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TIPS ON TEACHING ABOUT DISCRIMINATION TO A CLASS OF JAPANESE
By Dave Aldwinckle, Instructor, Hokkaido Information University, Ebetsu, Hokkaido
Paper given at JALT Hokkaido Global Issues Workshop, Hokkaido Int'l School, Sept 24, 2000, 2:45-3:55pm

INTRODUCTION: Success in teaching social issues depends greatly on classroom receptiveness. Receptiveness depends a lot on the experiences and walks of life in the audience; in my experience, the least sophisticated thought has come from pre-adults, sophistication peaking at adult family-raising age, then receeding late in life with the self-justified social categorizing tendencies of the elderly. Thus my optimal time to start exposure to issues of discrimination has been in the latter half of undergrad, when people are less afraid to make mistakes, more ready to challenge the status quo in their unparented collegiate outburst period, and more ready to cross-pollenate their thoughts with friends late at night--before the job market kicks in and life's pathways and social circles appear to get set. This talk offers tips to collegiate professors on how to heat the intellectual iron for striking.

BASIS FOR MY GENERALIZATIONS: Hard knocks. Author's speeches to the GoJ (three), press conferences (three), neighborhood convocations (over ten), int'l forums and panel discussions (over a dozen), and college students (up to twice a week for eight years, plus intensive weekend classes). Audiences of all ages and up to 400 people. Dates and texts: http://www.debito.org/publications.html

UNDER THIS RUBRIC, MY PREFERENCE: Teaching about discrimination under the aegis of a Debate English class in 90-min weekly or 8-hr intensive courses of 50-100 college students. Eng. Lang Level: Assume low intermediate at best, making this technically not a language class. Materials: Current events or stories culled from the vernacular press, overseas issues with sufficient teacher intro, debates pulled out of thin air by the students (rare), or my debate textbook (see below).

TIPS FOR INTERACTIVE DEBATE (not all tips are pencil-drop worthy; but for thoroughness I will go through my acclimitization procedure): 1) Intro Topic. Make the subject matter matter to daily lives, or make it interesting if overseas issue. 2) Read materials, silently at first (chances are they will not have done their HW), then together (omit silent read if time is short); allow more time if material is in English. 3) Ask poignant/pointed questions (ex. "Do you think 外人 is a discriminatory word?"), even take in-class poll PRO/CON. 4) If now you can winnow ideas down to one elemental question, put it on the blackboard (be prepared to change question mid-class if points get exhausted or question moot). 5) For more social effervescence, aim for a reasonable balance of PRO/CON before starting debate in earnest. 6) Allow students to volunteer points by one, stating their opinion clearly in the intro/reasons/conclusion pattern. 7) Write their points in brief on board (check with student that the words you choose for them are acceptible) in PRO/CON/DK columns for memory recharge. 8) Allow students to murmur amongst themselves between points--this is why big classes can be advantageous. Allow the air to become open, electric, and fun. 9) Use humor to defuse rare heckler or conscious racist. 10) Don't be afraid of being the Devil's Advocate when the excitement dies down or nobody offers a counterargument. Also keep reductio ad adsurdum ready after explaining that you are dealing with the slippery slope of a point, not a person personally. Never belittle or make your students look or feel stupid; their own points will do that for you. 11) Keep your opinions out of the fray for as long as you can--let the students cross-pollenate and make their own discoveries without believing that they are swallowing sensei's line. But keep your aces for when social-boxers seem to be getting the upper hand. Often a teacher's duty is to bring the students through more than a century's evolution of thought in ninety minutes. Drop the clanger when the time is right. 12) When bringing the class to a conclusion, retrace students' ideas in brief and show class counterarguments made; a recap allows the day's dynamism to sink in for afterclass student rumination.

TIPS FOR LECTURE FORMAT: Outside of the rubric of a debate class (or when there isn't enough time for assisted discovery), the above advice has limited applicability. Lecture modes are obvious: 1) make it matter, 2) make it interesting, 3) mix the facts in with anecdotes of a personal, particularly humorous, nature, 4) give yourself a break: open up the floor to Q&A after 45 or so minutes of thought stimulating, or allow 15 minutes at the end if necessary. If there is a host, make sure s/he knows about Q&A period so "sakura" can be planted in the audience in case Q don't come.

CAVEATS WITHIN THE ADVICE, to caution teachers about exceptional circumstances:

Legitimacy: It's not very PC to say, but much of the audience will give leeway or bonus points to a speaker who is visibly foreign-looking. Meaning native speakers of Japanese may actually have more difficulty getting taken as seriously or getting the impact across if issue involves foreigners. Often I felt I made more waves at events by being a White speaker of Japanese than my J panel peers did--because what audiences say and do impacts on the person in front of them, not just an abstract idea.

Language: Note when teaching Japanese students, English is not the preferred communication mode. Unless you, as a non-native speaker of Japanese, are in a fairly advanced English-language class, you will have to do most of important brain picking in Japanese. Thus you must know the specialized words in both tongues, understand the class's counterarguments (however rough, raw, or unassembled) in response, and learn the means to keep the point bubbling to the point of social effervescence: the language of incite and insight. You will also always have to read the crowd, be sunny and humorous yet firm at the right times, and when to drop a point if agreeing to disagree becomes necessary to preserve the enjoyability of the forum. Personally, I prefer the class be entirely in Japanese (if an English class, devote half the class to language learning, the other to picking brains in Japanese) in order to make the ideas less-easily dismissable as "foreign thus inapplicable". Likewise, of course, you will have to know the historical context of the social issue inside and out, in two languages, to telegraph and demonstrate its evolution in class.

Tack Pitfalls: These are common argumentative paths you should be wary of:
1) Avoid concepts like "global standards", justifiability through gaiatsu or international murahachibu, or even comparisons with other countries unless you absolutely must. Reason is that this tack plays into the hands of Nihonjinron, alowing counterarguments stressing the uniqueness of Japan and begging the question of Japan ever changing at all. 2) Stress instead the human side of the equation: how discrimination or the pertinent social issue impinges upon people's lives, the social costs to Japan involved, and specifically how things would be better here if this problem were redressed. 3) Appealing to simple logic in a debate works less well, since culturally-created convictions are hardly ever logically-based. Appeal to sensitivity and bonhomie instead. 4) Mind your own culture shock when certain hitherto unutterable sentiments come out in public. Never assume that any standpoint is inconceivable or unworthy of your consideration--for the more public you go with this activity the more "out there" the opposite tacks will get. Deal with them in ways that show respect yet your clear opinion about them. Otherwise it is the counterargument which will linger and dangle.

SAMPLE: TEACHING ABOUT THE WORD 外人 THROUGH SEMANTICS: (From my SPEAK YOUR MIND textbook (ISBN: 4-925103-29-7) Ch 11. See B4 addition (6 pages) to this handout (not included with this website, sorry). Dialogs are long and full of difficult terms, but with sufficient teacher introduction and explanation, it has been a successful launching pad for the keynote discussions of my classes. Don't just tell them what they should not say--make it clearer what they might better say.

CONCLUSION: It is often said that Japanese don't like to talk about "difficult topics". I don't believe that. It is all a matter of warm-up, interest in the topic, openness of forum, and atmosphere control. I have had some incredibly sohisticated discussions with all manner of Japanese; the main difficulty is getting the thoughts across in Japanese--for most of the people interested in social issues in this country will of course be Japanese speakers and will want the discussion on their own terms. Do this, and you just might find yourself making more inroads and assisting more progressive thinking in Japan than you ever thought possible.