Finally, we finished the first week of the project, even though it feels like the team and I were working on this project for weeks on end at this point!

 In this series of posts, we will write about the pedagogical implication and what we managed to observe as Junior Coordinators of this project. Each of us will have for sure a different point of view, as it is also the case for time spent with each student. Plenty of scholars have noted to what extent is important to have a correct ratio of teachers to students. In the same fashion, I feel the same could be said in this context. The more students we try to observe, the less quality information we can grasp about their journey. Nevertheless, each of us is trying its best to read all the interaction. We also like to spend a lot of time to think about what happened. As Paulo Freire used to write, “reflection—true reflection—leads to action” (Freire, 2000), so we must think in order to implement problem-posing pedagogy in tertiary education. To reach this vision, the whole project can and should function without specific power roles. The only roles that have been established are Junior Coordinators and 責任者 (sekininsha, the person responsible for the team). These function as organizational roles, and should therefore have no bearing on the power relationships between the students who are participating in this project.

 It comes without surprise that if we are trying to build a dialogue-based education: 

“The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow. In this process, arguments based on “authority” are no longer valid; in order to function, authority must be on the side of freedom, not against it. Here, no one teaches another, nor is anyone self-taught. People teach each other, mediated by the world, by the cognizable objects which in banking education are “owned” by the teacher. ” (Freire, 2000)

In this case, we tried to remove the position of the teacher completely. To make a comparison, this is an effort to shift from a shareholder perspective (in this case an authoritarian banking education) to a stakeholder’s one (student-centred education). What I personally hope this can do is democracy. There cannot be a single definition of democracy, but quoting the ever-popular Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “democracy concerns collective decision making, by which I mean decisions that are made for groups and that are binding on all the members of the group” (Christiano, 2018). In our case, this means that each group is responsible for their work and the outcome. Being able to be a part of the collective decision is the fundamental step to reach a true student-centred pedagogy.

 Now, moving on to my field notes. Fortunately, I have the possibility to listen and partake both in the professors meeting and the students meeting (especially during 自由会話 jiyū kaiwa, free discussion classroom).

 Starting from the students’ perspective, I have noticed that what I consider the main objective (democracy) is proceeding well. All the groups that I was able to have a glance at, were having a democratic debate and exchange (from now on dialogue). It is interesting that in these lessons many people had nothing to do with the project, i.e. students who are just going to their chosen class, but they were still able to take part in the dialogue. In our opinion, everyone has something to say (especially when the topics are so important to our lives and our future), but sometimes language can be an obstacle. This is why we believe that peer collaboration and the use of machines (i.e. translation software or pop-up dictionary) can help each person to completely express their own thoughts. In many cases, even if no instruction was given, students shared a Google document to help themselves gather information, vocabulary and thoughts about specific topics (e.g. political economy of poverty reduction, practices in foreign language education, life after COVID-19, etc.). I found it particularly interesting that even students with a basic understanding of Japanese went on to try expressing their opinion on very challenging topics. Others have opted for a discussion about simpler topics (the goal was to discuss whatever is connected to the topic, e.g. in the COVID-19 group, it is possible to discuss masks and fashion), in some cases because of a lack of knowledge (and in my opinion of time spent into researching).

 Next, the professors’ side of things. “I want to do this project next year too!” was a reaction I found pretty consistent. I was very happy to know that the lecturers were happy with the outcome of the first week. Of course, they had various comments and bits of advice to better the implementation of the activities, but in the end, they find it very amusing and thought-provoking.

 This is all for my first post. Next week I hope to delve into the pedagogical implication that we can learn from this.

References

Christiano, T. (Fall 2018 Edition) “Democracy”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/democracy/ (visited 02/15/2021).

Freire, P. (2000) Pedagogy of the Oppressed: 30th Anniversary Edition. London: Bloomsbury Academic.