I took the last train yesterday, which was full of drunk or tired-looking businessmen, but they were very quiet.
It seemed to me that everybody wanted to be out-of-touch each other psychologically as well as physically and tried to lose humanity as much as possible.
At the Ochanomizu station, most of them were to change trains.
What surprised me there was that, no sooner did the doors of the train open at the station than the transfer passengers rushed into the next train waiting on the other side of the platform to get a seat.
They were drunk, they were tired, but they ran as if they did so by instinct, and again quietly.
This is an aspect of a Tokyo life.
Then, last night, I had a dream of missing the last train.
I ran and ran to catch the train, but I never reached the station.
My way ahead was just in the darkness.
When I woke up, I felt pain in the back.
I don't know what happend, but I remember I was not quiet either in the dream or after awaking.
As he acknowledged, his winning generated controversies both at home and abroad, but I guess it was the President himself that the decision of the Nobel Prize Committee embarrassed most and he (and/or his speech writers) had to agonize over what he can and should deliver at the ceremony as "the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars."
I believe, however, that such a speech as he made can be done only by the statesman bearing the extremely heavy responsibility, who may make a tough decision about national security the very next moment.
He couldn't have only preached love or virtue as clerics.
I think he was so brave there because, at the place where the term "peace" is praised, he emphasized the role of war.
What I can relate most to President Obama is his view of non-violence and its great figures like Gandhi and King.
As a good example of thinking about non-violence, I sometimes take up the differences between Gandhi and Nehru of their understanding the necessity of military power in independent India.
While Gandhi steadfastly pursued non-violence whatever happend, Nehru did not rule out using the force if necessary.
The former criticized the latter and other National Congress leaders as their non-violence had not been a genuine one derived from within and rather a passive resistance and a mere policy.
However, would it have been really realistic for them to continue non-violence even after winning independence from Britain?
My understanding is as follows: non-violence can be chosen only for a great cause like achieving national independence; the participants for the movement can be united because of such a cause; and because of the cause and the union, non-violence which endangers each life before the force can be carried out; on the contrary, the state is not a movement and the people constituting it just want to live peacefully with their own various values; the government, therefore, cannot force such people to stand up and die with the spirit of non-violence against, say, an outside attack.
In short, national security or defending the lives of the people is the responsibility of the government, so it was rational, I think, that Nehru did not adopt non-violence as a national security means.
By the same token, I agreed with President Obama when he said in the speech that "but as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their (Gandhi and King's) examples alone."
At the very end of Politics as a Vocation, Weber asserts as follows:
Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards. It takes both passion and perspective.... Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he shall not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or too base for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say 'In spite of all!' has the calling for politics.
When I finished reading the speech, the phrase of this "in spite of all!" came to my mind.
]]>So cram schools tend to be crowded, thus it is quite difficult for juku teachers to increase the academic level of each student.
To make things worse, students cannot concentrate themselves on study there because their friends, too, attend the same classes.
In this sense, many cram schools are just an extension of official schools.
Many students say, "my classmates attend cram schools, so I am going too."
Their parents lament, "it is like pouring money down the drain as it doesn't seem to make any favorable effect on the test scores of my child, but other parents have their children go to cram schools, so we cannot but do the same (this is a typical Japanese way of thinking)."
My student also went to a cram school before, but because he was shy, he couldn't ask teachers about what he didn't understand, and as a result, he fell behind other students in the juku classroom.
Finally, he quit the cram school.
I guess there are many others like him, but there is no practical solution in cram schools for this kind of problem because, as mentioned above, the classrooms are too busy for the teachers to care for each student.
Alternatively, it is only home teaching that such students can choose to improve their school performance.
By the way, why do junior high school students have to attend cram schools in the first place?
The classes at school are not enough for them?
I've heard many times a conversation among parents that "when we were students, it was enough for us to sit and listen to what teachers say in the classroom, then we were already sure we could pass the entrance exams."
Yes, that may be still applicable, but unfortunately, both the skills of school teachers and the academic standards of students are considerably lower than those in our school days, so most of students and their parents are worried about the exams and they are inclined to think that "we need to do something more."
It is difficult to explain the problems of school teaching here clearly, but I am aware of them in teaching him.
I will write about them here in the future.
Anyway, I have a responsibility for his success next spring.
Oh, no!