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From: "John Yamamoto-Wilson" <john@rarebooksinjapan.com>
Newsgroups: fj.life.in-japan
Subject: Re: Gifu bombing anniversary?
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 02:19:11 +0900
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> > Don't get me wrong, though. I teach British culture, and in my class we
> > cover plenty of shameful aspects of the British Empire - the Slave
Triangle,
> > the Opium Wars, the exploitation of child labour in English factories,
the
> > treatment handed out to the Irish (including of course the Potato
Famine).
>
> There's more, but damn right, they get what Japanese kids don't.

Well, if "they" means my students, I should point out that they *are*
Japanese and, yes, the course does cover WWII, and I generally round things
off at the end by telling them that if they've followed carefully (and most
of them do, bless 'em) they quite probably know more about the history and
culture of Britain than they do about Japan, *and that's not right*! They
should now about their own country in at least as much detail! Gets them
thinking, anyway, and since a large part of my focus is on getting students
to google and get books off library shelves and dig out facts for themselves
it's really up to them from that point on.

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com