Learning to Bow- Bruce S. Feiler--through Chap 4

This book is about Feiler's experience as a JET teacher in Sano. He tells his narrative through different anecdotal cultural encounters he has with Japanese people. Spanning from the ofuro to schools, to oshogatsu. About half of the book is about Japanese schools and only about a chapter is devoted to him discussing his teaching methods and the response of the students to his teaching. His focus is on his encounter with the "Japanese exotic" and contrastive culture.

Scared of uniformity:

"140 freshman teachers--now men and women--sitting on the floor with bended knees and decked out in identical white robes with the dark blue bamboo print. Were these teachers, I wondered, or dolls?" (8) --> Japanese stereotype about dolls. Just because they are wearing the same clothes and to the white gaze, they look identical.

Attempt to define Japanese essence:
"From opening day of elementary school to graduattion day from junior high, students hear of the opportunities and obligations of being members of the Japanese nation. To understand Japan--its work ethic and its strong identity--one must understand these lessons as they are taught in schools..the end of their compulsory education, most understand the sacrifices they must make to fit itno society and are willing and able to make them. Most of these students will enter the system and become, in time, other well-qualified cogs, "Made in Japan.""(13)

--> Although the cultural aspect of interdependency and team work cannot be discounted, Feiler is equating their compulsory education system with a factory. To use the phrasing "made in Japan" takes away their humanity. Although he is making a point on the Ministry of Education's agenda of socializing Japanese youth to find their role in the greater society, he is rather condescending in his delivery.

"Living English"
Explains the program of JET and how the Ministry of Education attempted to specify what type of Englisht would be tought in the schools. "Team Teaching," etc. to establish new modes of teaching English (30)

John Dewey Influence on Schools
Control education through control of the environment. "The modern Japanese schools is a model of Dewey's vision of control and simplicity. Inside Sano Junior High, students could find few distractions to divert them from study. Rooms were spartan; halls were kept vacant; walls were painte a nondescripts beige." (39)

Morality
"Morality, as I was learning, is set primarily by society as a whole and not by individuals in Japan. If a group condones a behavior, such as drinking or having an affair, then individuals are allowed to indulge. In this world shame is more powerful than guilt, because people's actions are tempered less by fear of internal torment than by the threat of group disapproval."(54)
--> This is a bunch of bull shit. How are individual differences then explained??? Not every person in Japan is following the same morality.

Amount of school more: average of 240 days of school a year compared to the American 180 (55)