'Tekijuku' teaches lessons in the tradition of study
One of the hidden secrets of Japanese youth is neither exciting nor seductive. Many teenagers are simply under tremendous pressure to enter "good" universities.
Parents generally (and often genuinely) believe that by passing the entrance exams to an "elite" university, their children will be able to secure a position at one of the "big" companies in an increasingly competitive (and perhaps dwindling) Japanese job market.
As a result, going to a juku (cram school) has become a common experience for many children. The competition for academic excellence starts at an immature age. It is not unusual even for a 4 or 5 year old to go to a preparatory school and "cram" in order to get into an elementary school of good academic reputation. To be sure, it is madness. But it is a madness that many well-meaning parents pursue with quite a rational mind.
The word juku has therefore come to be associated with cramming for entrance exams, leading finally to top institutions such as theUniversity of Tokyo.Many parents thus believe that sending the kids to good Japanese universities is a recipe for success, an increasingly dubious assumption in today's globalized world.
The word juku might thus represent the somewhat outdated mindset of the Japanese when it comes to designing the career for their children.
Going back in the history of Japan, the word starts to have more venerable and respectable connotations. At the end of the Edo era, private schools sprung up all over Japan. The word juku was a common denominator for those institutions, which were often of very small scale.
Shoka Sonjuku (literally, "village school under the pine tree") in Hagi, Yamaguchi Prefecture was one of the most famous and influential. Notable young samurai warriors, who played instrumental roles in bringing about the Meiji Restoration, studied at Shoka Sonjuku. The most famous of these young samurai was Takasugi Shinsaku.
Tekijuku, headed by the medical scholar Ogata Koan, was another prominent example. Today, the old Tekijuku building is well preserved and maintained by Osaka University. The university itself actually sprung from the traditions of Tekijuku. The Tekijuku building is in the heart of Osaka, near Midosuji Street. A statue of Ogata Koan can be found next to the building, as if protecting in person the spirit of hard work and perseverance.
Fukuzawa Yukichi, a great scholar of the enlightenment age that followed the Meiji Restoration, studied at Tekijuku as a young man. In his autobiography, Fukuzawa describes the incredible speed and intensity with which the pupils learned.
Oneday, Fukuzawa fell ill. Meaning to take a rest, he looked for a pillow but couldn't find one. It was at that moment that Fukuzawa realized that he had not taken a substantial sleep since arriving at Tekijuku more than a year earlier. He had been studying all day and night, only taking a nap on the floor when exhausted. When he woke up, he was at the texts again, competing with his peers toadvance his studies. Such was the zeal of the day, as Japan prepared to open its doors to the world.
Nowadays, it is as if Japan has closed its mind, with its children competing to get into "good" universities, wasting their youth at juku. In a personal effort to withstand such a trend, I make a point of visiting the old Tekijuku site whenever I visit Osaka. If only the significance of the term juku could be time-traveled to earlier times. If only young people could focus their energy on things that really matter in today's world.
The diligence of the Japanese is not lost yet. It only needs to be focused.
Visit the old Tekijuku site and contemplate, my fellow Japanese! (By Kenichiro Mogi, neurologist)
(Mainichi Japan) April 2, 2011
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