Comentary on Japanese "Higher Education"

There are many things about Japan I love: the high-contrasting mountains raising up and bowing down over the ocean, the aged wood and patterned carvings of ancient edifices, and bustling alleys, filled with makeshift storefronts, and how their goods threaten to pile on the road. These are just a few examples. However, in my opinion, Japan is lacking in a fundamentally important category: higher education.

My experiences with college life in Japan have been educationally disappointing. Professors do not need any particular credentials to teach Japanese to foreigners, nor do they need any higher-developed degrees to teach to Japanese students. A professor with a P.H.D standing is in the minority.

A university student in America has an innate trust that the individual holding the position of "teacher" has more knowledge than the student. This is something that is taken for granted. I am shocked that Japan, arguably Asia's more developed nation, does not have stricter standards of educational qualifications. Here professors are not specialized. At my college professors are generalists, often with no teaching qualifications or knowledge.

One of the most prominent examples of this is their minimal slew of foreign teachers (which is one of the lowest statistics in developed nations). These individuals often have no other qualifications than a standard four-year university degree. Many of these individuals come from the JET program, which temps Japanophile-Americans with year long contracts to teach English in the country they have a perpetual boner for. (I know, that was rather cynical).

The idea sounds good. An individual coming from a four year university has more knowledge and academic experience than the average person. However, a person can be a genius, but without knowing how to teach they are rendered profoundly ineffective.

Recently I had a run in with my college's French professor at a bar. He was more than slightly inebriated (which was not the first time I had seen him this way) and vulgarly socializing with other students. By chance, or lack of standing room, we were pressed into the same corner. He was ranting about the increased number of tattooed youth in America. In an effort to alleviate the surmounting tension from the other Americans I brought up the topic of "irezumi", or traditional Japanese tattooing. Now, according to The Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan and a record in the Nihon Shoki (720) tattooing in Japan was used as a form of punishment. To the extent in which kanji characters such as aku (bad) and inu (dog) were tattooed on the forehead. When I suggested that tattooing had once been used in this way, the professor quickly dismissed the idea and pressed the notion that it originated in the yakuza. Not only was his information stereotyped and inaccurate, but he also showed no interest in considering other possibilities.

The professionals are a core issue, but naturally the system is the factory perpetuating them. According to Yoshio Sugimoto (in his book on Japanese society) the Japanese educational system produces individuals without critical thinking skills. He states:

“On the pretext of avoiding subjective evaluation, these criteria give priority to the supposedly objective appraisal of pupils’ capacities to memorize facts, numbers, and events and solve mathematical and scientific equations. This framework attaches little importance to the development of creative thinking, original problem formulation, and critical analysis in the area of social issues and political debates.Thus, rote learning and repeated drilling are the predominate feature of Japan’s education, particularly at secondary-school level, where examination culture permeates deep into the classroom. Consequently, Japanese students rank high in international comparisons of mathematical and scientific test results. The nation’s school system produces an army of youngsters who have had excellent training in basic factual knowledge but limited education in critical social thinking.”

In my Japanese class the use of English is limited, if not forbidden. Moreover, at least 2 (if not 3) out of the 4 Japanese professors I have speak almost no English. I can understand the desire for immersion teaching, but a professor should be able to help the student in their natural language. Especially if the student is struggling to comprehend. In my class there are a few native English speakers who have completely give up; they have lost faith in learning in this environment. Instead of actually striving to understand grammatical patterns our professors want us to memorize and recite, verbatim, sentences from the book without even attempting to understand their meaning.

I never quite appreciated the way American universities are formulated until I experienced their polar opposite.