Kevin Gowen wrote:

> Eric Takabayashi wrote:
> > mtfester@netscape.net wrote:
> >
> >> masayuki yoshida <ysd_m@yahoo.co.jp> wrote:
> >>
> >>> What you and Eric want to say in this thread may be so simple that I
> >>> will rephrase as follows:  Contemporary Japanese should learn what
> >>> their own nation did as an invader during the war times.  However,
> >>> how to teach history is not so simple.  If you tell us what of
> >>> Japanese war history you want to teach Japanese students, it would
> >>> be appreciated.
> >>
> >> Reminds me of what my wife told me about taking history class. They'd
> >> spent the year going through the class, and ran out of time at about
> >> the time they just finished the beginning of the Showa Era. The
> >> teacher told the class "I'm very sorry. Please ask your parents
> >> about this."
> >>
> >> :-)
> >
> > Whaaat? Didn't they get to the suffering in the Battle of Okinawa or
> > the A-bombings? Not even the firebombings or just the A-bombing of
> > Hiroshima? Didn't the children have to spend literal weeks painting
> > banners or murals calling for world peace, or put on a skit or sing
> > songs during some school functions to magically create peace
> > somewhere else in the world where people are suffering today?
>
> When I was a JET, my high school had the 2nd year students do a unit on
> Okinawa. They might as well have called it "Three months about the Battle of
> Okinawa". Sweet sassy molassey it seems liek all they did was talk about
> people killing themselves in a cave.

My school SENT the entire grade, and all the grade teachers including the
foreigner, to Okinawa, for the class trip, to hear about their suffering first
hand at the hands of Japanese and Americans and stand in a pitch dark cave
where Okinawans told us Americans poured flaming gasoline in on them. Some kids
cried.

Ask me if they heard anything about Japanese atrocities at any time during
their "peace" (NOT "wartime") studies. The nearest they got was one pre planned
and approved class on having kids consider why Korean money would bear the face
of the man who assassinated a Japanese official. Once I also accompanied some
children on a walk to the Korean memorial outside the Peace Park.

> > Those teachers didn't do their jobs.

At my schools in Hiroshima, the schools and teachers did an excellent job of
brainwashing children into Japanese sympathizers. The association for bereaved
families showed its influence, as did the conservative Ministry of Education.
Hinomaru hoisted or displayed, and Kimigayo at all functions. Many children and
teachers did not sing (though they were told to, or led loudly by some other
teacher), but all had to stand.

> --
> Kevin Gowen
> "The US economy accounts for about one-third of global GDP-greater than
> the next four countries combined (Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom
> and France)."
> - "Advancing the National Interest: Australia's Foreign and Trade
> Policy White Paper", Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade