Covert

Hi all,

An article here about the current proposal before the Japanese government
on compulsory community service in Japanese schools. This was written by
a staff writer of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper and translated into English
for today's edition of the Asahi Evening News.

All too rare these days are the news articles that ask young people
themselves what they think about forced volunteering and other issues
that directly affect them. This story helps to bridge that gap in its own
way.

Regards,

Brian Covert
(KnoK NEWS)
in Osaka, Japan

---------------------

2 Oct. 2000 - Asahi Evening News

http://www.asahi.com/english/asahi/1002/asahi100212.html


WILL COMPULSION ENHANCE STUDENTS' COMMUNITY SPIRIT?

The official proposal to put 'service activities' on the school
curriculum is lauded by some -- but decried by many.


By KYOKO FUJIU

The National Commission on Educational Reform, an advisory body to the
prime minister, has proposed making "service activities" compulsory for
school students, and the government has indicated its intention to
introduce a bill in the Diet next year containing a provision for
compulsory community service.

However, opposition to the idea remains strong, and revolves around two
main questions. The first is whether there is anything wrong with
including an element of compulsion in activities that have generally been
the preserve of volunteers, and where the spontaneity of willing
involvement is highly valued. The second is whether it is necessary to
instill a sense of community spirit in everyone.

Asahi Shimbun asked a number of young volunteer workers around Tokyo for
their views, and the response was overwhelmingly -- but not exclusively
-- that compulsion would take the true meaning out of community service.

Nearly all the 10 Tokyo high school students interviewed, who were
currently engaged in volunteer work, objected strongly to the way adults
talk about "service activities." Their responses included: "Stuffy and
old-fashioned" and "Weird -- it would be like homework."

Kanako Inoue of the municipal Oyama High School hadn't been working as a
volunteer for very long. A fashionable young woman wearing a silver chain
around her neck, she was adamant that true service requires commitment.

"I do it because I'm interested. I continue because I enjoy it," she said.

But she has had some surprises, too. One day when she was collecting
donations, for example, she said a young man with bleached, golden-brown
hair told her, "Keep up the good work."

Modestly, though, Inoue said, "It's nothing special, nothing particularly
worthy. I'm just doing what I can. I don't think it's something you can
make obligatory."

Mariko Suzuki, who attends the private Tokyo Jogakkan High School, is
also against compulsion. She has been volunteering at a retirement home
since she was in junior high school. She keeps the elderly residents
company and helps with the preparation of meals. Some of the residents
receive no visits from their families, and some are bedridden. Helping
out at the home has made Mariko think about things she would never have
dreamed of in the ordinary course of life.

Something to give

In particular, she said she will never forget the time she spent with one
elderly lady who always said, "Thank you."

"You become a volunteer because you have something to give to others. If
they make (community service) compulsory, that side of it will be
weakened," she said, adding, "That's the last thing we need."

Ryoji Takano, from the municipal Minami Tama High School, expressed
irritation at the suggestion by some adults that making young people do
community service would be some kind of solution to youth crime and other
problems affecting Japanese youth.

"Our generation don't exactly stand up for ourselves, do we? If we're
going to be graded on it for internal assessments, everyone will
volunteer, especially those goody-two-shoes, hypocritical, A-grade
students who are always worried what the people in charge are thinking of
them.

"If it's made compulsory, I'm afraid the tendency will only get
stronger," he warned.

However, a small minority of the students interviewed thought it wasn't
such a bad idea to make community service compulsory.

Nobuyuki Ome, an 18-year-old Oyama High School student, described how one
of his friends who was habitually lethargic suddenly came alive when
playing with the children in a nursery school. After seeing how grateful
the residents were, he said he too had felt the value of visiting a
retirement home, even though it was not exactly what he would have chosen
to do. "Some of them were on the point of tears," he said.

If it gives young people an awareness of the importance of human contact
that they wouldn't otherwise have, it's not such a bad thing, he concluded.

Nami Matsuura, aged 16, from Minami Tama High School, worked as a
volunteer at a nursery school during the summer vacation. "Even if you're
made to do it, it opens up opportunities," she said.

As an only child, Matsuura was grateful for the chance to get to know a
wider variety of people. But she confessed she had to tread carefully
with people she didn't much like.

A third group also agreed with the idea of compulsory service under
certain conditions.

"How about building in a trial period?" asked18-year-old Oyama High
School student Yoko Mita. "If people try it and don't like it, let them
quit. And they could be allowed to choose what they prefer from a range
of activities. I'd agree as long as we're guaranteed that level of
freedom," she said.

Noboru Hayase, head of the Japan NPO Center, has heard it all before,
since calls for compulsory community service have been around since the
1970s. However, one recent development is that would-be teachers are now
obliged to spend time working in a care facility, or something similar,
in order to obtain a teaching license. Unfortunately, though, many of the
institutions they're supposed to be helping are rather unhappy with the
arrangement.

"Volunteer activities are a kind of love affair," Hayase said. "People do
them because they like to, and that is the source of true community
spirit."

He believes the arguments of those who call for compulsory service
schemes are based on thinking that puts the whole before the individual.
They're taking things too far, he said.

Akira Kurihara, a Rikkyo University professor speaking for the Japan
Association for Volunteer Activities, estimated that the National
Commission on Educational Reform was more than 20 years behind the times
with its confrontational concept of community service; of people who
serve and people who are served; and with its thinking that community
service would take place mainly in agriculture and in caring for the
sick, the elderly and the disabled. In his view, it's not much different
from a group of middle-aged people sitting in a bar, drinking beer and
grumbling about the "young people today."

Against the tide

According to Kurihara, the commission is clearly going against the tide
in an age when ordinary citizens are networking spontaneously in ways
quite different from the old-style community groups and opposition
movements. Its goal, he said, is obviously a revision of the Fundamentals
of Education Act.

Ryoichi Kawakami chairs the group Professional Teachers and is a member
of the National Commission on Educational Reform. As someone who knows
well how the situation stands in the country's schools, he supports
compulsion. Education Ministry policy has, he explained, concentrated
mainly on lesson content, with less and less in the way of formal
activities. The result is, he said, that children are receiving less
experience in doing things together in groups.

Moreover, even younger teachers are incapable of leading group
activities, he complained. And if things go on as they are, there will be
more and more people inept at anything that involves working together
with others.

Youngsters will learn something from the experience, even if they are
forced into it, Kawakami said. Instead of always pouncing on others'
weaknesses, they should be given a chance to learn at first hand the
importance of doing something for other people.


Copyright 2000 - Asahi Shimbun