Now is the busy time at Kansai Gaidai! I can’t believe that the semester is almost over, and we still have so much to do. However, it has been a really exciting semester, and my students and I all got to think about a lot of really important things.

One thing that I have been thinking a lot about lately is democracy. Today was the day for the Federal Election in Canada. I didn’t get myself organized in time, so I wasn’t able to vote in this election because I am living overseas. However, I should have voted. I feel awful that I didn’t vote, because everyone should vote. Democracy can’t work if people don’t vote. Also, this was a very important election for the Canadian people. There was a serious danger that the Conservative Party might win and form the government. That would just be one of the worst things that could happen for Canada. The Conservatives are a right wing party, and they would most likely do many things that are fundamentally opposed to everything that I believe in. For example, the Conservatives would have moved Canada closer to the United States in both economic and military issues, they would have allowed for private health care (in Canada, private health care is illegal), they would have increased military spending, and they would have infringed upon bilingualism, women’s issues, and minority rights – and that is just the beginning!!! It was a very scary scenario.

Luckily, the Conservatives didn’t win. My party didn’t win either (I support the New Democratic Party – they are a left wing party). The party that got the most seats in the House of Commons was the Liberal Party. They are a centre party. However, the Liberals didn’t get enough seats to form a majority in parliament. That means that they have to form a Minority Government with the support of the New Democrats. That is good news for me because it means that the party that I support is going to be very influential in the new parliament. If the Liberals don’t get the support of my party, they government could fall, and they would have to call another election.

Despite the Liberals forming a minority government with the support of the New Democrats, it was very close. I really wish I had been in Canada, or that I had gotten organized soon enough to cast an overseas ballot. It is so important that people get involved in the political process. Soon all of my students are going to be 20 years old. I certainly hope that they exercise their democratic rights and vote. Just think of all the countries where there is no democracy, and people are not able to choose their governments. Don’t take your freedom for granted!!

Love and Peace,

Scott

I just finished evaluating the poster presentations for our Global Issues class, and I just want to say that all of the posters were absolutely fantastic. I have put all of the posters up in my office, and I invite everyone to come and see them when they have free time. They are really wonderful and worthwhile seeing. Quite a few of my fellow teachers have come into my office to have a look, and they are just blown away by how great they are. I am really proud of my class!! Even better than the posters, everyone was using such good English during the presentations. I couldn’t believe it. It was better than my wildest dreams. In fact, it was a little bit weird. I mean, suddenly my class was chatting away in English with no problems whatsoever. They were talking completely naturally. Even better, then were doing more than just talking, they were communicating. Amazing. It was just like they had all taken “English Pills” before the class. Now if I could just take the poster presentation class and bottle it and sell it to other teachers, I would be rich! Of course, if I become rich, being the global issues teacher that I am, I would donate most of the profits to charity :-)

Keep up the good work IES E!

Here is a poem that I just found on the internet by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, one of my favourite Russian poets:

When One Person Reaches Out with Love

In ’41 Mama took me back to Moscow. There I saw our enemies for the first time. If my memory is right, nearly 20,000 German war prisoners were to be marched in a single column through the streets of Moscow.

The pavements swarmed with onlookers, cordoned off by soldiers and police.

The crowd was mostly women - Russian women with hands roughened by hard work, lips untouched by lipstick and with thin, hunched shoulders which had borne half of the burden of the war. Every one of them must have had a father or a husband, a brother or a son killed by the Germans.

They gazed with hatred in the direction from which the column was to appear.

At last they saw it.

The generals marched at the head, massive chins stuck out, lips folded disdainfully, their whole demeanor meant to show superiority over their plebeian victors.

"They smell of eau-de-cologne, the bastards," someone in the crowd said with hatred.

The women were clenching their fists. The soldiers and policemen had all they could do to hold them back.

All at once something happened to them.

They saw German soldiers, thin, unshaven, wearing dirty, bloodstained bandages, hobbling on crutches or leaning on the shoulders of their comrades; the soldiers walked with their heads down.

The street became dead silent - the only sound was the shuffling of boots and the thumping of crutches.

Then I saw an elderly woman in broken-down boots push herself forward and touch a policeman's shoulder, saying: "Let me through." There must have been something abut her that made him step aside.

She went up to the column, took from inside her coat something wrapped in a colored handkerchief and unfolded it. It was a crust of black bread. She pushed it awkwardly into the pocket of a soldier, so exhausted that he was tottering on his feet. And now suddenly from every side women were running towards the soldiers, pushing into their hands bread, cigarettes, whatever they had.

The soldiers were no longer enemies.

They were people.

http://www.grameen-info.org/index.html

That's the website for the Grameen Bank that we are going to be reading about this week. Check it out to learn more about development in Bangladesh.

Please add comments to by blog by clicking on the comments button :-)

Wow, it seems like I have been blogging a lot lately. Actually, it is kind of fun blogging. It is a kind of record of my life and what I have been thinking. Anyway, I have been thinking a lot about my IES class lately, and how I can improve upon my teaching. When I was looking over the feedback sheets again the other day, I noticed that a lot of students said that we could improve the class if we all spoke more English, gave our opinions more often, and if we all asked more questions in class. Hmmmmmmmmm, how do we do that? My first reaction is to think “well, just bloody well do it! It’s up to you! Good God people, just SPEAK!” However, I realize that that kind of reaction is not necessarily the best reaction, because I am sure that if my students could do it, they would do it. So, the question is, how can I create an environment in my classroom in which the students feel they are able to speak English, share their opinions, and ask questions freely. I mean, why don’t they just do it? I wonder if it is because my students are missing many of the little “pieces” of language that are so important in daily conversation. My students all have excellent vocabulary and grammar skills, but they seem to struggle with communication. Something is holding them back. Perhaps it is these little “pieces of language”. Anyway, I am going to start teaching more of these little “pieces of language” to help the students to communicate with each other in a natural way. Naturally, it is also up the students as well to make an effort to only speak English. After all, I can jump around and dance in front of the classroom for hours on end, but I can’t make the students speak. As we say in English “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” In the end, it is ultimately up to them as to whether or not they wish to actively learn English

I have also noticed that many of my Japanese students seem to be obsessed with finding the “right answer”. Many students in all of my classes want to know when they have the wrong answer. Well, in my academic background (social sciences) no answers are wrong if you can support what you have to say in a logical way (that is why we are learning to write good essays). If you can argue that black is actually white, then you are on your way to being a successful university student. I don’t know if this is a good thing, but that is the way it is in my academic culture. I come from an academic culture where there are no absolutes. Nothing is completely wrong or completely right. I think D.H. Lawrence exemplifies this belief in the following quote from his book Why the Novel Matters:

We should ask for no absolutes, or absolute. Once and for all and forever, let us have done with the ugly imperialism of any absolute. There is no absolute good, there is nothing absolutely right. All things flow and change, and even change is not absolute.

So you see, in my background nothing is right. I guess that is why I praise the students whenever they give me any answer – especially if they can provide some support to their answers. Now, I don’t know if this is a healthy way to think or not. I mean, if I could be more certain about a few things, then maybe I could be a lot happier.

Another comment that I received from one of my students was concerning the use of unfamiliar and difficult words. I agree, unfamiliar and difficult words can be more suitable for what you may want to describe, but if you are trying to communicate with someone, then you need to be prepared to explain what that word means or you will have failed in your attempt to communicate. I want real communication to take place in the classroom. It is through this communication with each other that I hope we will be able to learn. Thus, it is okay to you any word that a student thinks is appropriate, but that student must also take the time out to explain the words that he or she is using so that communicate may take place. I guess this brings me back to the idea I was talking about before with the “little pieces of language”. If you are going to use unfamiliar or difficult words, you need to check the comprehension of the person that you are talking to so that you can be sure that they understand what you are saying. On the other hand, it is also the responsibility of the listener to stop someone when they hear a word they don’t understand and to ask for an explanation. I will give my students some “little pieces of language” to help them do that.

Additionally, if you stop and search for the perfect word and now there is an uncomfortable silence in the conversation – you have failed in your attempt at communication because silence carries a negative message. It is better to use the words you know to describe or approximate what you want to say than to fail in your attempt at communication. A large vocabulary alone is not enough to make a good English speaker. Efforts to increase your vocabulary must go hand in hand with efforts to communicate fluently with your listener.

Anyway, that’s it for now. I hope this all makes sense! Remember, if you don’t understand something in my blog – email me!

Peace and Love!

Scott

You know, it’s funny, but I don’t really feel like blogging at all tonight. Every class I tell my students “blog!! You’ve gotta blog!!! Everyone blog, blog, blog!!!!!” However, I do realise that it is almost impossible to pour your soul out onto the computer screen if you are not feeling motivated, or moved, or inspired, or even just plain old awake. This is especially difficult for me. I always think that everything I write needs to be a great masterpiece worthy of posterity, so if I can’t produce something sublime, I almost don’t want to produce anything at all.

Hmmm, what kinds of profound insight can I offer up to the people reading my blog tonight. I guess I could admit to an environmental failure. Remember how I was collecting all my old milk cartons and orange juice cartons under my sink so that I could go and recycle them? Well, I finally couldn’t fit any more milk or juice cartons under my sink, so I decided it was time to cut them up, flatten them out, and take them to the recycling bin at Izumia (big grocery store). I knew it was time because there was also a bit of a funny smell coming from underneath my sink. Anyway, I sat down in front of my sink, armed with a pair of scissors and the self-righteous feeling that can only come to a teacher of global issues when he is about to do something that he tells everyone else they should be doing. I started to cut up my first juice carton. It was a bit stinky. It was also filled with green mold. Eeeeew. That one went into my garbage. Oh well, I figured I could still recycle the rest. They couldn’t all be that bad. I thought I would try a milk carton next. Stinky too. Filled with even more mold. This time the mold was more black than green. I tried again. Mold. Again. Mold. Another carton. More mold!!! Now that I had disturbed all of the cartons that were living under my sink, the smell of mold was almost overpowering! I couldn’t breath. There were now moldy milk and juice cartons all over the floor of my kitchen. All of my cartons I wanted to recycle were moldy! Then I started to remember a show I saw on television about how an entire family had gotten sick from poisonous black mold, and then their baby died! I didn’t know what to do. I ended up wrapping a towel around my face so that I could stand the smell, and I squished all the cartons and stuffed them into a garbage bag. Yes, that’s right . . . four months of attempted recycling were all put into the garbage. I am a recycling failure. I am so depressed. However, I have learned one lesson. Always wash out your cartons before you put them under the sink for recycling.

Sigh.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency. Check out what Japan is doing in terms of development:

http://www.jica.go.jp/english/

Hi guys, don't forget about the CIA World Factbook. It is a good place to get information for your projects.

CIA World Factbook

Hello to all my wonderful students (and the terrible ones too - ha ha ha)! Soon we are going to be doing a project on different third world (developing) nations. Here is a cool website with some info.

http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/third_world_countries.htm

later, my friend Janet is here.

bye