Japan's Education Law Reform and the Hearts of Children

This conversation is adapted from a longer roundtable discussion on the social responsibility of poetry that appeared in the September issue of the literary monthly Shi to Shiso (Poetry and Thought). It features an analysis of the Abe administration's then-proposed "reforms" to the Education Law (Kyoiku Kihonho) by University of Chiba professor Miyake Shoko, with commentary from high school teacher and poet Yoshida Yoshiteru and poet Yamamoto Seiko. The chair is Shi to Shiso editor Nakamura Fujio. Miyake sees the "reforms", which focus on the "hearts" of schoolchildren, as drastically changing the relationship between the state and education. With the latter essentially becoming the tool of the former, her fears echo those stated by noted University of Tokyo professor Tachibana Takashi in November in both the Asahi Shimbun and the Tokyo Shimbun: "To shoot the general, first shoot his horse" (i.e., the educational "reforms" are a prelude to gutting the Constitution

Law reform · Political science · Education, Philosophy, and Society · Educational Robotics and Engineering · Japanese History and Culture · Law