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On the Front Lines of Education
By Andrew
Gebert
A group of some 20 men and women sit in a circle. Their
quiet intensity contrasts with the room, on whose walls are stuffed animals,
games and toys. Ranging in age from mid-20s to early 50s, their attention
is focused on one young woman. "This girl hasn’t attended school
now for three weeks. Her mother seems to be at the end of her tether."
The speaker is a volunteer educator sharing the details of a recent "intake
interview" for comment and peer review.
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Nobushige
Higashiguchi |
The refusal--or inability--to attend school is
the issue that most often brings young people and their parents into contact
with one of the Education Counseling Centers operated by the Soka Gakkai’s
education division. In most cases, the bullying so infamously prevalent
in Japanese schools is the cause. For girls, this typically takes the
form of ostracism, collectively refusing to acknowledge the victim’s
existence. Recent Ministry of Education statistics indicate that some
128,000 elementary and junior high school students feel unable to cope
with the school environment and are staying home. Other students make
an even more tragic choice. In 1998, there was a 40-percent rise in the
total number of suicides by students at public elementary, junior and
senior high schools, to a shocking 192 deaths.
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| Shigeko Sugino |
"Japan’s education system is still driven by
testing and numeric evaluation," says Nobushige Higashiguchi, professor
at the International University of Health and Welfare and director of
the education counseling program. "As a result, children are forced
to compete from the earliest ages. People think of success and happiness
in very one-dimensional, linear terms. Getting into the ‘right’
kindergarten gets you into the ‘right’ elementary school, and
so on into an ‘elite’ university and a prestigious job in business
or government. So people even convince themselves that failure to get
their child into the right kindergarten means that the child’s chances
for future happiness have been snuffed out.
"Further, the emphasis is on the group, and the
group dynamic. Everything is geared to producing ‘average’ students.
The young people who seek our services are those who, for one reason or
another, fail to be ‘average.’"
The counseling centers are often the site of dramatic
rejuvenation. For example, one junior high school student had stopped
attending school and had a history of self-inflicted injuries. When she
first visited an education counseling center, she drew a picture showing
her mother with horns on her head. The counselor listened sympathetically
to the girl, and she started to visit on a weekly basis. She subsequently
started to attend school again, and, a year later, she drew another picture
of her mother, this time with ribbons in her hair.
In one family, three children dropped out of school in
succession. Mindful most of the social stigma attached to such behavior,
their parents felt ashamed of the children. In the process of counseling,
the children’s mother realized she had to stop worrying about what
society thought and concentrate instead on her children: it was the children
who were suffering the most, and only their parents could lead them to
happiness. Things improved dramatically from then on. Underneath everything
lay the children’s need to express themselves and be understood.
"Most people hear about the center by word of mouth,"
adds Higashiguchi. "Counseling is free and open to people of all
backgrounds. No one, of course, is asked if he or she is a Soka Gakkai
member, and all advice is based on a strictly secular outlook."
Small Beginnings
The initiative grew out of one teacher’s own desperate
efforts. In September 1968, Daisaku Ikeda, then president of the Soka
Gakkai, was meeting with a group of members involved in education. One
of them, Shigeko Sugino, shared her frustration with her particular field,
special education for severely mentally retarded children. "The pupils
I was working with had been designated ‘trainable’ rather than
‘educable.’ I couldn’t see how I was contributing to their
lives. When I told Mr. Ikeda that I was thinking of leaving the field,
he told me, ‘That’s of course your personal decision, but there
must be a way of sharing with others the insights you’ve gained from
this unique and challenging experience.’ So a small group of fellow
educators got together, and we started thinking about what we could do."
They set about putting the theory of value-creating education into practice.
Determined to do something to enhance the educational
environment, Ms. Sugino and her friends began meeting regularly. Their
first priority was gaining the kind of specialized knowledge that would
enable them to deal effectively with a wide range of educational issues.
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| Play therapy
reveals the child's feelings. |
"There is only so much one individual can read,
so we would take a reading list, divide it up, and then each report the
next week on what we had read. We also made regular visits to professionals
active in educational counseling and took night classes."
One year later, the first Educational Counseling Center
started operating in space made available by the local ward administration
in Tokyo. Ms. Sugino started traveling throughout Japan, lecturing and
writing on educational problems.
Because there is no public system of accreditation for
counselors, the educators decided to establish their own study and training
program. Volunteers, who are all active educators, undergo a series of
courses over a period of at least two years before they are qualified
to work with clients. At present, centers are operating in 28 locations
throughout Japan, with some 800 trained counselors on call. To date, a
total of 270,000 individuals and families have received counseling, for
periods ranging from several weeks to several years. In smaller cities,
in particular, the centers provide one of the few resources for such counseling;
their activities are coordinated with and supported by local school boards.
A wide range of techniques is employed at the centers.
The room described at the start of this article is the site of play therapy.
Play often provides a vehicle to express those thoughts and feelings that
children cannot put into words. Specifically, in sand-play therapy, they
are encouraged to play freely in a miniature sandbox, placing and arranging
miniature people, houses and other objects. The resulting still life provides
a window into the inner life of the child, as well as a route by which
the child can express bottled-up feelings.
Ms. Sugino adds, "Whatever techniques are used,
trust is the key. As a rule of thumb, if the client hasn’t started
to open up after three sessions, we encourage the volunteer counselor
to step aside and have someone else handle the case. We feel it is essential
that counselors know their own limits and recognize quickly when they
are dealing with a medical, or even legal, matter."
Support for
Teachers
Counseling is in principle limited to the problems of
school-age children, up to age 18. Often, however, teachers themselves,
who bear the brunt of Japan’s educational crisis, seek counseling.
According to some estimates, as many as one in five teachers have completely
lost control of their classes. Further, Ministry of Education statistics
indicate that 1,707 teachers at public elementary, junior and senior high
schools were laid off due to mental illness during 1998.
"We try to take a comprehensive approach, supporting
children, teachers and parents," stresses Professor Higashiguchi.
"The essence of value-creating education is that it starts from where
you are. Rather than a top-down approach that starts from grand theories
about the world, for example, it encourages people to observe and learn
from their immediate surroundings. It is centered on the individual learner,
enabling that person to enjoy happiness throughout their life. It’s
about unique individuals, not about numbers and averages."
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