New Community College Classes

Last night we started another 6-week session of classes in the Yokkaichi University Community College. I'll be teaching the entry-level course and the advanced class after that. Makes for a long night, but I sure like being with those learners. They are dedicated enough to come out in the cold and the dark of night to learn some English. The first class has organized a get-together in December at a restaurant near here.

In the advanced class we talked about friends and friendship. One fellow seems to dominate the discussions, so I may have to go back to dividing up the groups for some group discussions and then bring them all back for a review of their. We have a few more students this time, so it would be easier.

Brighten Someone's Day

Recently I've been trying to be more positive. I think I was getting wrapped up in this culture of negativity that seems to be going around. More on that later, but I was attracted by this list of 70 ways to brighten someone's day. It is a great list, as if anyone needed a list. I do many of the things on this list as a matter of course, like waving to kids in the next car. They usually explode with laughter and tell their parents that the gaijin next door is waving at them. The parents probably want to have me arrested, but that is the kind of negativity that I want to get away from.

American and Japanese Comparative Culture

This semester I am teaching a comparative culture course that focuses on Japan and America and their respective similarities and differences. For the past two classes we have talked about America's "gun culture" and the factors that cause gun violence at such a horrific rate in the US while other heat packin' people don't have nearly the difficulties.

There is gun ownership in Japan, both legal and illegal, but there is a good bit of hunting that goes on, especially out in the hinterland where I live. Hunters use traps as well as guns, and several of the locals that I know own them. I also know a Canadian citizen who went through the necessary procedures to own a gun, too. When you no longer want to hunt, then you take your gun to the police and they cut it into bits while you watch, according to the story that I heard from a one-time hunter.

The students were very interested in the class and there was quite a bit of discussion. One of the students asked about gun ownership as a deterrent. I did not know about the research on that topic, so I looked it up. It appears that there is no evidence that gun ownership deters crime, so I'll let them know about that next week.

This week's classes: Giving Directions

In this week's classes for the nurses, we did how to give and receive street directions. This unit, although useful for the knowledge about how streets work in the US and vocabulary, is a little dull. Maybe not just a little. Pretty dull.

To liven things up we used a street map of San Diego, California for some realia, but even that was a little dull. When I worked at schools in Kumamoto, we would make our own maps of places around the university, but there is nothing around this university unless we could make a map of parking spaces, parked cars, bamboo groves, woods, and the school buildings. But my judgement says that would be worse than maps of San Diego.

Article 9 and the Japanese Constitution Debate

This semester I'm teaching a seminar where all of the members of off the sections will participate in a debate about Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. Last week we had a great lecture by one of the professors about Article 9. It's a very short article, but it generates alot of controversy.

Article 9:

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. 2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

This sounds great, but there are alot of people out there, probably arms dealers, manufacturers, oil companies, lots of folks, who would love to see Japan spend more on arms and war. Since the professor who gave the lecture last week spoke about how ten of the best arguments for changing the article were not really very good, I tried to help the students find some other, possibly better reasons for changing it.

The ten reasons conservatives give for changing the constitution were:
1) the present constitution was forced on us by the US
2) the country made the constitution; the country can change the constitution
3) other countries change theirs
4) this peace constitution is unpractical
5) this constitution should be made more timely
6) we have to participate internationally with a functioning military
7) we should add articles concerning privacy and the environment
8) what would we do if we were attacked by terrorists?
9) what would we do if we were attacked by North Korea?
10) under the present constitution we have become selfish and lost our patriotic attitude

Then the professor told us about each of the ten points and how they were not grounds for changing the constitution. Today we spent the class period brainstorming new reasons for changing the constitution.

Happy Halloween!

Just finished with a class this morning. As par usual for this time of year, I did a unit on Halloween. It is becoming bigger every year here in Japan, an obvious way for a variety of merchants to market their wares, so I decided a long time ago that it would be an interesting look at American culture at least to talk about it and learn some of the vocabulary associated with it. I usually make a jack-o-lantern with a domestic pumpkin and some sweets for the class, and we have a good time talking about various related themes. Today we talked about how to make a jack-o-lantern and superstitions.

Today was special, though! Today for the first time in 16 years that I have been doing this unit on Halloween, students brought costumes and sweets--UNSOLICITED! I didn't say anything about it ahead of time, and three students showed up wearing witch hats, and four students brought sweets to give to the members of class. I was very surprised, and very very happy. We had a great time.