a lot of technology companies. The most surprising thing was Japan’s education is declining now. I’ve never thought that, but I recognized it from today’s lecture. I think the old system about education, government and so on spreads in our society. In the Sengoku period, some samurai tried to bring about social upheaval, Japanese say “下剋上”. I think we have to be brave against old people. The situation will not change without that feeling. You said, “You must be the teacher!” Those words hit my heart. I’ve put too much confidence in English. I’ll use English as a tool! The world is so big. I’ll use the phone for raising myself up. I’ll throw away stereotypes and get a new view.

留学生
This relates a little to last week’s presentation as well, and is something I feel very strongly about. Today’s presentation was about challenging stereotypes and perceptions of Japan’s society. First example being tattoos , and how people do not have faith or trust in people who may have them. Simple appearance issues cause a lot of problems and cause distrust before even knowing someone’s name. The second issue is the Japanese education system and the lack of ability to change or adapt to fit the world around them. This ranges from using new technology, both for teaching and future skills that might be needed for jobs. I have actually written an extended essay on a similar topic and one of the biggest concerns I have for Japan is the serious lack of creativity and recognition for new ideas or developments. If we look at history, every time Japan has changed, it has been forced to do so by outside forces. The perfect example is Japan’s potential for technology and production. But instead of leading the world in everything electrical, we have strange inventions like the super toilets.

留学生
It’s interesting to think about being “failed” by the education system. A lot that was described about Japan has its parallels to Russia as well, though of course some things differ. To be honest, however, as things stand now, it doesn’t look promising for the education system still, at least in my country from what I can tell so far. While the ability to “educate yourself” really should be considered one of the most important skills in life it still seems kind of tragic. I do think that one of the reasons is that a lot of jobs in the education system lack prestige (or salary). In my country people who lacked scores in the finals usually go into teaching, and if that isn’t depressing I don’t know what is. Although, to be fair, obviously knowledge and exam scores are far from everything that such a job takes. I’ve met maybe 2-3 teachers in my life that I “truly” liked, and they were truly inspirational. Just the effort they put into teaching alone made me study harder for their subjects. I hope we’ll somehow have more teachers like that in the future.

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