Thursday, February the 28th, 2008

It's another cold morning, with its fine sky though. The term-end tests start.
I am wondering if I should finish manufacturing a paper on the collaboration with research institutes outside the school. Speaking in a personal level, that would be the collaboration between teachers and faculties.

Wednesday, February the 27th, 2008

The graduation ceremony day. I have no special emotion as they are not my "year."
Yesterday, I handed out the last paper for the compulsory training for English teachers. It was a kind of cook-up. There I pointed out that we need the help of scholars to "account for the inextinguishable desire in the human mind to find a firm footing in some region beyond the limits of the world of experience". (p.447, Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason", 2003, Dover Publications, New York)
I had a half day off after the ceremony. I'm afraid I badly needed a rest after spending 3 hours in the cold gym. It is well said, "Toshiyori no hiya-mizu" (literally, cold water against the aged).

Tuesday, February the 26th, 2008

Is the world changing? A little bit by bit, if any. Am I changing? I think I do, step by step.
"The difficulties and objections we have to fear lie in ourselves." (p.436/437, Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason", 2003, Dover Publications, New York) Not out of ourselves. I have to face myself to reach internal tranquility. "External tranquility is hollow and unreal." (p.437, Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason", 2003, Dover Publications, New York) However, it becomes harder and harder to face myself as I get older.

Monday, February the 25th, 2008

It's so cold this morning. Even snow flakes flew down a little. Some junior high school students are hurrying toward their destination high schools. Today, they have the first entrance examinations to public high schools.
I am wondering if I can maintain my employability even after the coming 5 years, when even this time's transfer was a tough one. It is usually said that a transfer would be tough after one gets in their forties. No need to say, in their fifties.

Sunday, February the 24th, 2008

"All ignorance is either ignorance of things, or of the limits of knowledge." (p.425, Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason", 2003, Dover Publications, New York) This phrase reminds me of the saying of Confucius: "Say you know when you know; say you don't know when you don't know. That is to know."
"The first step ... is that of dogmatism. The second ... is that of scepticism, and it gives evidence that our judgement has been improved by experience." And "scepticism is a resting-place for reason ...; but it cannot be its permanent dwelling-place." (p.427, Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason", 2003, Dover Publications, New York) It seems that some people prefer keeping "dwelling" in "a resting-place."
Cross-subject endeavors and endeavors proper to each subject is needed to enhance the academic achievement of our students.

Saturday, February the 23rd, 2008

"But it is undoubtedly always beneficial to leave the investigating, as well as the critical reason, in perfect freedom, and permit it to take charge of its own interests, which are advanced as much by its limitation, as by its extension of its views, and which always suffer by the interference of foreign powers forcing it, against its natural tendencies, to bend to certain preconceived designs." (p.418, Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason", 2003, Dover Publications, New York)
Yes, Kant is right saying that. But the problem is that one person's freedom is another person's jail.

Friday, February the 22nd, 2008

I took one day off yesterday. Do I feel relieved? Not so much. I should take good care of myself.
As I get older, I am gettting fragile both physically and mentally. I think I'm doing some maintenance of myself phisically. How about mentally? No, I'm not.

Wednesday, February the 20th, 2008

A drastic change in the concept of our school's PR materials might be possible. Our PR ideas have been planed from the viewpoint of teachers, and the materials have talked to junior high school students with the voices of teachers. They might be organized from the viewpoint of students. Students can talk to students in the materials.

Tuesday, February the 19th, 2008

Writing annual summaries is becoming in fashion, I hope. It's nice many people are trying to make implicit knowledge explicit, though many of their writings are just lists of facts.

Monday, February the 18th, 2008

Another week starts with yesterday's tiredness and coldness left in me. I wonder if I can bear the week's load.
What is the world revealing to me? Would I like to see the world even now?

Sunday, February the 17th, 2008

I'm on my way to Nishiura High School. It's been a while since I last visited the ex-7th school district.

Saturday, February the 16th, 2008

It's an off day for me. I have to go to Nishiura High School tomorrow for a whole day. Though the school is located in Habikino City, it is not so far. I only have to take the 7:29 train in the morning, only 2 minutes earlier than usual. As the train leaves from the nearer platform, the difference means nothing.
It is surprising how much the cognitive science and the phylosophy of Kant resemble each other. Is ti a coincidence? Or is it because the cognitive science has just followed his ideas?

Friday, February the 15th, 2008

Some say that the wish to go somewhere far from here and where no one knows you is foretelling of suicide. But I sometimes wish so. When I used to take off a train at Tsukuno Station, I would wonder where I should get if I keep taking the train. As I take off a train at Higashi-Kishiwada Station, further south from Tsukuno, now, I don't hope to keep taking the train southward. I think I know what I will see there.

Thursday, February the 14th, 2008

It's so cold this morning. The weather forecast says it's a little bit warmer than yesterday, but with the wind stronger, it feels much colder.
High-powering the preparing sessions for the QLD study tour has been successfully carried out. Delivery lessons by college teachers worked.
The first professor developed students' readiness to be their own interpreter. The second gave them a personal strategy to be a missionary of Japanese culture. The seasoned intelligence and teaching experience of the professors should be praised first of all. My connoisseurship comes next. The-right-man-in-the-right-place policy pays.

Wednesday, February the 13th, 2008

Another freezing morning. It was 6 degrees even in the room.
The contradiction between the management ideology and the management techniques is revealing itself. The management ideology inclines to neo-liberalism or individualism, while the management techniques are still those of Fordism or collectivism.
The contradiction should be resolved.

Tuesday, February the 12th, 2008

Management ideology inclines to neo-liberalism or individualism, while the management techniques are still those of Fordism or collectivism. The contradiction should be resolved.

Monday, February the 11th, 2008

My younger daughter passed the entrance examination of a private high school.

Sunday, February the 10th, 2008

It's so cold this morning! As it snowed yesterday, the world seems freezing.

Saturday, February the 9th, 2008

It started snowing in the morning and continued till late in the afternoon. I first drove my younger daughter to Sakai Station in the early morning. In the afternoon, I had to send my elder daughter to Mikunigaoka Station, and drive myself to Sakai Station again to get to Takaishi. Later I drove back home to drive again to Mikunigaoka Station again.
As I walk from Takaishi Station to the school, it keeps snowing. The station has its old-style shopping mall. Some shops are seemingly active. Others? Having a private hagh school might not be enough to populate old-fashioned stores. Side-walks are too slippery to walk on, covered with snow sherbet which are being added with fallen snow.
Having left Sakai Station one train earlier than I had planned, the meeting room in Toho Memorial Building, which had been named after the school founder, has already significant number of applicants' parents. Entrance examinations are one of few popular events.

Friday, February the 8th, 2008

Another cold morning with more clouds.

Thursday, February the 7th, 2008

A cold fine morning. I have no class today, but just two or three meetings.
I am going to invite a catch copy for the school poster and brochure. The students and alumni will be invited to

Wednesday, February the 6th, 2008

Should we talk about School Identity, although the term sounds somewhat antique? PR activities, however, are to reach out to alumni, at least in Izumi, as well as to would-be students and their parents. Present students? They should be organized in the activities themselves.
Prof. Nagao of Kobe College visited our school to give our students mimic trainings for simultaneous interpretation. Activities themselves were not so hard, and seemed to be enjoyed by the participants. It worked, I believe. A catering lecture is a treasure. It is a good experience for students, and is timesaving for teachers.

Tuesday, February the 5th, 2008

A cold morning, yet something spring is sneaking in.
Experience is a true teacher for teachers, and reputational interest is a good guide for them, as is often the case with professionals.

Tuesday, February the 5th, 2008

A cold morning, yet something spring is sneaking in.
Experience is a true teacher for teachers, and reputational interest is a good guide for them, as is often the case with professionals.

Monday, February the 4th, 2008

Today some of us have "the demand of a dogmatical answer to our questions" (p.275, Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason", 2003, Dover Publications, New York), which serves "to increase our ignorance, to throw us from one incomprehensiobility into another, from one obscurity into another still greater, and perhaps lead us into irreconcilable contradictions." Some others still "live in a state of continual hesitation." Relatively few are heading "to the right mode of extending the province of the understanding."
In a freezingly cold wet morning, everything looks dull and yet challenging.
Yes, it was a challenging day. I hope some others found it as challenging as I did.
It is obvious that experience is a true teacher, even for teachers. However, what type of interest is a good guide for them? Financial interest? Positional interest? Cultural interest? Reputational interest, as is often the case with professionals? Can any teacher be motivated with a single interest? When any individual teacher cannot be motivated with a single offer, combination of various interests might be a good prescription for them, or for a school.

Sunday, February the 3rd, 2008

It sleeted early this morning, when I woke up. As other family members got up, it changed into rain. Yet, it has been a very cold day, and so will it be.
Kant says: "when employed by the empiricist, understanding is always upon its proper ground of investigation --- the field of possible experience, the laws of which it can explore, and thus extend its cognition securely and with clear intelligence without being stopped by limits in any direction." (p.266, Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason", 2003, Dover Publications, New York) It reads that I am an empiricist. I prefer exploring, and thus extending my "cognition securely and with clear intelligence without being stopped by limits in any direction." As an empiricist, I ought to head "to the right mode of extending the province of the understanding, by the help of the only true teacher, experience." (p.267, Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason", 2003, Dover Publications, New York) Having my "only true teacher, experience", is not enough. He puts it: "if anyone could free himself entirely from all considerations of interest, ... such a person ... would live in a state of continual hesitation." (p.269, Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason", 2003, Dover Publications, New York) That is to say, interest is a good guide. That is, we, empiricists, need a true teacher, experience, and a good guide, interest.

Saturday, February the 2nd, 2008

It is a freezing morning. I visited Nishin High School at Ishikiri yesterday. The school was at the middle of a hill, 15 minutes down from Ishikiri Station above. A stream runs along the road to the school, and a sign says we can see fireflies there in summer. I went, it seems, to the eastern countryside from the southern countryside of Osaka Prefecture.

Friday, February the 1st, 2008

We had a long teachers' meeting, where annual summaries were presented from the school sections yesterday. Summarizing the past year's jobs is important to make the implicit explicit, to share the information and experience we have had. The management, in their turn, should summarize the summaries.
Clouds are shone in bright orange, which contrasts the shadowy grey side of them. Spring and winter are inroading each other.

Thursday, January the 31st, 2008

I have been worrying about office politics too much. I should focus on students' affairs more. The biggest problem is the management themselves sometimes drag me down.
Should I pick up the term 'career management' in place of 'personal branding' when MET is using the term 'career education'?
A long teachers' meeting, where annual summaries were presented from the school sections

Wednesday, January the 30th, 2008

A cloudy morning. I missed the 7:31 train and am taking the 7:41 in stead. Have I been too slow this morning?
It seems, within 5 or 10 years, we tend to work in the framework of particular office networking, rather than with universal competency, which can be employability in labour market. That might be why we had better move after the years.

Tuesday, January the 29th, 2008

We are in the dilemma between the colleges taht want our students and those our students want to go to. Providers of catering lectures tend to belong to the former.

Monday, January the 28th, 2008

Jokovic won the Australian Open, and Hashimoto won the Osaka Governor race. The upsurge of the new generation is coming?
I am in a delicate situation; between the baby-boomers and the new generation; between the management and the rank and file. The all I may be able to depend is my competency.
Tianjing students hav come and gone. I wonder what they have left behinde.

Sunday, January the 27th, 2008

I wonder why Kant wrote 'First Conflict of the Transcendental Ideas', 'Secomd Conflict of the Transcendental Ideas', and so forth. I'd rather skip these parts to progress.