Instructor Control and Learner Participation

This short paper attempts to identify what might constitute a reasonable balance between instructor control and student participation in the learning events. It does not purport to answer the question whether there should be such balance. It merely and briefly examines the concepts of authority, accountability, autocratic control and democratic participation to the extent that they are applied in today's Japanese elementary, secondary, and tertiary schools, both public and private.

The author posits that both control and participation are operational outcomes of accountability and of the antipodal autocratic/democratic dyad. In turn, these behaviors derive from the isolationist and cultural-shock social phenomena which have shaped and are shaping the Japanese ethos and, perforce, educational system.

Authority, control, and accountability

Psychologists have found that the surest way to obtain compliance from a subject was through inducing fear. They also discovered that conditioned fear was morbid and destructive of personal and social growth, that it interfered with effective and appropriate solutions of reality-problems, that it bred passivity or, conversely, aggressivity (whether latent or expressed). Behaviorism--whether explicit or implicit--shapes behavior according to a mold determined and designed by the person(s) and/or institution(s) in authority.

Lee Canter (1976) focused on teachers' manipul

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phies... Zen Buddhism places a high value on silence and nonverbal communication of ideas and feelings. The Zen teaching style relies on modeling and intuition which does not encourage verbalization between teacher and pupil." One result of this behavioral approach in language learning is that "Heavy focus on error correction may facilitate excessive self-monitoring and lead to ineffective communication behavior for some students" of Japanese culture (Webb, 1988:756). It would seem obvious, then, that, if only for differences in cognitive and linguistic apprehensive styles, the non-Japanese teacher who teaches Japanese students must approach the teaching/learning situation with a keen knowledge and sensitivity to these differences. Student participation, teacher control and political, social and cultural constraints Historically, Japan has a been a closed society. World War II threw the country into a maelstrom of political, economic, social, and cultural changes. From a highly structured autocratic self-centered and closed society, Japan is changing into a less-formal democratic global and open society. It is living a traumatic experience of personal and social changes. Ishii (1978:1) compares Japanese with American s
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Wadden McGovern, Moreover Students, JAPANESE SCHOOLS, Europeans Americans, Zen Buddhism, Education Council, Kuwabata Council, West Ishii, Koreans Chinese, Education Japan, japan times, japanese students, foreign teacher, student participation, negative class participation, class participation, wadden mcgovern, japanese education, negative class, personal social, japan's education, book readings boston, readings boston mass, boston mass heinle, heinle heinle publishers,
Approximate Word count = 2764
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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