A Joke, or a nightmare?

Officer A: We have finally found out the most qualified serviceman to suppress Iraq.
President B: Great!
Officer A: He is on trial though.
President B: No problem! Go ahead.
Officer A: His code name is SH. He used to be a commander in Chief in a Near East country, and is a fluent speaker of the Arabic language.
President B: …..

"Flags of Our Fathers": Whose fathers flags?

I saw the film "Flags of Our Fathers" directed by Clint Eastwood. It was a heavy movie. As an article on the film puts it: "Clint has two movies coming out before year's end. That is, two separate movies with the same story. Actually not the same story; not even the same language. Just the same setting."
(http://kawaiino.vox.com/library/posts/tags/iwojima+kara+no+tegami/)
"Flags of Our Fathers" was taken from the viewpoint of Americans, while another film has been already made from the Japanese point of view, to make them a kind of twin movies. That, in itself, is a very volitional project. I appreciate their efforts. When, I wonder, will another film be taken from the third standpoint? Iwojima, the stage of the films, is an isle of Ogasawara islands. In the sea area, there used to live people who spoke the Pigin language, neither Japanese nor English. One day, one "they" came there and occupied the islets. Another day witnessed another "they" come. The two, "they" and "they", coordinated to destroy a tiny isle, in the form of a battle though. After the battle, "they" kept occupying the islands until they passed their government to another them. Now the Pigin language is second to extinct.

"Beethoven's Anvil"

William L. Benzon, "Beethoven's Anvil", 2001, Oxford University Press, Oxford
「In one way or another the postmoderns are obsessed with the possibilities and difficulties of interpersonal understanding.」（p.19）「the central nervous system (CNS), consisting of the brain and the spinal cord, functions in two domains external to it, the internal milieu and the external world.」（p.32）「the central nervous system operates in two environments, the external world and the internal milieu, and it regulates the relationship between the external world and the interior milieu on behalf of that milieu.」（p.33）「the neural representation of other people」（p.34）「You are your body, but the division of the nervous system directed toward the external world is quite capable of treating your body as an object on a footing with other objects. The neural self (NS) in the CNS is the neural representation of that body.」（p.34）「It is important that the individual's sense of self, represented by the ego node, be consistent with other people's sense of him or her, and that these various other senses be mutually coherent. Much of social interaction is about achieving coherence among the neurally distributed components of a single identity.」（p.62）「A social status is simply one's position in the social system. ... A role, by contrast, is the social "script" you use to enact your status in a praticular situation.」（p.62）→A socialized or generalized persona is a status.「We could in fact think of one's kinship status as a specialized aspect of one's persona, an aspect one shares with all other individuals of the same status.」（p.62）「We might think of a status as a constraint on the persona, but better perhaps to consider it the core of the persona, which determines the basic features of one's interactions with others. One's unique features and capacities are then "attached" to that core. As such, the status exists in the brains of everyone in the culture.」（p.63）→In fact, "a constraint" makes a role easy to enact. It's a stimulus.「In fact, the set of possible statuses exists in the brain of every adult member of the culture. This set of statuses is affirmed and elaborated in the culture's stories and rituals; it forms the core of social life.」（p.63）→In one sense, "the set of possible statuses" is a culture.「the fluctuating patterns of interpersonal conjunction that sustain our cultural life.」（p.66）→The culture has certain patterns of interpersonal conjunction to sustain itself. Or cultures differ from one another as what kinds of patterns it has, and how it has them.「mind is like the weather」（p.72）「a low level of activity is still a means of participating in the evolving mental state.」（p.72）「The overall state (of the brain: Kakuta)is not explicitly controlled, at least not at a high degree of precision. Rather, that overall state reflects activities at various levels within the whole system. ... Yet no component of the brain regulates all of this activity in detail. The overall activity just happens. That overall activity is what I am calling the mind.」（p.73）「self-organizing dynamical systems」（p.74）「self-organizing dynamics」（p.75）「Somewhere in the brain a small fluctuation takes hold and becomes amplified to the point where it takes over global brain dynamics. This is not something you can will to happen --- at least not directly --- but if you put yourself in the right frame of mind and do the right things, then the magic may happen.」（p.75）「the mind as neural weather」（p.79）「The pleasure of sport ---at any rate, the pleasure that derives from the activity itself, rather than from beating aomeone else in competition --- is simply the subjective feeling of smooth fluid physical motion in which one's motive force exactly matches and counters any resistance.」（p.85）「our commonsense view of the self easily accommodates the notion of multiple inner agents, often at odds with one another, acting on our behalf」（p.96）→"the notion of multiple inner agents": The notion needs its name. To have a name or not to matters. Having, or commanding, its name gives you a power to control it.→"multiple inner agents, often at odds with one another"「To be sure, we can choose to supress emotional expression through firm self-control --- but htat is quite different from not generating the expression at all. The latter is not physically possible. When the appropriate subcortical mechanisms organize some emotional state, they will modulate the skeletal muscles with the appropriate essentic form. Whether one's body freely expresses that form depends on the neocortical motor systems: they may allow the expression or try in varying degrees to suppress it.」（p.100）「it is clear that the emergence of strategies for dealing with separation is critical for human psychological development.」（p.113）→It might have something to do with the human development and schizo.「The various bits of brain circuitry do what they must, and some overall brain state emerges.」（p.115）→Having a ceratin virtual " overall brain state" enables us to get prepared to a certain reality. That is: Having a sad virtual " overall brain state" enables us to get prepared to a sad reality. Having a raging virtual " overall brain state" enables us to get prepared to a raging reality. etc.「George Lackoff found that we conceive the self to be a multiplicity of agents.」（p.152）「By and large, everything is connected to everything else, though some linkages are more direct than others. Any but simplest mental function involves a distributed network of neural centers.」（p.158）「No doubt we need more evidence, but beyond that, the mind and brain may operate in ways too subtle to be adequately captured by our current concepts.」（p.159）→We need new concepts to capture what we can't now.「the purpose of speculation is not to hit upon the right explanation, as if by magic, but to guide subsequent research in a fruitful direction.」（p.159）→What a wise saying!「In musicking the external world is assimilated to the inner rhythms of a collective dream, a dream being enacted in that public space where we share our inner environment with others.」（p.164）「To survive an organism must maintain its structural integrity in the face of all those physical forces that work to degrade that integrity.」（p.191）→How about mental integrity?「The emergence of culture created a long-term dynamics that is new in the history of life on earth. When I introduced dynamics concepts back in chapters 2 and 3, I focused on relatively short-term interactions, seconds, minutes, and hours. That is the timescale on which musicking happens.」（p.193）「We now need to think in terms of weeks and months and years and centuries. Those are the timescales on which human groups, and groups of groups, come together in ritual and also in conflict, and go their various ways. From week to week and year to year the rituals are pretty much the same, but over the course of centuries they change. That long-term evolution of collective dynamics is a new phenomenon.」（p.194）「It is cultural evolution. Cultural survival depends on the neurodynamics and couplings that carry the culture. These mechanisms work much faster than do biological evolution. Yet they are no more subject to our direct and intentional control than those of biological evolution.」（p.194）「mind control is basic to human culture.」（p.204）「What is important is that possession is undertaken only for serious reasons;」（p.213）→"Possession" might happen during a senior year. Yet it might be possible to get sutdents prepared for the possession before. 「Julian Jaynes, "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", 1967」（p.222）「the Homeric Greeks heard inner voices and acted on what they heard. From the fact that mental words had become common by the time of the Athenian Golden Age, he concludes that human consciousness had finally emerged.」（p.222）「the creation of concepts ... gave rise to consciousness」（p.222）「patterns of neural weather」（p.223）「Such listening and analysis takes practice because we don't hear rhythm, melody, and harmony and then combine them into a musical whole. Rather, we apprehend the whole first and only gradually learn to differentiate that whole into rhysm, melody, and harmony.」（p.229）「While the neocortex has regions that seem specialized for metric and nonmetric rhysms, timbre, intervals, melodic shape, and harmony, one needs special cultural "tuning" to be able explicitly to attend to and control one or more of these aspects of musical sound independently of the others. Only through the long process of cultural evolution has control of rhysm, melody, and harmony become clearly differentiated.」（p.229）「culture molds brains, not biology.」（p.230）「a society evolves from a hunting and gathering band (HG band) to a chiefdom with well-established permanent leadership」（p.235）「interactions with people whose cultural knowledge is different from their own.」（p.236）「The need to interact routinely with strangers requires a major change in the neural mechanisms for social interaction. In the world of HG bands meetings between strangers frequently end in violence. This would be disastrous in a society where meetings between strangers occur rountinely.」（p.236）「If you live in an HG band, your identity is your place in the kinship system. But that identity is not sufficient to negotiate your way in a civilized world. There you need some notion of citizenship or subjecthood.」（p.236）「If you share subjecthood with a stranger, you can safely interact in certain ways.」（p.236）「Similarly the fact that you must interact with individuals having different cultural knowledge means that your different bodies of knowledge must be mutually consistent. You must recognize that not everyone shares your specialized knowledge and make appropriate adjustments in conversation. You must thus differentiate your specialized knowledge from a body of common knowledge that you assume for all subjects living in the same society --- what George Herbert Mead called the generalized other (GO).」（p.236）「In an HG band each individual will have a persona (recall figure 3.1) in the collective neural tissue. Each individual will also have some neural tissue devoted to the system of roles associated with the statuses in the kinship system (recall figure 3.2). Individuals in our chiefdom, however, will have two statuses unlike any in Hg bands, one for the GO and one for chiefhood.」（p.236/237）→「Individuals in our chiefdom, however, will have two statuses unlike any in Hg bands, one for the GO and one for chiefhood.」（p.237）→Individuals in our society will have two statuses, one for the communalism and one for neo-liberalism.→Individuals in our society will have two statuses, one for the nationalism and one for imperialism.→Individuals in our society will have two statuses, one for the communalism and one for marketism.「as the number of personas grows larger and larger, the neural structures begin to fail. The collective neural weather becomes more and more disorderly, anxiety grows, and disputes became a problem. This "pressure" forces a massive reorganization in which each status, including the role scripts associated with it, is factored into two components: one component is unique to each role while the other component is common to all roles, for all statuses. These common components are then organized into the GO status. With this simplification neural weather calms down, acxiety decreases, and peace returns to the community.」（p.237「Of course, it is not quite the same community. It is organized in a different way.」（p.237）「Musicking organizes the rituals in which, over time, coupled brains create the GO and chiefhood statuses. When people take part in a ritual, they engage in playacting. There are rituals, often associated with specific calendar times, in which men act like women, women act like men, adults act like children, ordinary subjects act like chiefs, and chiefs act like ordinary subjects. This is the kind of activity that is likely to produce the differentiation we need, for it gives each person's nervous system an opportunity to enact different social statuses and roles, thereby providing an opportunity to factor each into shared and unique components, That is one clue about how the collective neuropil does its work.」（p.238）→A certain activity 「gives each person's nervous system an opportunity to enact different social statuses and roles」「ritual creats a cultural space where social innovation takes place. During periods when a society is under no particular stress, ritual serves to confirm and maintain the existing order. But when the society comes under duress, ritual allows new social mechanisms to emerge. As societies grow and their structure differentiates, musicking continues to play the role it had in humankind's beginning: the forge in which new forms of social being emerge.」（p.238）「Now, at last, I am ready to think about where memetic variation comes from. In the first place, memes can come from other groups. ... New memes may also arise spontaneously in the course of musicking. ... Beyond this, I suggest that individual invention ---- whther spontaneous or deliberate --- is another source of new memes. ... Whatever the source, as long as a group has a plentiful supply of memes it has the raw material for cultural evolution.」（p.239）「It provides a mechanism by which the collective neural tissue can restructure its mechanisms for social interaction.」（p.239）「Writing introduces virtual encounters into the web of social transactions. Whenever you read something you encounter not only the author of the text, but every other reader of the text. But these others aren't directly present to you, hence the encounter is a virtual one. This virtual encounter requires you to imagine the writer and address yourself to her without any external support other than the text itself. As strange as that may seem, writing a text is even stranger, for it requires you to generate language without any of the customary cues about how your words are being received. Given a nervous system that is organized for interaction with an external world, that's quite a feat.」（p.240）「In a world where one is almost never exposed to any group other than one's own, styile is invisible. ... But as soon as one must routinely interact with other groups --- different social classes, different occupational guilds, or tribesman from different provinces, and so forth --- style becomes palpable;」（p.241）→In a world where one is almost never exposed to any culture other than one's own, styile is invisible. But as soon as one must routinely interact with other cultures --- different social classes, different occupational guilds, or ethnics from different provinces, and so forth --- style becomes palpable.「In such a world of interacting groups, I suggest, the expressive style of a group's performances becomes part of the equipment through which the group negotiates its place in the social and cultural order.」（p.241）→In such a world of interacting cultures, the expressive style of a culture's performances becomes part of the equipment through which the culture negotiates its place in the social and cultural order.「We must regard this notation as a mnemonic aid, sings to help one remember melodies one has heard and sung. Without that prior experience, the neumes are deeply ambiguous.」（p.246）「Medieval Europe was a congerie of tribes, cities, and states of various cultures. But they were all, in some measure, under the sway of the Roman Catholic Church, and thus of its ritual, including plain-song. Europe was dotted with communities of chanting religious, and congregations would hear chanting at church services.」（p.246）→Today's world is a congerie of tribes, cities, and states of various cultures. But they are all, in some measure, under the sway of maketism. The world is dotted with communities of marketing.「The greatness of an individual musician such as Armstrong is a function, both of his power to forge compelling performances from the "raw" memes and of the existence of that meme pool. While Armstrong may have been ahead of his fellows, he couldn't have been very far ahead of them, otherwise they could not have performed together.」（p.255）「Minstrelsy, brass bands, and the church were three arenas in which African and European musics mingled in nineteenth-century America.」（p.259）「memetic flow from one style (or family) to another --- keeping in mind that a given meme can exist in many pools. It is, of course, possible for contemporary styles to exchange memes with one another.」（p.259）「cultural cross-breeding」（p.262）「the catalytic emergence of styles from heterogeneous meme pools」（p.262）「an individual's response to musical memes is a function of her emotional and motor style. Individuals with similar styles will group together, attending the same clubs, dances, and concerts, and listening to the same broadcasts and recordings.」（p.269）「to commodify the music so taht it can be marketed to the appropriate consumers」（p.272）「In complex cultural pluralities such as the United States, people have to negotiate a new identity for each arena in which they function: home, church, work, social club, political party, whatever. They have many bodies of music to choose from. Musical preference thus becomes a matter of personal choices that imply specific connections to the larger currents of history.」（p.273）「But the abject veneration of genius devalues the musical capacities of the rest of us and encourages us to substitute recordings for our own music. That path leads to cultural stagnation.」（p.281）「If we wish to hear marvelous new music twenty years from now, we must prepare the way by making our own music now. That music isn't the responsibility of geniuses. It is ours.」（p.281）

Autumn

Waga tame ni kuru akini shi mo aranaku ni mushi no ne kike ba maduzo kanasi ki

It is not for me that the autumn has come. It is me, however, that chirping bugs drive to sorrowfulness.

Ohokata no aki kuru kara ni wagami koso kanashiki mono to omohi shiri nu re

Autumn has come in the world.That reminds me of my solitude and sorrowfulness.

Does autumn come to me, or come to the world?

Communalism vs Neo-Liberalism

Communalism meets neo-liberalism. That is what is happening in IHS. Of course, the former is meeting the latter in the brains of the students and teachers there.

"Little Birds"

I saw the film "Little Birds." It gave us wretched and somewhat comical scenes. I don't think I should introduce the wretched ones here. The comic comes from their remoteness. The concept "remote nationalism" was introduced some time ago. Minority emmigrants to USA and other developed countries support their nationalism at home because of their patrioticism. Some donation in the developed countries matters a lot at home. It enables the movement to raise soldiers and weapons, and provides infrastructure for civilwars. This film reminds me of the word "remote." American soldiers enact remote militalism to satisfy Republicans empowered with overwhelming economic gap. Human Shields enact remote pacifism to satisfy Democrats empowered with overwhelming economic gap. Japanese soldiers and Japanese NPO enact remote humanism to satisfy, respectively, pro-SDF and pro-NPO empowered with overwhelming economic gap. Lastly, the reporter send his messages to Japan to satisfy anti-SDF empowered with overwhelming economic gap. In one scene, children were dancing to a music from a propaganda program obviously aired by Husein regime. The scene seemed both lovely and comical. If you filmed the scene we are watching this film, it might seem both lovely and comical.

Dissociation and Human Development

Students who have been raised under communalism have, of course, communalistic mentality. A person with communalistic mentality has a communalistic personality. When the person meets neo-liberalism, the encounter produces neo-liberalistic mentality. Or, let me put it, the encounter dissociates neo-liberalistic mentality from the communalistic mentality. The dissociation is a crisis, which provides a chance for the personality either to collapse or to develop.
Mentality is a certain combination of chemical conditions within a brain. Dissociation is a contradiction between two combinations. A chemical condition automatically leads to another condition. A combination, therefore, has a dynamisism. Another combination has another dynasism. It is those dynasisms that contradict each other.

Autumn, at last

Kishiwada Danjiri Festival has gone. The festival is said to bring Autumn to Kishu-ji, the southern part of Osaka Prefecture. So it does, rice plants along the street from Higashi-Kishiwada Station to the school have started ripening, bending their ears.

Kinofu koso sanahe torishika itsuno
mani inaba soyogite akikazeno fuku

(from Kokin-shu)

It was yesterday that we planted rice.

Time flies.

Rice plants are bending under autumn winds.

Management of Educational Technology (MET)

I'm starting researching on Management of Educational Technology (MET). I ought not only to learn from MOT (Management of Technology) but also investigate the processes of developing and/or introducing new teaching technologies. Teachers are professionals of teaching, and teaching needs technologies. Then teachaers should either develop technologies by themselves or learn them from others. To improve teaching/learning processes, we should vitalize the developing and/or learning processes of teaching technologies. That is MET.
In MET, how to deal with teachers is one of keys. In general, professionals are to be treated differently than other workers or laborers, whether you like the idea of such discriminative treatment or not. Treatment enhances motivation. Teachers are,first, to be motivated to introduce new teaching technologies into their classes. Motivated teaches, disatisfied with existing technologies, would proceed to developing new technologies. Enhancing teachers' eagerness for introducing new teaching technologies is, therefore essential.
Can teachers develop new teaching technologies all by themselves? There might be some dificulties: Teachers tend to be too busy to spare enough time to browse existing technologies and to find seeds for new ones. Some new technologies need infrastructures such as IT, and most schools other than colleges not noly lack that type of infrastructures but also are short of enough IT-related human resources.
Cooperation is what is needed to step up the promotion of new teaching technologies. The whole prosess can be understood as Management of Teaching Technology (MTT). Is managing teaching technologies enough? English, or any language at large, cannot be acquired without its active usage. Learning process is thus very important, and the importance leads to necessity for management of learning technology (MLT). MTT and MLT constitute MET.

Is September Autumn?

Clouds are telling that the autumn has come high above in the sky. How about low on the ground?Kishiwada Danjiri Festival will be held on 16 and 17 this year, on Saturday and Sunday. The festival had been held on KEIRO-NO-HI (Respect-for-theAged Day) and the day before, but the holiday was moved to another day. That decreased the number of tourists last year.TSUKIMI-MATSURI (the moon-viewing festival) held around MOZU-HACHIMAN Shrine near my neighbourhood is still following the traditional lunar calendar, thanks to its unpopularity.Those festivals around this time of the year are commonly called AKI-MATSURI (autumn festivals), which sounds odd in recent years.The severely hot tempreture of the last September caused a trouble on Izumi's sports day. That had us move the day to the first term. The heat which we still have here seems to be endorsing our dicision.

Aki kinuto. Me ni wa sayakani. Mie ne domo. Kaze no oto ni zo.
Odorokarenuru.

FUJIWARA TOSHIYUKI

(Has the autumn already come? None of its signs can I see here. Yet I'm
surprised to sense and hear the wind's whisper and sound.)

Management of Educational Technology

We ought to learn from MOT (Management of Technology). Teachers are professionals of teaching. Teaching needs some technology. Then teachaers can be called technicians. Professionals would like to be treated differently than other workers or laborers, whether you like the idea of such discriminative treatment or not.

Is the World Flattening?

I wonder whether the gaps among social classes are widening or narrowing in today's world? If you into a certain country, the gaps there must look widening. If you look around the whole world, The rich in every country are getting richer, as rich as those in advanced countries: the poor in every country are becoming poorer, as poor as those in underdeveloped countries. The rich, however, are getting richer in absolute manner, and the poor are becoming poorer in absolute sense. Yet, the hierarchy in every and each country has not only become a part of the world hierarchy, but also they are forming a single global hierarchy. The rich are rich in the universal hierarchy, and the poor are poor, no matter where they live. Being a white or a Japanese does not guarantee that they are well-off. The world is, at last, overcoming racism.

Neo Neo Neo

Neo-liberalism is ceding its momentum to the next ism. Communalism? Religious sectism? Secularism or/and socialism seem not to be in fashion. Pluralism is a reality but lacks in charismatic charm. Neo-neo-liberalism is what is needed.

The end of a season: the end of a reason.

A day is left before the beginning of the second term. Am I ready? ... That I doubt. After getting into my 40's or so, a summer goes by without satisfying achievement. Although this summer gave my family exciting and unusual experiences in China, that left me a little satisfaction. Neo-liberalism is ceding its momentum to the next ism. Communalism? Religious sectism? Secularism or/and socialism seem not to be in fashion. Pluralism is a reality but lacks in charismatic charm. Neo-neo-liberalism is what is needed.

"Beethoven's Anvil" (2)

「It is important that the individual's sense of self, represented by the ego node, be consistent with other people's sense of him or her, and that these various other senses be mutually coherent. Much of social interaction is about achieving coherence among the neurally distributed components of a single identity.」（p.62）「A social status is simply one's position in the social system. ... A role, by contrast, is the social "script" you use to enact your status in a praticular situation.」（p.62）→A socialized or generalized persona is a status.「We could in fact think of one's kinship status as a specialized aspect of one's persona, an aspect one shares with all other individuals of the same status.」（p.62）「We might think of a status as a constraint on the persona, but better perhaps to consider it the core of the persona, which determines the basic features of one's interactions with others. One's unique features and capacities are then "attached" to that core. As such, the status exists in the brains of everyone in the culture.」（p.63）→In fact, "a constraint" makes a role easy to enact. It's a stimulus.「In fact, the set of possible statuses exists in the brain of every adult member of the culture. This set of statuses is affirmed and elaborated in the culture's stories and rituals; it forms the core of social life.」（p.63）→In one sense, "the set of possible statuses" is a culture.「the fluctuating patterns of interpersonal conjunction that sustain our cultural life.」（p.66）→The culture has certain patterns of interpersonal conjunction to sustain itself. Or cultures differ from one another as what kinds of patterns it has, and how it has them.「a low level of activity is still a means of participating in the evolving mental state.」（p.72）「The overall state (of the brain: Kakuta)is not explicitly controlled, at least not at a high degree of precision. Rather, that overall atate reflects activities at various levels within the whole system. ... Yet no component of the brain regulates all of this activity in detail. The overall activity just happens. That overall activity is what I am calling the mindl.」（p.73）「self-organizing dynamical systems」（p.74）「self-organizing dynamics」（p.75）「Somewhere in the brain a small fluctuation takes hold and becomes amplified to the point where it takes over global brain dynamics. This is not something you can will to happen --- at least not directly --- but if you put yourself in the right frame of mind and do the right things, then the magic may happen.」（p.75）「The pleasure of sport ---at any rate, the pleasure that derives from the activity itself, rather than from beating aomeone else in competition --- is simply the subjective feeling of smooth fluid physical motion in which one's motive force exactly matches and counters any resistance.」（p.85）「our commonsense view of the self easily accommodates the notion of multiple inner agents, often at odds with one another, acting on our behalf」（p.96）→"the notion of multiple inner agents": The notion needs its name. To have a name or not to matters. Having, or commanding, its name gives you a power to control it.→"multiple inner agents, often at odds with one another"「To be sure, we can choose to supress emotional expression through firm self-control --- but htat is quite different from not generating the expression at all. The latter is not physically possible. When the appropriate subcortical mechanisms organize some emotional state, they will modulate the skeletal muscles with the appropriate essentic form. Whether one's body freely expresses that form depends on the neocortical motor systems: they may allow the expression or try in varying degrees to suppress it.」（p.100）

Trip to Beijin

19 years have passed since I last visited Beijing. The two decades have witnessed much change both of the world and of myself. What have they seen in Beijing? Ms Liu, our guide, was busy talking to the other members of the trip, with her sign down. Our flight had left Osaka at 10:00 in the morning and arrived Beijing just after the noon. The time difference might make it sound short, but Eastword wind over the Northeast Asia had made the flight longer and rougher, and we had felt already tired when we arrived at the airport. We went out of the arrival area and looked for the sign of our tourist. Beijing airport was so busy that the outside of the arrival was jamed with people. We went through the people with their company's banners and signs in their hands. We couldn't find one for us. I went through them again in reverse in vain. I came out through them again, checking the banners and signs one by one. At the end of the crowds, there was a bank, and a young lady and a middle aged couple was talking about exchanging. I examined a sign in the lady's hands, and found who she was. The drive from the airport to the mid town was a tough one. Chinese streets used to be packed with bicycles, and now are packed with cars which people drive ust as they used to compete with their bicylces. They must have cirtain "FORCE" in them as JEDIS do, or otherwise they could not avoide getting crushed each other. The drive reminded me a pot race in Episode I. The drive, anyway, brought us to Tian-tan (namely, Heaven-platform) Park, where emperors used to pray to the heaven. There are other platforms like Nong-tan (Farm-platform), and Di-tan (Land-platform). Daoism in China is somewhat similar to Shintoism in Japan. Every and each thing has its god in it. Tian-tan used to be a closed temple only for emperors, but now open to ordinaly citizens with small entrance fee. They enjoy greens which lack in city life. Long corridors where nobles used to walk now give the people shades in hot summer days. Some play pokers, some Chinese chesses, some Chinese songs, but other majorities just sit, looking into passengers. Tian-tan building itself was already repaired, and looked brandnew. Unluckily, some other buildings in the park, along with many other sightseeing spots in Beijing, were under repairment. They are preparing for 2008 Olimpics. Tian-tan is in the south of the city. We drove north to visit Qing-shan (namely, scenery-mountain) Park. The park adjoins the Royal Palace, and used to be a closed personal gurdain for emperors. The mountain's northskart has a tea house, Yu-cha-yuan (Royal-tea-house), which, of course, used to be used only by emperors and their families. We enjoyed Chinese-style tea ceremony there. We call our tea ceremony Sa-do (Tea-way), while they call theirs Cha-ying (Tea-art), which concenrate more on how to make tea delicious. Our dinner time was yet to come, so the couple suggested to have Hu-dong tour. Having no particular idea, we said yes, which led us to an action-movie-like experience. Each pair of us mounted a bicycle-type rickshaw. Against our expectation for an elegant tour through Hu-dong area, the rickshaws rushed through narrow streets, sometimes car-chasing each other, sometimes bumping into each other, sometimes narrowly passing other rickshaws which rush against ours. Our hearts were just pounding so hard as to get out of our mouth. Hu-dong is not a proper noun in a gramatical sence. Beijing's traditional residential areas have been called Hu-dong. Those areas have small private houses along narrow streets. The houses usually belong to a type which is called Si-he-yuan (Four-combined-house). A courtyard is surrounded with 4 buildings in Si-he-yuan. Parents live in the north one, which faces south like emperors'; brothers in the east one; sisters in west one. The south building is used for other purposes, like a study. The Hu-dong tour had its own guide. The guide said the number of cross post on the gate used to indicate the class of the owner. As far as I see, all the gates of the area had two cross posts. As the number must be a even one,there used to live the lowest officials. Stone posts under the gate indicate the owner is either a civilian or a military officer. The former post has a picture of sheep, as a civilian officers used brushes as a stationary; the latter shapes a drum, as military officers used to be organized with the sound of drums in the battle fields. Beside officers there used to live some merchants with a picture of a purse on their stone posts. A middle aged man in his 50s welcomed us to his Si-he-yuan. He had made an earlier retirement because of his illness, and receives 1,800 RMB every month as a pension. His early retirement might have led him to show his own house. He served us a paper-cup of tea under a grape trellis. His pronunciation was clear, and his explanation had a well experienced tone. That enabled me to understand
Ms Liu sighs it rains rather a lot in Beijing this summer. Chang-cheng, or the Great Wall, is hazed in the light rain and misty fog. The longness or the greatness of the wall never reveals itself; the steepness of the cliffs in both sides can be hardly sensed. Steep hills and flights of steps tell us we are ascending anyway. How far and high have we come? You can never see in the mist-like clouds, but your legs tell you. As we climb the wall, the wall shows itself peak by peak. Each peak has a fort with some space to hold soldiers. "The wall" itself is wide enough to let two horses pass in parallel. Our right side barriers are taller than the left ones, which tells we are walking westward. Chang-cheng is a bulwark against the North, nomads such as Mongolians. The wall, however, never worked under any great pressure from the North. Someone, some Chinese officers, opened gates to them then. A Japanese warlord once wisely put it; people are stone walls, and people are strongholds. We kept walking westward. Dunhuang, the west end of the Great Wall, is some 2,000 km away. I wonder if we have walked 1/2000 of the way. Over the steepest hill and flight of stairs, the fourth fort or fourth peak comes into our sight out of the mist. Here we are in the fourth, highest, and largest fort. Come into the fort, and you will find a souvenior shop, which offers arrival certificates. Another side of the peak has another souvenir store, which sells a full range of gifts along with refreshments. Ah, are we welcomed, or made fool of?

"Beethoven's Anvil"

William L. Benzon, "Beethoven's Anvil", 2001, Oxford University Press, Oxford
「In one way or another the postmoderns are obsessed with the possibilities and difficulties of interpersonal understanding.」（p.19）
「the central nervous system (CNS), consisting of the brain and the spinal cord, functions in two domains external to it, the internal milieu and the external world.」（p.32）
「the central nervous system operates in two environments, the external world and the internal milieu, and it regulates the relationship between the external world and the interior milieu on behalf of that milieu.」（p.33）
「the neural representation of other people」（p.34）
「You are your body, but the division of the nervous system directed toward the external world is quite capable of treating your body as an object on a footing with other objects. The neural self (NS) in the CNS is the neural representation of that body.」（p.34）

Blood-stained Wooden Stands

We visited Myokoku-Ji Temple. The temple is known with its big cycad trees and with Sakai Jiken (Sakai incident). In an airconditioned show room, across clean glass, there lie the bunches of hair which were left by 11 samurais.
According to Wikipedia, "On the 8 March 1868, a skiff sent to Sakai was attacked by samurais of the prince of Tosa; 11 sailors and Midshipman Guillou were killed (a monument in Kobe is now erected to their memory). Sakai was not at the time a port openned to foreign ships, and the Tosa troops were in charge of policing the city. The captain protested to the Government so strongly that an indemnity of 150,000 yens was also agreed upon, the culprits were arrested, and 20 of them were sentenced to death by seppuku."
You can find two blood-stained SAMPO (small wooden stand to place, in this case, a short sword to cut their belly) near the hair, which were used by two leaders. The two headed the two squads who attacked the French, and were automatically included into the planned 20 offerings. The other 18 were, as the guide in Myokoku-Ji Temple says, randamly chosen from low-ranking Tosa samurais who were staying in Osaka then. The 20 sacrifices were brought to the execution ground in Myokoku-Ji Temple one by one. It seems French officers could hardly keep watching the dreadful scene of cutting bellies. The 11th seppuku was decided to be the last one. Yet, you can find 12 figures on a "kakejiku" picture above the hair and the wooden stands. The 12th killed himself after returning to Tosa. Why? Nothing has been told down about that.
We had visited their graves earlier. The graveyard was in the middle of a kindargarten, which is run by another temple. The grave stones were rather small, and no flowers nor insence were in front of them. I doubt if today's noisy rightists ever pay attention to those who sacrificed themselves on our way to open up our country. The small children on the school bus were carelessly waving their hands on their departure from the kindergarten.
On the way back, I was fingering a cycad seed in my pocket, whose colour is bloody red.

Blood-stained Ceilings in Japan

Where you can find "Chi-Tenjo" (a blood-stained ceiling):
Hosen-in Temple in Kyoto
Daiko-ji Temple in Osaka
Genko-an Temple in Kyoto
Joroku-ji Temple in Tokushima
Chogaku-ji Temple in Nara

Parentocracy

How to develop the examination preparance literacy, both of students and of parents, is on agenda. The literacy, of course, is the subordinate concept of the melitocracy literacy. The melitocracy literacy consists of the posture and the know-how toward the melitocracy.

"The Ethical Brain"

Michael S. Gazzaniga, "The Ethical Brain", 2005, New York, Harper

Brain imaging shows that the area of the cortex that corresponds to the left hand in string players is enlarged compared to that in non-string playing controls. In short, practice changes the brain areas involved in producing specific movements.（p.63）

we have entered a new era in scientific history --- an era that allows neuroscientists to investigate individual differences in intelligence, an investigation previously left to the field of psychology.（p.82）

Educational communities should enter a new era, where educational theories are based on individual human development rather than on humans in mass

We need to distinguish between brains, minds, and personhood.（p.89）

a brain, a mind, and a spirit

If the readiness potential of the brain begins before we are aware of making the decision to move our hand, it would appear that our brains know our decisions before we become conscious of them.（p.92/93）

readiness→conscious→move?→readiness→move→conscious?
I doubt if it does matter.

the brain is determined, but the person is free.（p.99）

It sounds nonsense,or it doesn't make sense at all.All of us are trying to read the minds of others all the time.（p.103）

Not a waking minute goes by when we, the social animal, are not trying to figure out the intentions of others.（p.103）

Of all the things we remember, the truly amazing fact is that some of them are true.（p.120）

Splemdid! What a fantastically accurate statement!

memory is a social or cultural phenomenon（p.121）

Given what we know about how memory works, some techniques can improve an eyewitness's accurate recall of an incident, and others can improve interviews to maximize the chances of getting a more accurate recollection. A witness should write down everything he or she remembers as soon as possible.（p.139）

A simple but very wise way.

our species instinctively reacts to events, and in a specialized system of the human brain that reaction is interprited. Out of that interpretation, beliefs emerge about rules to live by.（p.146）

in our species, the mind has a core set of reactions to life's challenges, and that we attribute a morality to these reactions after the fact.（p.147）

Neuropsychology keeps instructing us that, whether we like it or not, specific brain areas seem to be more involved with specific cognitive states than are others.(p.156）

Humans are belief-formation machines. We form beliefs fast and firmly, and then deepen them. We quickly lose insight into their origins or their frequent strangeness and hold to them to be meaningful, guiding presences in our lives. We become beholden to them and will adhere to them even in the face of information to the contrary. It seems to be what our human brains do.（p.161）

We are big animals, and only 5,000 generations ago there were just 10,000 of us roaming the world. Our genes stem from those 10,000 people and are 99.9 percent the same.（p.163）

The harsh, cold fact, however, is that these rich, metaphoric, engaging ideas --- whether philosophical, scientific, or religious --- are stories, although some are based in more evidence than others.（p.164）

A Deserted Garden

My wife and I were visiting Chabana-no-Sato. CHABANA means flowers for tea ceremonies. When we hold a tea ceremony, we arrange flowers so as to bring the season into the room. The recreation facility is, literally, a tea-ceremony-flower hamlet.
We arrived there to find it having been closed. We sneaked into its garden from behind, wandering about the hill at the back of it. We found some deserted buildings here and there. One of them has (had?) a wonderful Japanese garden, or has an open space which used to be a wonderful Japanese garden.
Some flowers were insisting their prosperity in their good old days.
HITO WA IZA
KOKORO MO SHIRAZU
FURU SATO WA
HANA ZO MUKASHI NO
KA NI NIOI KERU
KINO TSURA-YUKI
(The village of my youth is gone,
New faces meet my gaze,
But still the blossoms at thy gate,
Whose perfume scents the ways,
Recall my childhood's days.)

From Human Development to Personal Development

We should talk about the individuality of human development, graduating from looking at the human development from the view point of development stages. Employing that type of view point means to see human beings as a mass. Besides the fact that human development should have been individual,iIndividualization of human development is under way today, due to the development of industry or economy. That, in turn, enabels or forces us to individualize the teaching/learning processes. The transformation of school from mass education to individual education is an agenda. The individualization or the individualizing process of our society has had impact both on students and on teachers, taht is, both on how each student sees his/her learning process and how each teacher sees his/her teaching process. To have impact on processes implies to have impact on cognition. In other words, we are to investigate the impact of the individualization on cognitive development of both students and teachers.

July 2003 -3-

Monday, July the 21st, 2003
How do we acquire concepts? Implicitly, or explicitly? Or in the both ways? If we have the both ways, what is the difference between the two? Tuesday, July the 22nd, 2003
This copy is from a poster in a JR station. It tells us that we can refresh ourselves with a culture shock. It interests me how a culture shock refreshes us. The training for English teachers was with the participants of the must training. K's speech was concentrated on them. They should pay more attention to the other participants. Anyway, although the trainers did not say such a thing, the contents indicate that we, the high school English teachers, should move on from basic conversation classes. Our methods and technics have already employed by up-to-date elementary teachers, which means that within a few more years, we will have students with the experience of those methods and technics. If we keep doing that kind of conversational classes, they will surely get bored. We should move on, but toward what direction? It depends on each school. In I High School, I am sure that we should emphasize writing skills.
Wednesday, July the 23rd, 2003
Today is the second day for the training of English teachers.
Thursday, July the 24th,2003
Kishiwada Secondary Schools International Communication Consortium Kishiwada International Communication Consortium of Secondary Schools =KICCSS Kishiwada International Communication Consortium of Schools =KICCS Kishiwada Educational Institutions International Communication Consortium Kishiwada International Communication Consortium of Educational Institutions Kishiwada Consortium of Educational Institutions for International Communication Kishiwada Internatonal Communication Solution =KICS First, to swell the international exchange and communication in Kishiwada, we should form a consortium. Second, to support the activities of the consortium, we should put up an NPO.
Friday, July the 25th, 2003
N claimed that no English teacher from I send S off. It is not my job. She could have asked someone, if she did like to be seen off. It is the same with T. She should ask my help, if she needs it.
Saturday, July the 26th, 2003
Constraints guarantee us efficiency. Acceptance of differences requires inefficiency. The cost of meetings. The cost of democracy.
Monday July the 28th, 2003 I talked with N on T's issue, which lead us to almost nowhere. Her assumption and mine seem very remote. After that I talked to M to ask help our mutual understanding. It, hopefully, seemed to work. I also mailed to ask about Teresa's problem. I asked very moderately. I hope they will understand my implication. Her issue is taking too much wasteful time and energy. I wonder if I could turn them into productive one. I am going to visit the Library at Osaka Educational Center to look for series. It is to find some writings on 1-year-long exchange program that I search for them. A section on the topic in "The Outbound Tourism of High School Students and the Cognitive Development of them" is taking a shape in my mind. I would interview some ex-exchange students on the topic.
Wednesday, July the 30th, 2003
My understanding of cognitive theory is deepening. It will enable me to write about the cognitive development of 1-year-long exchange students. The problem is how to gather the information, mostly the protocols of them.
Thursday, July the 31st, 2003
This is the end of July.

July 2003 -2-

Monday, July the 14th, 2003
I asked the sub-principal to make contact with Sakai Ro Gakko, and also handed out a paper to visit Suzuka International College to him. Readiness to acquire ASL is getting ready, although it is doubtful if I will actually learn it. It seems that I would not be an only one to learn it as an English teacher in Osaka Prefecture. I have got some response on the paper for Dai-ichi-hoki from T and K. I should go on by adopting some information given by the other teachers, and should rewrite the application paper within a few days, so that I can get the final go.
Tuesday, July the 15th, 2003
Most of my time was filled with the daily routine work today, such as grading students, doing something on scholarships.... The most profitable one was taking a contract with a person on ASL. I should look forward to hearing back from her. The articles in Gengo shows that we have some delicate issues on SL.
Wednesday, July the 16th, 2003
I visited Kansai International Center with K Jr. and ate lunch. It was rather hot. We bought some textbooks for introductory Japanese. One of the clerks at the shop was a graduate from I HS. It was a god start of visiting the center as an English teacher at I. Most of the other time was occupied with the work for scholarships.
Thursday, July the 17th, 2003
Not such a productive day. I had 3 classes in a row, enough for the morning. Anyway, M gave me a go. I can move on with the Daiichi-hoki's project. I dropped on the post office and ATM, and bought brans, prunes, and blueberries, another daily routine. I have finished with all the classes in the first term. What I have done, and what I haven't done in these 3 months are something I should look back. That will show me my strength and weakness. The clearest right now is I will not have an exam to be a sub-principal at least this year. My transfer from S to I itself shows my fate, to live as a specialist rather than a manager or a generalist. The management itself is, however, very important. Even if I do not make a principal, it does not mean that I do not have to manage some teams in school. To live as a specialist, I should be good at managing English teachers, some committees, and so on. I must keep studying management, and studying management along the line of cognitive school also gives me an insight into the development of cognition.
Saturday, July the 19th, 2003
Individual cognition needs a certain amount of time. Mass cognition needs the share of the time.
Sunday, July the 20th, 2003
It is very interesting that K Jr. pointed out the similarity between the school and the Rotary Club, against the indication for difference between private corporations and public schools. The schools are somewhat similar with voluntary organizations. The similarity has been figured out by some books on the knowledge management.

July 2003 -1-

Saturday, July the 5th, 2003
It seems I should make up my mind to keep this diary basically in English. I seem to be supposed to make English writings. Nonaka Ikujiro's writing is always cool. They challenge my brain a lot. Cognitive science and Knowledge Management at school. I have approached Cognitives through Linguistics. I came across Knowledge Management via Social Science and School Management. The two streams seem to have come to meet. Development of Cognition, or Cognitive Development of an individual human and that of a group of humans. The word 'group' refers to companies, local communities, nations, NPOs, and so on. How do the development of individuals and that of groups interact? ...communication or dialogue is the key word, however,...
Sunday, July the 6th, 2003
Sada Masashi. It is a cool way of mentioning the problem today's youth hold. They have not been raised by speaking to much and listening to much. It has caused them to lack the ability to making a dialogue with the others. They often just throw their words away, and never care where the words go. It is something like a wild pitch. "Ask the ball where it goes." I watched the video "AI", which I found very moving but my elder daughter very confusing. I am likely to be moved by anything which expresses persistency. My daughter regrets that the film implies Martin and his father are bad. The character, Professor Bobby (Was the man Bobby? I cannot remember his name.), was hard to understand. Some scenes suggests his loving son, 'David' has died. How has he come to love to have so many Davids? We agree that the movie should have ended where David and Teddy sank in front of the Blue Fairy. Aliens are just needless and disappointing.
Monday, July the 7th, 2003
Today is Tanabata. Every year, Tanabata Day reminds me of the difference between the Gregorian (solar) calendar and the lunar one. I made a contact with Mr. O at BOE of Kishiwada City, via Ms. M there. We would meet at his office around 17:30. On the phone, he mentioned that an AET who is going to leave after 3 years of teaching in Kishiwada is going to leave some information on and around Kishiwada. I might be able to get the information. He even suggested the possibility of our and their ALTs' having contact via e-mail. The suggestion match my intension to put up Izukoh_ecom including ALTs living in Kishiwada. Tomorrow's meeting will be surely and certainly benificial. After lunch, H, K, Y, and I had a chat over the new ALT and the next year's Writing at the second grade. K's information on the difficulties they had in the previous Writing classes was worth knowing. The difficulty lies in the lack of knowledge both JETs and ALT. Her information suggests the present ALT does not have enough writing skill herself, which I agree. The shortage of JETs' writing ability is inevitable. The lack allowed me to move from A to A. So I am supposed to facilitate the realization of profitable Writing classes. Tuesday, July 8th, 2003
　 I had an interview with Mr. O at Kshiwada City Bord of Education. He advised to have ALTs communicate each other, while I asked him to help us to have their ALTs join Izukoh_ecom. I asked him if we can visit junior high schools to experiment some kinds of English classes, and he suggested me we could do it via the principals in each school. He asked me to instruct junior high school teachers how to teach English in new style, and I asked him to let me take part in seminars for them so that I can learn something. In general, communication itself was a little bit of monologues rather than of a dialogue, but in Japanese standard, it was beneficial, even if it was not productive.
Thursday, July the 10th, 2003
This summer, I am going to be involved in two thesises:1 to Daiichi-hoki on the International Exchange Team, 2 to WTO on outbound tourism for high school students. The former will deal the issues as Knowledge Creating Management, how departments in a school can be knowledge creating fields. The structure of a school consists of three kinds of departments. The first is subject departments like the Japanese department, the Math department... The basic field in school is a class, either it is a HR class or a subject one. There meets teachers and students. Students develop their cognitive abilities through the communication with teachers. How about teachers? Do they develop themselves or not? If the education there is only based on the information gap between teachers and students, the teachers do not have to keep developing themselves. If, however, the education there is to utilize the learning abilities of students, even if the gap between a teacher and each student is almost the same, the solution for each students should be different. Each student has special and unique themes or tasks imposed on him/her. The solution is surely different. To meet the difference, to offer the varieties of different solutions,

June 2003

Monday, June the 9th, 2003
I have finished with the ENGLISHES into English Class. I do not have to do anything new for a while. I just start thinking about English education tour or English study tour.

May 2003

Thursday May the 1st, 2003
How to organize everything in I High School? It is essential to promote communication among teachers. The problem is among what teachers should we organize the communication. Among all the teachers is impossible. izukoh_ecom@egroup.yahoo.co.jp an international community in and around I High School a gaijin community in and around I High School a community of people who speak English in and around I High School Sunday May 11th, 2003 Y will be attendant at the conference mentioned above. Two steps have been taken already. Next I should make a contact with Dr. A at Kyoto Gaikokugo University. Yesterday night, I finished reading “The Introduction to MOT. ” I found Management of Technology suitable to School Management. As teachers are specialists, they are hard to be managed. Meanwhile, specialists love their technologies. In school, I think, we should try to manage technology instead of managing people who carry the technology. What technology do we have at school then? Teaching technology and, not less important than it, Learning Technology. If we call MOT at school MOET(Management of Educational Technology), MOET contains MOTT(Management of Teaching Technology) and MOLT(Management of Learning Technology). When we manage technologies at school, we should not leave the latter behind. Co-construction of a message; this idea leads us to a wider connotation. I might be able to hope that izukoh_ecom will help us co-construct our messages.　 interpersonal communication, intrapersonal communication The word "technology" does not always imply a high-tech, but can also connote a low-tech. For example, even using a blackboard and pieces of chalk is a technology. MOT on the low-tech can mean either to cast it away and employ computer monitors instead, or to improve the technology by using several colors of chalks or else. By the way, I am planning a special lesson on Monday, June the 9th. I will invite 4 or 5 exchange students into my classes. The students of each class will be divided into several groups, according to the number of exchange students we have on the day, and each group will have an exchange student as a guest for several minutes and try their best to communicate with the guest in English. After the while, the group will have another guest. This kind of routine will be repeated for several times, until they talk with all the guests. Saturday, May the 24th, 2003 MOET should start from explicating implicit knowledge, whether it is that of teachers or that of students. As a school is a cluster of communities of practice, we have no way but start our explication by employing codes of each subsections. By trading the ideas explicated with varieties of local codes across the borders between the subsections, we can gradually reach a uni-code with which every member of the school can understand the ideas. accumulation crisis circulation crisis Tuesday, May the 27th, 2003 I've got an e-mail from S, but not from A. Wish she could join the class. Saturday, May the 31st, 2003 If you pay cognitive attention to the culture shock, which many exchange students face, you may say it has some relation with "being usual" or "being normal". We often say, "We usually do this." and "We normally don't do that." On the other hand, we somewhat recognize that "doing this" might be a tabu in another country, or you cannot go without "doing that". Where do the usuallity or normality come from? cognitive growth cognitive functioning cognitive flexibility

April 2003

Tuesday, April 1st, 2003
The Kishiwada station is 10 minutes walk away from the school. In one sence the school is between the two station. When I had moved from my second high school to my third, I had felt what a drizzling school I came to. Now I feel the same. I wonder if I can do as I did, which means to make it a cool one. Should I have moved to others?
　 1st grader: blue
　 2nd grader: red
　 3rd grader: green
Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS) Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) These days so called Oralcommunication classes are focussed on the development of BICS. I don't say the older days emphasized CALP, but acquiring English as the second language, especially for intellectuals, means developing CALP. underdeveloped language Scholarly writing also should relate to those who make decisions on a daily basis about bilingual children: parents and teachers.

Thursday, April the 10th, 2003
The first classes. Step by step; accepting everything. Ethnography Introduction of so called TRy system into transfering teachers of Osaka Prefectural high schools help forming a labour market within Osaka Prefectural high schools. What effect will the introduction cast over mind sets of teachers? My interest in how to let students learn has moved on from inductive method, via offering context, to cognition. This school year, I am in charge of a scholarship, intermediating various scholarships to students. A little bit chilly this morning. I wonder if it would work to put up a mailing list open to students. Should I think of some rules first to operate it lawfully?

Haiku and the Way We Think

A methodology of HAIKU teaches us the importance of the crush of two matters. In HAIKU, KIGO or a seasonal phrase crushes with the other part of the poem. For example, when you pick up a seasonal phrase with 5 syllables or make up a 5-syllable phrase with a seasonal phrase in it, you can compose a HAIKU with another 12-syllable phrase. If the latter phrase is just a description of the seasonal phrase, that does not make a poem. The two neither should be too much in conformity with each other nor should be too much in inconformity with each other. The crush of two matters is the nursery of a poem.
We might prefer that kind of a crush even when we compose a prose. A concept may crush with a sentence structure. If the sentence is just a description of the concept, it does not produce the logical crush. The logical crush is the nursery of a brandnew theory or of the new paradigm. Does that just seem a leap in argument?

March 2003

new Shoki on the new roof along new Chawan-zaka

Monday, March 31st, 2003
MOT line engineer

2002

"I can of Myself do nothing."(John 5 30)
"Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain."(John 12 24)
Have to ask UEC about forming consortium or having coraboration with a university in Sydny.
"One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea."（Walter Bagehot,British writer and economist, 1826-77）
SMARTS
specific
measurable
action-oriented
realistic
timely
sacrifice

2001

one's native place [province, land]; one's (old) home; one's birthplace
locality
localism
locally communal, local communalism, local communality
natural featuers (of a region); climate
endemic, endemical, endemism, endemicity
local currency
local language
local communality
English teachers' room pigin English: This theme sounds interesting, but it's not mine.
home language, local language(>school language, public service language), national language, regional language, global language(=English
home language
bilingualism
local language
national language
national language
global language
local language
national language
global language
global language
local languages
national languages
e-business e-cram e-juku e-kateikyoushi business-based volunteer-based e-commerce e-education e-volunteer e-kyoiku
hybrid identification
the global me
hybrid
the global me
mono-cultural
hybrid
bicultural
trans-cultural communication
trans-lingual communication
polyphonic
polyphony
polyphonicity
transfuse
transfusion
porfessional manager
playing manager
grammer-translation method
translation-assisted method
ethno-communalism
polytheism
polytheist
polytheistic
polytheistical
polytheistically
polytheisticity
animism
animist
animistic
anima mundi
animatism
hylozoism
hylozoic
hylozoist
hylozoistical
hylotheism
hylotheist
hylotheistic
hylotheistical
polytheism
animism
hylozoism
polygene adj
polygenesis n
polygenesist npolygenetic adj
polygenetically adv
polyphylesis n =polygenesispolyphyletic adj
polyphylety n =polyphylesispolyphyly n
polynuclear n
polyversity n =multiversitypolytype npolytipcal adj
Economist
The day the world changed
The propaganda war
A battle of nerves

2000

Ch. S. Peirce thought abduction is one of important steps of scientific logic, besides deduction and induction.
round-the-clock sharing global team-building
to team up geographically dispersed staffs to pass or share a job round-the-closk
In this project we are going to train our students how to collaborate or team up with the other geographically dispersed staffs, and how to pass or share a job in a round-the-clock manner.

2000

Ch. S. Peirce thought abduction is one of important steps of scientific logic, besides deduction and induction.
　round-the-clock sharing global team-building
to team up geographically dispersed staffs to pass or share a job round-the-closk
In this project we are going to train our students how to collaborate or team up with the other geographically dispersed staffs, and how to pass or share a job in a round-the-clock manner.
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~barlow/corpus.html
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/research/ucrel/ http://muse.doshisha.ac.jp/JAECS/
Lawler&Dry ed., Using Computers in Linguistics: A Practical Guide, Routledge
http://www.jali.or.jp/club/honma

1998

ＷＡＲＬＯＲＤＩＳＭ
ＭＥＬＩＴＯＣＲＡＣＹ
ＭＥＬＩＴＯＣＲＡＣＹ
ＣＡＰＩＴＡＬ－ＬＯＲＤＩＳＭ

1994

Tuesday, October the 18th, 1994.
Poverty and unemployment will be negative keywords of coming decades; while work creating and humane development positive. The linkage between the two will be education. Competitive society or cooperative one? That will be the key two branches of the coming decades. In the former, poverty and unemployment will be passed on from one generation to another, under the name of self-responsibility. Many children in the third world are dying. They may be being blamed for their own laziness. The question is whether you blame them for their misery, or blame others. If you choose the latter, the next question is who are others. Glorbal bureaucracy is emerging; while glorbal democracy is yet to be found. The leftists should put out great effort for community democracy, that for national one, that for regional one, and that for glorbal one. Each effort is distinguishable to one another, and should be connected one another. As they are distinguishable, there must be distinguished movement to each purpose. I am going to read classics in English-Japanese. First, "The Wealth of the Nations."

Wednesday, October the 19th, 1994.
From competitive society to cooperative one. That is the key issue of today. As a cooperative society is a community, this movement can be called, namely, communism. Now that we live in a competitive society, a communist teacher has two tasks to carry out. One is to let every student boast competitive human=labour power to live through in the competitive society. The other is to let all the students enjoy cooperative human=labour powers to prepare for the coming cooperative society. Each everyday teaching activity should have the two aspects in itself.

1993

Wednesday, June 30, 1993.
I have started translating "Socialism" by Melvyn Dubofsky from early this week, and made a text file "SISM_US.PEN" today. If I do half a page a day, I can finish the work by the end of this summer.

Friday, July 2, 1993.
There should be some difference between working and labouring. I can work even during my labour time. I, however, must not let labouring steal into my non-labour time. This labouring includes not only my duty as a job taker but also as a care taker. Looking after my children have to be fun.

Wednesday, July 21, 1993.
The Institute for World Socialism The Institute for World (Fundamental) Political Economy How about promoting a kind of studying organization like above? There, we should research sosialisms or radical economics around the world. Its aim is learning variety kinds of ideas to break through blockades around us.

Monday, August 9, 1993.
I've come to contact with two foreigners in Japan: a conservative and a Trotskist. I may exchange some ideas in English. My purpoce, to set up sosialism forum among foreign residents in Japan, still has a long way to go.

Friday, August 13, 1993.
Blache was surprisingly predicting post-indutrious society. (See \booknote\Blache)

Wednesday, September 22, 1993
Now my main interest has come to lie in poverty, education and development.

1992

Saturday, December the 12th, 1992.
I have read the Daily Yomiuri for more than half a year, amd I'm a little bit tired of its contents. How about stop it and start reading the Economist instead? The formar costs \25,200 a year; the latter \26,000. I, however, have to prepay for the weekly.

A Special English Class

We are planning an English class to have our students make "a radio actor/actress." In the class, the students will replace actor's/actress' spoken words with theirs. They record their words, make a sound file, substitute it for the actor's/actress' spoken words datum on a video editing software.
What name should it have?

An Omelet in Kishiwada

We visited a cafe in front of Kishiwada High School. A friend of his had told him omelets there were delicious. The chef's recomendation omelet was on a hot iron plate. It was rather crispy than soft, while soft omelets are in fashion in Japan today. The cooked rice in it didn't taste ketchup against a tacit rule in Japanese society. Treachery could sometimes taste sweet. Most omelets in Japan usually have rice lapped in them or capped with them, and are called OMU-RAISU. Others have noodles likewise, and are named OMU-SOBA. I sometimes miss a champignon omelete.

Winter vs Spring

Bamboos rustle under a soft sun light in a cold air. A coupel of their sprays already have scrolled young leaves. Sui-Kin-Kutsu, namely a water-harp-hollow, plays a music-box-like tune. The cold air brings the sounds clear.

Schezophrenic

Our identity is divided, as we are merchandized; we have an identity as a commodity, and have an identity as a human. As we are merchandized more than once, each time as a different commodity, we have a couple of commodity ME's.

Schizophrenia

Our identity is divided, first culturally. We have at least two cultural identities in ourselves: local, ethnic, domestic or national ME, and global ME. As globalism and glocalism proceed, we sometimes have a couple of local ME's.

Schizoids

We are schizoids. In today's Imperial World, that is the mixture of globalism and capitalism, we are all both culturally schizophrenic and merchandizedly schizophrenic. Our identity is divided, first culturally. We have at least two cultural identities in ourselves: local, ethnic, domestic or national ME, and global ME. As globalism and glocalism proceed, we sometimes have a couple of local ME's. Our identity is divided, as we are merchandized; we have an identity as a commodity, and have an identity as a human. As we are merchandized more than once, each time as a different commodity, we have a couple of commodity ME's.

Japanese Communication Project

I High School of Osaka Prefecture is starting a Japanese Communication Project. If you are interested in communicating with a Japanese high school student by writing e-mails in Roma-ji or Hira-gana, please send us your e-mail address with the following information:
1 Would like to take part in a Japanese mailing list, "nihongo-ml."
2 Would like to have an e-mail pen pal.
Please indicate either 1 or 2, or both 1 and 2.
If you would like to have an e-mail pen pal (it means you have chosen 2), we would do our best to find out you a buddy. To help our effort, please do not forget to add your own profiles and, if you have any preferences for your buddy, the wish-list of your would-be buddy’s profiles.
If you have any questions or requests, please do not hesitate to tell us.

Foreign Affairs Class based on Model United Nations, 2002

Here we introduce our Foreign Affairs Class for the third-year students in the International Course during the school year 2002. This year Daniel Wilcock and I taught for the first term, while Erica Crump and I for the second and the third term. We employed Speaking Globally English in an International Context (Prentice Hall Regents) as our textbook.
This school year we organized our classes mainly around country reports and debating based on the Model United Nations Conference. 28 students took part in the class, which became 29 in September when an exchange student returned from Denmark. We divided the students into 9 groups of 3 or 4 students. Each of the groups represented one of the following countries: Brazil, France, India, Kenya, Korea, Malayasia, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, USA.

We teachers chose the countries, based on the geographic diversity of geographic regions, economies, political perspectives, cultures, and religions. Each group was a representative body in the General Assembly of the Model United Nations. The Foreign Affairs Class met during two consecutive periods one day a week. At the beginning of each class, two countries deliver a country report.

During the country report, each of the country group members presents one of the following : spoken presentation, display, and handout.

We had two rounds of country reports. In the first round we asked the students to focus on the geographic information in the first round, and to cover the following five points in their first Country Report: 1) Brief History, 2) Ethnicity / Language,
3) Religion, 4) Weather, 5) Fisheries / Agriculture / Industries.
In the second round, each representative body presented their culture as actively as possible.

After country reports the class rest of the first period was spent discussing and writing about international topics. This was based on the textbook Speaking Globally (SG, hereinafter).

SG has 10 units:Unit 1: International EnglishUnit 2: International TravelUnit 3: International Business and TradeUnit 4: The EnvironmentUnit 5: EthnocentrismUnit 6: World ReligionsUnit 7: World OrganizationsUnit 8: International LawUnit 9: International EducationUnit 10: The Future

We started with the text’s “Warming Up” exercises to have the students acquire some information and related vocabularies in an active style. First the students read the “Background Reading” in SG, and then we teachers introduced related vocabularies and provided some activities or quizzes.
About ten minutes before the end of the first period, we introduced the topic for the debate.

Daniel preferred questions like “Should immigration be made easier?” to which the students can reply either Yes/No or Pro/Con, and we employed the style to the end of this school year.

In the final minutes of the first period, the representative bodies start preparing for the Debate Part I.

Then the students take their ten minute break.Even during the ten minutes break, some students kept preparing or talking about the related issues.

After the break, the representative bodies spend the first ten minutes of the second period preparing for the debate. After this, the debate part I gets started, and the ambassador to the United Nations from each country (one student from each group) delivers their opinion one by one. We demand that the students listen to the other opinions, as much as they concentrate delivering their own.

Some students focus only on their speech with paying little attention to the others. That is strongly against our implicit purpose in foreign affairs class. We need dialogues in this world, not plural monologues. We, however, tell the students about the strategic importance of paying careful attention to the different opinions. They should try to pick up some demands or ideas in the other statements, so as to make their own in the Debate Part II more appealing to the other representative bodies. This will help them form a majority around their standpoint in the final voting.

Next comes an intermission, during which the representative bodies prepare for the next speech. After the internmission, we start part II of the debate.

At the end of the second round of debating speeches, we have the final voting for Yes/No or Pro/Con (including Undecided). It seems a topic which leads to the divided or split voting result will make the debate more interesting.
SG only contained enough themes and topics for the first half of the school year.

For the second half of the school year, Erica and I chose to have students think of topics by themselves. The students also changed their countries to broaden their understanding. This time we let the students decide their countries, though we did not forget to remember them that the balance among regions and cultures was very important. First each student named favorite countries, and we listed them all. They voted and chose 9 new countries. Luckily enough, the choice had diversity, thanks to the students’s sense of proportion. The countries were: Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, and South Africa.
We started our second half by making up themes. Each student picked two or three themes. They talked about the themes, and reduced the number into nine. One theme was given to each of the new representative bodies by lot, and each country started thinking of a topic for their theme. The themes and topics were:1) FoodShould food waste be taxed?2) MarriageShould gay marriage be allowed in each country?3) AnimalShould each government ban animal tests even for medical experiments?4) MusicShould each country stop illegal music copying?5) SportsShould the UN donate the place where everyone can play sports?6) DrugsShould UN recommend each country to make common regulations of drugs?7) TradeShould we extend globalism in world trade?8) EnvironmentShould each country spend the money to think about global warming?9) TerrorismShould the international court decide who are the terrorists?
We organized classes almost the same way as the first half. However, since we lacked a textbook, we had a little bit hard time preparing introductory materials to provide the students some background knowledge and related vocabularies. We also tried to do the introduction actively.
I would like to introduce some voices of the participants:
One student who had not been interested in the world news says:

“One day, when I was reading a newspaper, I noticed that I could understand the problems, and felt very close to the countries than ever.”

I thought that was the foreign affairs class’s effect, explaining the start of her interest in the international topics.

Another student writes about the change of her view on developing countries:

“Before taking Foreign Affairs classes, I thought that the developing countries are only poor, lacking food, having a lot of refugees and so on. But after taking Foreign Affairs classes, I knew the developing countries have high culture, traditional religion, traditional clothes and so on. These things are very interesting for me. Each country has different characteristics. It is very wonderful. That is the world. Sadly enough, we don’t understand it. There are fictional images of foreign countries in our minds. We see others through the lens. I found the misunderstanding, and discovered new aspects of the countries in this class. I could remove the lens.”

These words remind me of my happiness and luckiness to teach this unique class: foreign affairs.

Web Pages in English on Kishiwada

Izumi High School:
http://www.osaka-c.ed.jp/izumi/english/index.html

Kishiwada City
http://www.city.kishiwada.osaka.jp/index_e.html

Kishiwada Castle
http://www.reggie.net/album.php?albid=811
http://www.mydome.or.jp/travel/sight/list/P39KishiwadaCastle.html

Kishiwada Tourism
http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/RTG/RI/kansai/osaka/sakai_kishiwada/sakai_kishiwada.html

Kishiwada Danjiri Festival
http://www.mydome.or.jp/travel/event/list/X086KishiwadaDanjiri.html
http://www.infonet.co.jp/Aso/win/int-news/1997/in970906.htm

List of Hospitals
http://www.pref.osaka.jp/osaka-pref/iryo/medicalinfo/37.htm

Kishiwada Fishing
http://www.kansai.gr.jp/culture/nature/spot/fishing/ichimo_e.htm

KIPPO News
http://www.kansai.gr.jp/KansaiWindowHtml/News/2002-e/20020424_NEWS.HTML

Japanese Language Classes
http://www.city.matsubara.osaka.jp/osakaes/12-12-2.html

Discrimination in Kishiwada
http://blhrri.org/blhrri_e/news/new095/new09503.htm

Pufferfish Museum
http://bahama.jgi-psf.org/fugu/html/nyt_art

Women’s History by Women in Kishiwada
http://www.kisweb.ne.jp/personal/batw/womeninkishiwada.html

Kishiwada Brewery
http://www.beerme.com/breweries/jp/ki/index.shtml

The Class Based on Model United Nations

―――The Foreign Affairs Class in the school year 2002―――
Here we introduce our Foreign Affairs Class for the third-year students in the International Course during the school year 2002. This year Daniel Wilcock and I taught for the first term, while Erica Clump and I for the second and the third term. We employed ”Speaking Globally ---English in an International Context---”(Prentice Hall Regents) as our textbook.
This year, from the start to the end, we organized our classes mainly around the Country Report and debating in the form of the Model United Nations Conference. 28 students took part in our FA Class, which made 29 after September as an exchange student to Denmark returned. We divided the students into 9 groups, and had each of the groups represent one of the following countries: Brazil, France, India, Kenya, Korea, Malay, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, USA. We teachers chose the countries, based on the geographic diversity of cultures and religions. Each group was a representative body in the General Assembly of the Model United Nations.
The Foreign Affairs Class has two successive periods a week. At the beginning of the first period, two of representative bodies make their own Country Report. Members of each representative body share three rolls: the Speaker, the Display, and the Handout in their Country Report. We had two rounds of country reports, and asked the students to focus on the geographic information in the first round, and to cover the following five points in their first Country Report: 1) Brief History, 2) Ethnicity / Language, 3) Religion, 4) Weather, 5) Fisheries / Agriculture / Industries. In the Country Report Round II, each representative body present their culture as actively as possible.
The debating section was basically based on the textbook ”Speaking Globally”(SG, hereinafter) SG has 10 units:
Unit 1: International English
Unit 2: International Travel
Unit 3: International Business and Trade
Unit 4: The Environment
Unit 5: Ethnocentrism
Unit 6: World Religions
Unit 7: World Organizations
Unit 8: International Law
Unit 9: International Education
Unit 10: The Future
After the Country Report section, we put up the Warming Up Exercise to have the students acquire some information and related vocabularies in an active style. First the students read the ’Background Reading’ in SG, and then we teachers introduce related vocabularies and provide some activities or quizzes.
About ten minutes before the end of the first period, we introduce the Today’s Topic. Daniel preferred the Today’s Topic offered in the style like “Should immigration be made easier?”, which means in the form to which we can reply either Yes/No or Pro/Con, and we employed the style to the end of this school year. Anyway, the representative bodies start preparing for the Debate Part I. Even during the ten minutes break, some students keep preparing or talking with an ALT on the related issues. The representative bodies keep preparing during the first ten minutes in the second period.
The Debate Part I gets started, and the ambassador to the United Nations from each country delivers their opinion one by one. We demand the students should listen to the other opinions, as much as they concentrate delivering their own. Some students focus only on their speech with paying little attention to the others. That is strongly against our implicit purpose in the Foreign Affairs Class. We need dialogues in this world, not plural monologues. We, however, tell the students the strategic importance of paying careful attention to the different opinions. They should try to pick up some demands or ideas in the other statements, so as to make their own in the Debate Part II more appealing to the other representative bodies, which makes it more likely to form majority around their standpoint in the final voting. So after the Intermission, during which the representative bodies prepare for the next speech, we start the Debate Part II. At the end of the period, we have the final voting for Yes/No or Pro/Con (including Undecided). It seems a topic which leads to the divided or split voting result will make the debate more interesting.
　SG can provide themes and topics only for the first half of the school year. As we should make up themes and topics by ourselves, Erica and I chose to have students think of them by themselves. The students also asked for changing their countries to broaden their aspects. When we approached to the end of the first half of the school year, September, we started choosing countries first. This time we let the students decide their countries, though we did not forget to remember them that the balance among regions and cultures was very important. First each student named favorite(?) countries, and we listed them all. They voted and chose 9 new countries. Luckily enough, the choice had diversity, thanks to the students’ sense of proportion. The countries are: Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, and South Africa.
“Let's make up ‘Today's Topic’!”, this is where and how we started our second half. Each student pick up two or three themes for their interests. They talk about them, and reduce the number into nine. One theme will be given to each of the new representative bodies by lot, and they start thinking of a topic for their theme. The themes and topics are
Today's Topics in the Second Half
1) Food
Should food waste be taxed?
2) Marriage
Should gay marriage be allowed in each country?
3) Animal
Should each government ban animal tests even for medical experiment?
4) Music
Should each country stop illegal music copying?
5) Sports
Should the UN donate the place where everyone can play sports?
6) Drugs
Should UN recommend each country to make common regulations of drugs?
7) Trade
Should we extend globalism in world trade?
8) Environment
Should each country spend the money to think about practice measure of global warming?
9) Terrorism
Should the international court decide who are the terrorists?
We organize classes almost the same way as in the first half. We, however, lack a textbook which we base on, and had a little bit hard time preparing introductory materials which will provide the students some background knowledge and related vocabularies. We also try to do the introduction actively.
I would like to introduce some voices of the participants.
One student who had not been interested in the world news says: “One day, when I was reading a newspaper, I noticed that I could understand the problems, and felt very close to the countries than ever. I thought that was the Foreign Affairs’ classes’ effect.”, explaining the start of her interest in the topics. Another student writes about the change of her view on developing countries: “Before taking Foreign Affairs classes, I thought that the developing countries are only poor, lacking food, having a lot of refugees and so on. But after taking Foreign Affairs’ classes, I knew the developing countries have high culture, traditional religion, traditional clothes and so on. These things are very interesting for me.”
“Each country has different characteristic. It is very wonderful. That is the　”world”. Sadly enough, we don’t understand it. There are fictional images of foreign countries in our minds. We see others through the lens. I found the misunderstanding, and discovered new aspects of the countries in this class. I could remove the lens.” These words remind me the happiness and luckiness that I can teach this unique class “Foreign Affairs”.