Educational Refugees
THE PRESENT SITUATION OF JAPANESE HOMESCHOOLERS
1) Homeschooling familes are somewhat like refugees.
Quite often, they start their homeschooling because of some negative causes, such as their children getting bullied in public schools.
They are always in need of various kinds of help and encouragement from outside. Sad to say, many Japanese churches are not cooperative to the homeschoolers in Japan
Homeschoolers often do not receive cooperative or positive reactions from other church members, and this can be detrimental for their Christian life.
Even some of them are "persecuted" by other church members. Pastor Haruto Yoshii, who is my friend, was ostracized by a church where he served as a minister because he homeschooled his children.
In this context, many Christian homeschoolers experience two *exoduses;" They first pull their children out of public schools, then they have to leave their churches because they receive some negative reaction or even a kind of persecution from other church members. Those people actually stumble at the local churches.
Some of these people change their churches, but some completely leave local churches and join some Christian groups such as parachurch ministries. The rest of them simply become "church hoppers" who visit different churches on each Sunday.
Some homeschoolers are exposed to a deformed view about local churches. They often might be antagonistic against local churches.
2) Church schooling
In most cases, churches which are cooperative to homeschooling tend to establish Christian schools (They call them "Church School" in Japanese) within their congregations. Some "Church Schools" are successful, but in this case, parents regard them as a kind of Christianized public school, since their view of education is not well grounded on the biblical worldview. They tend to disregard the importance of education within the family and become too dependent on the Christian schools.
Many Japanese local churches are not cooperative to the homeschooling movement in Japan. Often, they permit "Church Schooling" but not homeschooling. The idea of "church schooling" fits the Japanese group-oriented mindset.
These churches drive homeschooling families to the direction of "Church schooling." Here, the group-oriented mindset works. Quite often "Church Schooling" Christian families entrust the responsibility of their children's education to "Church Schools."
3) Unstable condition
Those who start homeschooling are often placed in an unstable condition.
Homeschooling is quite a foreign idea to the Japanese, since they define themselves according to the society, schools, and institutions to which they belong. In some cases, you see Christians who say something like "I believe what my church believes."
When Japanese people start to homeschool, this is also the great first step for establishing their identities in terms of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. For the first time in their lives, they begin to be separated from the group-oriented mindset. But at the same time, they are placed in a temporal identity crisis. The period of this identity crisis places them in an unstable condition. Some might even lose or change their jobs. This is because they change the priorities in their lives by doing Christian education, which demands that fathers spend more time in their families .
This feeling of instability occasionally drives them to the direction of getting some extreme theological stand, especially about ecclesiology, as I have mentioned before. Those who experience persecution from people in churches might even regard local churches as their enemies.
Some local churches even regard homeschooling as a heretical movement because Japanese homeschooling families sometimes join groups which disregard or ignore the importance of local churches.
Such groups misrepresent the homeschooling movement. In other words, they do not have accountability to the local churches.
This is a vicious circle.
Hence, we see few homeschooling families well established on sound ecclesiology.
SOME HINTS
So far I have listed some challenges we have. Below are some hints for overcoming those problems.
1) Homeschooling familes should be based on sound ecclesiology so that they recognize the importance of local churches. They should belong to local churches which stand on a firm biblical foundation.
Families and churches must cooperate for the glory of God. We should encourage Christian families to serve the Lord through local churches. This is very important. Japanese homeschooling families often fail to recognize the importance of local churches mainly because of their negative experiences there.
2) Homeschooling families should be accountable to God and the church for what they do.
Accountability is the key. Parents need to realize that they are responsible for their children's education. They cannot fully entrust the parental responsibility of their children's education to "church schools" or any other institution.
3) The homeschooling movement must be carried out in a "bottom up" or "grass-roots" manner, not with a "top-down" system.
Japanese people are well accustomed to the "top-down" methodology. Their affinity to the group-oriented mindset enables them to accommodate themselves to the "top-down" type management or movement. They are always seeking strong leadership (occasional dictatorship) so that they can depend on some strong authority. In doing so they can have peace of mind, which is the typical Japanese way.
Since the Japanese homeschoolers' situation resembles that of refugees, and fathers fail to fulfill their responsibility of education in many cases, they tend to seek strong leadership outside their families, which occasionally causes in negative results.
We Japanese need to have a "bottom-up" mind-set. Each homeschooling family should recognize this. Each family is independent in educating their children. At the same time each homeschooling family is accountable to the Lord and to the church to which they belong. We need to stress the balance between independence and accountability in terms of Christian home education.
I might add that networking among homeschoolers should be established in a "bottom-up" or "grass-roots" manner.
In conclusion, Christian home education must be carried out on the basis of freedom in Christ.
Copyright © 2006 Shu Suzuki
11.11.
Education/Paideia, Education(in a narrow sense), and Vocational training
Education/Paideia, Education(in a narrow sense), and Vocational training
Shu Suzuki
"Teaching your children at home? Not sending them to schools? How are they going to get jobs in the future? Can they be hired by excellent companies?"
These are common questions asked to Japanese homeschooling families.
First of all, we should define what education is.
In terms of education, our friend Kevin Swanson has made a succinct definition which could not be improved upon.
Education is the preparation of a child
intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and
Physically for life and for eternity.
Kevin Swanson, Upgrade, 10 Secrets to the Best Education for Your Child(Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman & Holman Publishers 2006)p. 10
Education(Paideia) is all-inclusive.
In terms of methodology, the medieval model of education is used quite often. This model consists of two stages, the Trivium and the Quadrivium.
Simply speaking, Trivium is education in a narrow sense, and the Quadrivium is vocational training. Of course, this medieval model cannot fully explain education/paideia, especially about the dynamism of education/paideia.
We might say that Education/Paideia consists of two categories, education in a narrow sense and vocational training as shown below;
----------------------------------------------------------
Education/Paideia
consists of
1)Education/Trivium
(in a narrow sense)
building the Christian worldview
THE ONE
. . .
2)Vocational training/Quadrivium
specialization
THE MANY
---------------------------------------------------------------
Trivium is the basic training. In other words, it contributes to equipping children with the Christian worldview. In the Trivium stage, children acquire the tool of learning. After they accomplish the Trivium stage, they are ready to enter the Quadrivium stage; they specialize in a certain area. Quadrivium is vocational training.
The Quadrivium stage starts from age 15 to age 18. In the medieval ages, college education started from the age 15. So we can say COLLEGE IS MAINLY FOR VOCATIONAL TRAINING.
In Japan, people seldom differentiate education from vocational training. This is one of the main causes of the confusion seen in the Japanese society. The medieval model helps us to differentiate education(Trivium) from vocational training(Quadrivium).
We equip our children with the Christian worldview during the Trivium stage. We set the foundation of our children in terms of ethics and epistemology. In short, they learn to walk in the way of the Lord in this stage. This lays the common ground for all Christians.
Ye shall walk in all the ways which the LORD your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess.
Deuteronomy 5:33
After our children successfully accomplish the Trivium stage, they are fully equipped with the Christian worldview. They can steadily walk in the way of the Lord and are ready to start the Quadrivium stage for their vocational training. This ends in fruitful achievement in the area to which they are called by God. The Quadrivium stage is about the vocational calling for each Christian which contributes to the division of labor in the kingdom of God.
As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
1 Peter 4:9-11
The primary goal for home education is to accomplish the Trivium stage, which is the very foundation of our children's lives. Without this foundation, any attempt to achieve the success in vocational training ends in vain.
If the children walk in the way of the Lord, covenantal blessing is always with them as promised in the Scripture. In other words, they successfully accomplish the vocational training(Quadrivium stage) and fulfill the calling they receive from God.
Having our children walk in the way of the Lord is the foundation of our home education.
Copyright © 2006 Shu Suzuki
22.10.
A Comment from a Homeschooling Dad Concerning Traditional Japanese Culture
Dear children,
When you learn about Japanese traditional culture, you have to keep the following subjects in mind.
DIFFERENT VALUES
Before Christianity entered into Japan, people had different values than us. They were living in a pagan culture and held values which were based on Shintoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Based on these values, avenging deaths of family members was one of the highest virtues in those days. Since they didnft have the ethics of monogamy, having concubines was also regarded as a virtue. They didnft have a week consisting of 7 days including Sabbath. Their calendar was different from ours (Ours is Gregorian calendar).
ENERGENCE OF DOUBLE STANDARD OF THE JAPANESE MIND-SET
After the Meiji Restoration, the government introduced the Western system including the Gregorian calendar, Western style legal system(mainly based on the Prussian system) that regulated monogamy and prohibited taking revenge and many other pagan customs.
This acute westernization created a complex mind-set of Japanese people.
People had to outwardly conform themselves to this regulation but they persisted on sticking to old values. So there started the double standard on ethics which continues even today.
This double standard often described as gHon-ne" and "Tatemae.h "Honne" means gones real intention,h and gTatemaeh means gpublic principle.h
Non-Christian Japanese stand on this double standard. Here lies the difficulty in evangelism in Japan. People accept the Gospel message in the sphere of Tatemae, but their actual practice is based on their Honne.
MAJOR PARADIGM SHIFT
Since 17th century Japan experienced two major pardigm shift as follows;
1) Meiji Restoration: The Tokugawa shogunate collapsed and Meiji government was started. This caused a major influx of Western civilization. The Japanese outwardly conformed themselves to Judeo-Christian values. But they mainly imported Liberal Christianity from Germany.
2) Defeat in World War II: From that time Japan has been under the strong influence of the US. Since then Japan has been importing anything from the US. It was for the first time that Japan began to receive Bible-believing Christianity.
CONCLUSION
Japan in the Edo era was a completely different country. There was no equality under the law. Japan before the year 1945 also was a completely different country. Japanese experienced tremendous changes in society, culture, values. Still the Japanese tried to maintain their consistence on their personal level. This resulted in the double standard which is called gHon-ne" and "Tatemae." They maintained gJapan-ismh which is the Japanese civil religion. This causes schizophrenic situations in every aspect of the society even now.
What is the purpose of learning about traditional Japanese culture? There are three major reasons for that.
1) The general grace of the almighty God is obviously manifested in the traditional Japanese culture, such as kimono, Japanese dishes like Sushi, and Kabuki. They are highly sophisticated forms of human culture. God gives us His blessing to us even through these cultures. Enjoy and appreciate them.
2) It is profitable for us to know the traditional Japanese culture because we should know the undercurrent of the Japanese society and people for reaching out to the people and winning them to the Lord Jesus Christ.
3) We are commanded by the Lord gBring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ (II Corinthians 10:5).h We should win the fruit of the Japanese culture for our Lord while rejecting every antibiblical factor in it.
So, enjoy your learning!
Dad
Copyright © 2006 Shu Suzuki
15.03.
Future Oriented Mindset
I read a memoir of a soldier who was in charge of shooting down fighter airplanes with an antiaircraft gun during World War II. He wrote, that in order to shoot down an airplane, he had to calculate the anticipated trajectory of the airplane and fire in that direction, instead of shooting at the plane itself.
Education can be compared to that. We have to take the product of ten or twenty years from now into account. In other words, the focus of education of our children is not on the present situation of Christendom/society, but on the situation ten or twenty years from now. The reason why education in Japanese public schools is failing is because it aims to satisfy the needs of the society of the past. They cannot free themselves from the success stories of the past, which simply is not valid in our present society anymore. This is also the culprit behind many young Japanese people who have a problem of NEET(Not in Employment, Education or Training). The education they received is past-oriented (or present-oriented at best) rather than future-oriented.
My solution to this is that we should use English, as the academic language for our children's education. For Japanese children, even though their academic language is English, Japanese is the language they use with their family, neighbors, and society, so being bilingual is not a big problem. There are many nations where people live on this kind of double language system, such examples we can see in English/Tagalong, English/Welsh, English/Gaelic, and English/Hindi.
Copyright©2006 Shu Suzuki
(To be continued)
03.03.