"On Education"

Many teachers forget that the teacher “must be aware of the contrast between the type of culture and society which he represents and the type of culture and society represented by his pupils,” (Antonio Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks, Lawrence and Wishart, 1971, London, p.36) They think the Japanese society is uniform, and that those students who cannot get accustomed to the teachers' culture and society are those who lack competency and efficiency.

"In reality a mediocre teacher may manage to see to it that his pupils become more informed, although he will not succeed in making them better educated; he can devote a scrupulous and bureaucratic conscientiousness to the mechanical part of teaching---and the pupil, if he has an active intelligence, will give an order of his own, with the aid of his social background, to the 'baggage' he accumulates." (ibid)

Even "a mediocre teacher may manage to see to it that his pupils become more informed, although he will not succeed in making them better educated”. Some pupils who have “an active intelligence, will give an order of his own, with the aid of his social background,” but other students who lack those background cannot “give an order of his own”.

Without "an order of his own,” “the 'baggage' he accumulates" cannot be called education. (ibid, p.36) The question is how we can have those students without “the aid of his social background” “give an order of his own”.

Mediocre teachers can only manage to bureaucratically arrange to have his students become more informed. They will not succeed in making the students better educated, no matter how scrupulous and conscientious their devotion may be, and they are the majority in school. Such being the case, only those students who have an active intelligence, that is, who have the aid of their certain social background, can give an order of their own to the pieces of information they have accumulated through the mediocre teachers.

If we desire to have our students get educated, we need a certain system through which even mediocre teachers can give an order of information to those students without the aid of their social background.

"It is noticeable that the new pedagogy has concentrated its fire on 'dogmatism' in the field of instruction and the learning of concrete facts --- i.e. precisely in the field in which a certain dogmatism is practically indispensable and can be reabsorbed and dissolved only in the whole cycle of the educational process. ... the new curriculum impoverishes the teaching and in practice lowers its level (at least for the overwhelming majority of pupils who do not receive intellectual help out side the school from their family or home environment, and who have to form themselves solely by means of the knowledge they receive in the class-room) --- in spite of seeming very rational and fine, fine as any utopia." (ibid, p.41) Here, Gramsci is not talking about today's “the Education at Ease”, but about their Italian educational reform some 80 years ago. What a coincidence that the both reforms worked or works against the lower social classes.

"Wider participation in secondary education brings with it a tendency to ease off the discipline of studies, and to ask for 'relaxations'." (ibid, p.42) So does it even today, some 80 years later.

"Undoubtedly the child of a traditionally intellectual family acquires this psycho-physical adaptation more easily. Before he ever enters the class-room he has numerous advantages over his comrades, and is already in possession of attitudes learnt from his family environment: he concentrates more easily, since he is used to 'sitting still', etc." (ibid, p.42) So, the question is how we should provide certain “attitudes” to those who lack certain family and social background. The social experiences or experiments in and around the Youth Clubhouse might make a good help.

"If our aim is to produce a new stratum of intellectuals, including those capable of the highest degree of specialisation, from a social group which has not traditionally developed the appropriate attitudes, then we have unprecedented difficulties to overcome." (ibid, p.43) If Japan is to become intelligent-based society, "then we have unprecedented difficulties to overcome."