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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2004-12-16

It's Not Just American Teachers

from the NYTimes:

TOKYO - Toru Kondo, an English teacher at a public high school here, had never before been reprimanded in his 32-year career. But he was recently required to take a two-hour "special retraining course," lectured on his mistaken ways and given a sheet of paper on which to engage in half an hour of written self-examination.

His offense was to defy the Tokyo Board of Education's new regulation requiring teachers to sing the national anthem while standing and facing the national flag. He and scores of colleagues refused, because for them the rising-sun flag and the anthem, "Kimigayo," or "His Majesty's Reign," are symbols of imperialism.


I guess the difference is that Japanese students are still fairly likely to learn to do math and science and use their native language proficiently.

Now, would that be evidence that goofy ideology can actually co-exist with effective instruction? Hmmmmm. Might be worth pondering.
Posted by: Michael / 12/16/2004 01:07:00 AM

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