Say no to this society
2月17日 (水ー木) 12:09 am JST
Last Sunday, there was a special prefecture wide English presentation contest. Our kids did all right for themselves, picking up a few honorable mentions here and there, but nothing on the scale of those crumbbums at South Side. Man, I hate that school. Man, they think their so special with their fantastic view and their freezing gym. And also, their really, really good presentation on ‘What can we do for our sea?’ That was also quite well done.
At the awards ceremony, their principal talked in broken English about how one must, “Sell the sizzle; not the steak.” I objected to this morally and was heard to remark, “That guy’s all hat and no cattle.” Still, selling the sizzle is definitely an important key to their hyper-genki style. Their ALTs are flash in a way that makes it hard for an underachiever like myself to relate.
When our principal spoke in his broken English, he had a quite different message. He spoken in a near choked, emotion-cracked voice. In the past, he’s spoken to us on such subjects as the word of John F. Kennedy, the importance of globalization/internationalization, and the centrality of reconnecting to the gods to the school festival. This time, he spoke, nearly in tears, about the speeches he had heard during the speech contest portion of the event and the need for us to “say, ‘no,’ to this society.”
He was wearing a sickness mask before and after the awards ceremony, but I’d like to think that it was reflecting on the ills of society that filled his voice with emotion. Our school may not win as many awards, but at least our principal is dedicated to saying no to this society.
2月7日 (日ー月) 12:16 pm JST
I sometime worry that the chief outcome of my job is to create Sophists.
We keep doing debates on topics like, “Should we keep pets,” “Should parents pay children for doing housework,” and “Should terminal patients be allowed to kill themselves,” but we never really try to get at the truth of the matters. Instead, kids are assigned to a side randomly, given time to write some points, and then dispatched at one another. Judging is based on who speaks most fluently or most directly rebuts a point, not on who uncovers the truth with greatest clarity.
Compounding the based to truth, we’ve started giving them self-evaluation sheets, to let them answer yes or no to questions like, “Did you use as much English as you could?” The temptation to judge oneself leniently, so-called ‘confirmation bias,’ weigh heavily on people even under the easiest of conditions, but when given such a direct question as a component of one’s grade, it is ludicrous to suppose all but the hardiest of souls can long endure. Can one ever speak enough English? In grading oneself, the true answer to such a question demands to be glossed over.
Sometimes, I wonder how I would mark myself in such a self-evaluation. Did I prepare for class? Usually not particularly. Did I get my ideas across? Beats me.
Again, the self-justificatory impulse almost completely overwhelms one’s desire for truth.
“It’s not what you say anymore. It’s how you say it.” [1]
2月16日 (火ー水) 12:31 am JST
Today, I was reading about the English boom in Mongolia, and I fancied the idea of teaching in Ulan Bator. There is, of course, something romantic about life on the steppes. When I was a young, encyclopedia-obsessed child, my favorite was the Mongol Empire. I suppose I was impressed with its size and its location in Asia, my favorite continent. (Children have such an inexplicable urge towards favorites, don’t they?) Of course, the Mongol expansion to the east was hampered by the ‘Divine Wind,’ which would return a half-dozen centuries later in a determined, but ultimately failed, effort to kill my grandfather.
At any rate, here I am in post-colonial Asia, dreaming of new lands to modernize. China is, of course, hot right now, but I have no intention of being interred during the inevitable war in the Straights. No, I would prefer the backwater democracy of Mongolia, where men are men and last names are novel. Life in Mongolia might be even more isolated than life here, which is a significant factor in its attractiveness. I suppose I’m looking for an earthly penance for my sins. At any rate, casting off the world [2] has always been my ascetic ideal. Were I to forsake the world and society, perhaps at last, the self as well would fold and void could fill more solidly the weak stuff of the soul.
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