A CRITICAL EVALUATION FOR YOUNG JAPANESE ESL LEARNERS
Until recently, Japanese education was essentially patterned on the classical European approach. Classical or traditional European education has now given way to modern education in most of Europe. It was elitist and non-utilitarian. Its major preoccupations were to develop certain intellectual disciplines and to acculturate to the national ethos. Thus, a French or German secondary school boy or girl knew the complexities of French and German grammar, could translate the language of Goethe into that of Racine--or vice versa, knew the laws of physics and chemistry, could handle calculus, and could recite the names and dates of enthronement and decapitation of kings over the centuries. What those children could not do was to converse in a foreign language, readily adapt to other cultures, explore the unknown, survive in the world of work, be creative, enjoy life. Methodologically, they were the victims of brain-washing techniques, also known as rote-memorization and learning of facts and data; they were not acquiring concepts and encyclopedism (paradoxically, a product of French intellectualism).
The Japanese, excellent emulators, crammed their children's head with data while failing to develop broad-minded universal explorers and creators. World War II was a turning point in this insular, narrow-minded, uncreative attitude. Suddenly, Japan was no longer an isolated string of seismic barren islands. The old generation resented the new winds abroad; the young one welcomed change--for the sake of change and of being part of the young world community with its freedom of expression.
Education's revolution was slow, hampered, in fact, by such influences as that of General Douglas McArthur's own likewise chauvinistic and insular mindset. The great soldier tried to impose North American educational philosophy onto a people who neither comprehended it, nor wanted it--a philosophy br...