Moral Ed: Considering others, cont'd

Puppy was angry and trod on pumpkin's runner. Makes no difference to me, said pumpkin. Just then a truck came along, and, before pumpkin knew it, the tendril was snapped. Ahh, ohh, that hurts, and tears coursed down. Students are asked to consider: Why is it important to think of others, to be unselfish?

2011, 14 Years Later

The Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami occurred at 2:46 PM on Friday, March 11, 2011, 14 years ago today. Close to 20,000 lost their lives. Fukushima Dai-ichi, Tokyo Electric Power's nuclear plant, experienced a meltdown in multiple reactors, devastated by towering waves and overwhelmed backup generators, which the company and the postwar ruling party in government had been warned about. No one at the operator has been held responsible. Most unfortunately for those of the tsunami inundated municipality of Ofunato, Iwate, nearly 10 % of the town was recently destroyed by a forest fire.

Moral Ed. : Consideration for others

Why do these things happen? A chapter on trouble at school. What's the purpose of promises, rules? What happens when people break them? What should we be mindful of as individuals and members of society? >

Communication

Bumblebee visits lotus flower. The two exchange greetings and compliment one another's beautiful color. Bumblebee drinks the nectar. Both are happy. In the 'thought box', students are first asked to consider what types of greeting foster good relations. Task 1: Make pairs and read the dialogue. Task 2: Which of the greetings exchanged between lotus flower and bumblebee do you think are good?

Moral Education: Who, What's Right?

Who's doing the good, the right thing? (The text doesn't ask who's misbehaving.)

The caption doesn't say. But suggestions are considered later.

Moral Education, 5

Life's Pageant

Tastes great. This is fun. That hurts. I'm sleepy. That feels great.

Moral Education, 4

がっこう だいすき We love school. あいうえお The start of the kana syllabary

Moral Education, Continued

We're all alive, みんな いきてる We're all alive together. みんなで いきてる that one syllable で, so crucial, suggests community, togetherness, responsibility to others, the heart of Moral Education

Moral Education, Continued

Inside the cover

Good mornings, friendships aplenty, yay, it's fun, [we're just] little first-graders, but we're the shining new leaves on the 'human tree', yay, we're happy, we want to learn a lot, so teach us a lot, okay.

Moral Education in Japan

Today was printed matter garbage collection. Delivering my own items, I discovered a stack of primary school texts, among them a couple dealing with どうとく, or moral education. In Japan, the subject is mandatory during the nine years of compulsory education. Let's have a look at the text used at primary schools in Niigata City.

The cover, right to left (rendered in kanji characters) 君が 一番 光る時 Roughly, 'When you are shining brightest'. 道徳 1 Moral Education, (Grade)1

Prince Hisahito

The Emperor of Japan has one child, a daughter. The younger brother has a son, 20. Japan has had empresses (and the imperial family traces itself to goddess Amaterasu), but succession, currently, is male only. This is a big problem for conservative forces in Japan. To return to Prince Hisahito, the nephew of the Emperor: a dragonfly enthusiast, in HS he co-published an article about dragonflies at the Imperial estate in Tokyo. There's been some criticism (deserved) of that, and of his first solo press conference (not so deserved), held recently. Here's a sampling of the enlightened commentariat at Japan Today.

Niigata City Photos

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Going, Going, Gone

Updated population figures for the prefecture are published the first of every month in the local paper, and those for February, 2025, continue a decades'- old pattern: decline (everywhere in Japan, in fact, except Tokyo). Since February, 2024, Niigata has seen a drop of 27,251 to current total 2.098 million. This trend, irreversible, in what was the country's most populous prefecture in the late 1800s, for reasons to do with labor-intensive rice production.