An outstanding evolution of “Soetanto Education Methods” in 25 years

 

 

A symposium of education methods which provides motivation to students was held at Waseda University at November 9th, 2012. It was a great symposium of more than 20 people giving presentations. The greatest point of this symposium was that 13 of these students (including 2 students graduating this year) are currently receiving the lecture of “Motivation”. It was just like live coverage of the usual lecture of education methods given by Ken Kawan Soetanto, a professor at Faculty of International Liberal Studies Director, Clinical Education and Science Research Institute.

 

 

 

 

 

Many of the assemblies may not be able to have a concrete idea what kind of presentations are done by students in the middle of studying about education methods. However, I was looking forward to their presentations because they are the ones who are taking lessons about education methods of motivation and feeling changes every day. I have been hearing their experience for about 3 years and was bringing impressive scenes in the class to mind. Their presentations were beyond my imagination. I could see their joy of giving presentations and their progress, especially the last 2 students who only began taking lessons a month ago.

 

 

 

 

I have gone to many congresses of students’ presentation but have never seen students doing presentations with such confidence and enjoyment. Moreover, all of those presentations were different although their topic was same. It wasn’t only the presentations that were unique but also each of the students was unique too. There was a student who was forgotten by society and was called a “monster student”. Some students suffered from depression or didn’t have a goal in their life. One of them played Tsugaru-jamisen which is a Japanese instrument during his presentation.
 Everyone was full of confidence which they gained from classes of “Soetanto Education Methods”. Prof. Soento’s endless challenge of “raising motivation of any students” can be said to be mostly successful.

 

 Lastly, I’d like to introduce a text from a paper written by Hiromatu, who used to be a “monster student” and now a student leader.

 

 

 

Mr　Hiromatu　wrote:

 

 Prof. Soetanto thinks the situation that University students don’t study much and that our society approving it should not be continued. He told me how hard he tries to change this situation and that was the moment I found an encouraging friend for me. In other words, Prof. Soetanto’s presence as one human was a great encouragement for me. From then, I was interested not only in studies but also in teachers. I became to have an interest in professors at Waseda University. I didn’t only take lectures but also went to professors’ offices and had conversation with them to know about the lecture as well as their background of starting their research.

 

To educators
 Although it is important to have knowledge, I think students have these kinds of questions beforehand; why do we study? What do teachers have in mind when they are teaching? What are teachers like? What are the dreams for teachers? Are they challenging something now? I think they want to hear answers to these questions from teachers. Moreover, if they have decision to help students earnestly not to throw out their future, I assure that miracles that are happening in classes of “Soento Education Methods” can happen in your classes too. As a parent who has a child who needs to choose his course soon, I hope that day will come to you as soon as possible.

translated by Yukiko nishiwaki (Waseda Univ.)

 

Why pair internship?

 

“ It was my first time to talk to Japanese people about myself seriously ever since I’ve lived in Japan. ”

This is the words by a foreign student from China during job-hunting interview, I actually heard. He has not made Japanese “ friends” ever since he has come to Japan.  I’ve heard lots of stories from more than 1000 forei gn people through job-hunting interviews. What I can say is that his case is no t rare. Many of them study Japanese very hard, and get into universities or vocati onal colleges in hope. At first, they are eager to make Japanese friends. However, they result in losing opportunities to make Japanese friends because they are busy with par-time job and unaccustomed studying. It makes them harder to get in circles and it also makes them have fewer opportunities to get involved with Japanese students. But If, there is a Japanese student who can say something to them friendly …

 

 

“Communicating with a lot of people who have various ways of thinking enables you to understand yourself. ”

 

Hanging out with people who have close hobbies and close ideas of you narrows your vision. If you accept different ideas, culture s and hobbies from yours to them, you will have a wider view increasingly. If I was a Japanese student now, I would get along with foreign students aggressively, and I would also convey Japan ’s good points. All of foreign students like Japanese people and “Japan” . That’s why they have come here , Japan.

 

So every Japanese person, let’s be the first to communicate with foreign students , and tell them why Japan is good in your mind. Therefore, you can get fans all over the world. When you go to anywhere , your foreign friends will proudly introduce you to their families and their friends. Now, you are at the entrance of such a fun future!

 

（P air internship operating office      global community chief editor Kazumi Miyazaki）

 

The 2 nd International Red and White Singing Contest

will be held on Oct. 8 th  in this year

 

 

“ Let’s transmit how wonderful Japanese community is toward the rest of the world from TOKYO! ”

 

The 2nd International Red and White Singing Contest will be held on Oct. 8 that the large hall of National Olympics Memorial Youth Center as last year. In this year, Japanese students and foreign students will manage it and we welcome participations of people from South America and Africa because there were few last year. Of course as same as last time, we accept participations from any foreign person who loves Japanese songs and any Japanese person who loves foreign language songs. Let’ s enjoy singing with peers on the stage which accommodate s more than 700 people!

 

At this time, we also welcome participations from areas which pair internship students will visit.

 

Looking for participants!!

 

＊Contact us＊

 

The 2 nd International Red and W hite Singing Contest executive com mittee office

 

Global community       

 globalcommunity21@gmail.com

 

translated by  Yuki Senga (Sophia Univ.)

 

By KEVIN RAFFERTY

HONG KONG — Toru Hashimoto's huge victory in the Osaka mayoral election was undoubtedly a political earthquake. The question now is how sweeping and powerful will be the tsunami that follows. My worry is that Tokyo, and particularly the political and bureaucratic establishment, does not comprehend the tectonic forces working underground.

The election was the start, not the end, of the action. Hashimoto challenged, and defeated the combined forces of Japan's political establishment. He has now issued another challenge: He wants to be the prime mover and maker of a new political and economic center of power based in Osaka. This could prove, depending on how the old pols and bureaucrats react, either the opportunity to create a twin engine with Tokyo in reforming and reviving Japan, or spark a dangerous squabble between the two biggest regions of Japan that could weaken Tokyo's ascendancy and the whole country.

Hashimoto, a boyish-looking 42-year-old lawyer, father of seven children and self-confessed son of a gangster, has demonstrated that he is a talented, telegenic populist politician with an ability to say something exciting to each generation. His flashes of abrasive and autocratic temperament also suggest someone tempted to take matters into his own hands if he cannot get his own way. Equally dangerously, Japan's political establishment is lost in a daze in a maze without a clue how to find its way out, let alone to deal with Hashimoto's challenge.

Victory proved Hashimoto's strength. The local chapters of the governing Democratic Party of Japan and opposition Liberal Democratic Party joined forces in backing incumbent Mayor Kunio Hiramatsu. The Japanese Communist Party did not field a candidate, but fiercely attacked Hashimoto. Hashimoto, the man of action, swept fuddy-duddy Hiramatsu aside and won almost 60 percent of the vote in an election that attracted the highest turnout for decades.

Before resigning last month as governor of Osaka Prefecture embracing Osaka and 32 surrounding cities, four months before his term expired, to run for mayor, Hashimoto shrewdly nominated his ally Ichiro Matsui, aged 47, to succeed him, and Matsui beat six other candidates to take over the governor's job. Hashimoto's avowed next step is to consolidate the Osaka urban area into a political unity. In the immediate triumph of victory he set himself and Tokyo a deadline of four years to establish the Osaka metropolis.

A lot of what Hashimoto urges makes sense. The idea that Osaka city of the mayoral election is an island of 2.6 million people is a nonsense of artificial boundaries established too long ago. Osaka is the heart of a continuous urban area that embraces not only the eight plus million people of Osaka prefecture, but almost 20 million people in neighboring Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures.

The major campuses of Osaka University are technically in Suita and Toyonaka cities, but they are all part of the same urban sprawl, as close to the center of Osaka as Shinjuku is to Kasumigaseki or Shepherds Bush to the city of London. Technically, Osaka is Japan's third biggest city, after Tokyo, which has 8 million people in the 23 wards of the metropolis and 13 million in Tokyo prefecture, and Yokohama with 3.6 million, though Yokohama and Tokyo are also part of a continuous megalopolis of 30 plus million people.

There is a swirl of daily movement into Osaka — where the city's daytime population is almost 4 million — from Kyoto and Hyogo, which are only 35 and 30 minutes away by train or 17 minutes by Shinkansen. Local lore has it that a cultured person goes to school in Kyoto, works in Osaka and lives in Kobe, the main city of Hyogo.

Hashimoto faces three hurdles before he can see his dream accomplished. The least difficult is to get resolutions in favor of an Osaka metropolis passed in the Osaka prefectural assembly, already controlled by his Osaka Ishin no Kai (Osaka Renewal Group), and by Osaka and Sakai cities. He would also have to win a majority in a referendum of affected people, a constitutional requirement, and would then have to get the central government to revise the Local Government Law.

The last is the most difficult given the attitude of Tokyo politicians that creation of an Osaka metropolis is something for the back burner with the gas turned off. Tokyo-based commentators have glibly said that Hashimoto has shunted himself down a cul-de-sac by becoming a mere mayor. This is a mistake. Hashimoto is a determined guy, who has already threatened to call Osaka city elections, where his group holds only 33 of the 86 seats, to bend the council to his will.

Osaka and Kansai generally have a different, more commercial view of life and its necessities. Tokyo people greet each other with a general "How are you?"; but the typical Osaka greeting is "moukari makka?" or "How much money have you made today?" In the current exigent economic times, the answer is not as much as people would like. Osaka, home to Panasonic, Sharp and the birthplace of the Sumitomo group, is suffering 7 percent unemployment, nearly 30 percent higher than Japan generally.

Hashimoto believes that red tape and too many sluggish bureaucracies obstruct revival of Osaka's economic spirits. But Hashimoto himself is sometimes right in principle, but tends to rush in and get practical things wrong. His abrasive impatience saw him clash with neighboring Hyogo over his desire to close Osaka's Itami airport, most of whose land is in Hyogo. Anyone who has to use expensive, distant Kansai airport with its slow immigration and suspicious customs officials would wish instead that Itami became a second expanding Haneda.

The correct response is to accept that the existing local government administrative boundaries need to change to reflect demographic and social changes, the need to involve local people in decisions affecting them and to boost economic and political reform of Japan.

Encourage Hashimoto to provide practical details of how an Osaka metropolis would work, but also investigate whether a Kansai — and for that matter a Tokyo — megalopolis would work better, not only in terms of efficiency but also government for the people. Set a two year time limit for redrawing the administrative map of Osaka, Kansai and Japan as a whole to create a 21st-century Japan that can be an example of democracy for the world.

It would be a mistake for the established politicians and bureaucrats to sit on their hands and hope that Hashimoto will go away or to obfuscate with talk of general administrative reforms. He has powerful friends, mostly independent-minded politicians who have won office by appealing directly to a public disgruntled with grubby politics as usual. Populist politics would be a dangerous game that Hashimoto might be tempted to play if frustrated. It could unleash a tsunami of popular discontent on Japan's political process.