On 2013/07/26 15:49, SSJ-Forum Moderator wrote:
> From: Hiroaki Richard Watanabe
> Date: 2013/07/26
>
>
> To Earl Kinmonth,
>
> I find your claim that Japanese textbooks are not a
major factor in
> what Japanese do or do not know about their own
history is too strong
> to make, as it is based on only a small sample of
students at the
> university you teach, whose performance of learning
Japanese history
> at high schools was poor.

I have been asking my questions about history for nearly a decade. By now the total number of responses is well over five hundred. I teach at three universities currently and have taught at three others.
The two institutions where I now teach Japanese history are considered to be at the very top of the private university pecking order, universities that are reputed to have quite rigorous entrance requirements. (My primary position is teaching sociology. I do not poll those students.)

Your personal experiences is a sample of one. My sample is in the hundreds and includes students from a variety of high schools albeit biased in the elite direction.

>
> "I would like to ask you what could be a major source
of history
> education at school other than school textbooks?"

Materials the teachers prepare themselves. I have had students tell me explicitly that their history teacher did not use the textbook but rather materials that he or she had prepared. Major bookstores such as the Junkudo in Ikebukuro that I regularly use carries numerous texts that are written to help teachers who want to put their own spin on modern history. There are also prepared collections of materials that they can use.

> Although TV dramas (like NHK Taiga Dramas) could be a
source of the
> knowledge on Japanese history, they are often
factually not so correct

What does factual correctness have to do with anything, least of all history? In any country popular history is often based on myth or even outright lies. Moreover, most historical "facts" do not mean much.
Knowing that a bomb went off on the SMRR tracks at
10:20 on 18 September
1931 is a historical "fact." If a TV program put the time as 10:21 or the date as the 17th, it would only indicate sloppiness. The real historical issues lie elsewhere and are generally not facts in the sense that 10:20 on 18 September 1931 is a "fact."

> I think it
> is essential to have own experience of learning Japanese history at a
> Japanese high school in order
to
> make such a strong claim.

That would still be a sample of one. You seem to be assuming that all Japanese high schools are exactly the same and if you have seen one you have seen them all. Japanese high schools vary at least as much as do colleges, probably more. To site an extreme example, there are high schools in Tokyo that cater to dropouts (定時制高等学
校) and there are
high schools that attract attention because of the high proportion of graduates who get into elite universities beginning with Todai. The students are not the same. The course content is not the same. The students do not even look the same. I used to walk past an industrial high school on my way to the station. The students were a rough looking bunch. Many smoked. I would sometimes cross the street to avoid them. In contrast, students at the exam-oriented high schools in Bunkyo-ku look quite different. I don't see them smoking or walking around with their trousers hanging low to show off their boxer shorts as was the case with the industrial high school kids.

I would also point out that there is little incentive for Japanese students to learn Japanese history. It is not typically an examination subject for the dwindling number of colleges that roll their own first stage tests. In the case of the widely used Senta Shiken, Japanese history is an elective.
(http://www.dnc.ac.jp/modules/center_exam/content0003.h
tml) I have
invigilated the Senta Shiken four times, most recently two years ago. To keep awake, I read through the subjects that have the most potential for political issues to show up. The Japanese history exams are heavily weighted to Meiji and earlier. Twentieth century questions are anodyne and give no incentive for students to learn anything controversial.

Moreover, I must stress that because of the steep decline in the number of eighteen-year olds coupled to a substantial increase in the number of "universities" and places on offer, the majority of college entrants no longer take a written examination at all, and if they do take a written examination, it is to keep up the pretense of selectivity and to stiff the kids 30-35,000 yen. Only a small number of elite public and private universities can exercise real selectivity. Most colleges will take any warm body who can pay the fees. This means that only those aiming an top tier universities have any incentive to study and history is not a subject that carries any weight for these students.

According to a June article in the Nihon keizai shinbun

(http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXDZO56221490U3A610C1ML
0000/) 45.8% of
all four year colleges are 定員割れ. Even if they admit every single person who applies, they cannot meet their enrollment quotas. High school students who do not aim for elite institutions (the vast
majority) know that they do not need to study much of anything least of all history to go on to college. Remedial high-school level instruction is now common in Japanese colleges. Moreover, even the bright sparks who aim for elite institutions have no incentive to learn Japanese history of any period least of all the modern because it is not a subject with a mandatory test.

EHK