Importing Diversity: Inside Japan's JET Program
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7. A small number of ALTs thought that the one-shot visit could be educationally valid. See, for example, Suzy Nachtsheim, "Bull's Eye: Keeping Your One-Shot Visits on Target," Language Teacher 12, no. 9 (1988): 25-26.
8. "Research on the Situation of Foreign Teachers of English in Japanese Schools," IRLT Bulletin, no. 2 (1988) :62.
9. The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme General Information Handbook (Tokyo: Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, 1996), 12.
10. Saito Eiji, "AET o mukaete akirakani natta nihon no eigokyoiku no mondaiten" (The problems of English education in Japan as illuminated by the arrival of AETs), IRLT Newsletter, no. 104 (1989): 1
ii. The JET Program(me): Five Years and Beyond (Tokyo: Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, 1992), 169-266.
12. Ibid., 169-278-
13. Rebecca Erwin Fukuzawa, "The Path to Adulthood According to Japanese Middle Schools," in Teaching and Learning in Japan, ed. Thomas Rohlen and Gerald LeTendre (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 295-320.
14. Such "talent benefits" tend to diminish when the foreigner is not white. One Japanese teacher told me,
Japanese associate speaking English with the image of a white person (hakujin). With our first [white] AET [assistant English teacher] students would pay attention even if she was just standing in front of the room. They don't do that with Pat-san [a Japanese American]. When she speaks English it seems strange to us. When we enter the classroom together, students don't change their behavior at all. That's the kind of handicap we faced. Students were a little disappointed when they found out our AET was a Japanese American.
15. In fact, in one new international high school I visited in a neighboring prefecture, the municipal office of education had concentrated no fewer than eight ALTs in the school, displaying their pictures prominently in the lobby and in community advertisements for the school.
16. In a few instances, however, principals have actually invited an ALT in order to combat discipline problems at the school, the naive hope being that the foreigner might capture students' interest and provide a form of outside pressure (aren't you embarrassed to act like that in front of a foreigner?) that acts as a deterrent to misbehavior.
17. Gregory V. G. O'Dowd, "Australia-Don't Miss the JET!" Japanese Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Studies Association of Australia 12, no. 1 (1992): 39
18. Anthony Gribben, interview with author, Kyoto, io October 1989.
19. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. A. Sheridan (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977), 25.
2o. Minutes of First Evaluation Meeting, 1989-9o JET Program (given to me by a program coordinator).
21. According to the "1989 JET Program Living Conditions Survey" (a compilation sent to all JET participants), 63 percent of host institutions provided a telephone, 75 percent provided a refrigerator, 79 percent provided a washing machine, 71 percent provided a television, and 6o percent provided a futon or bed.
22. I am indebted to Scott Olinger for this insight.
23. See Robert Smith, "Gender Inequality in Contemporary Japan," Journal of Japanese Studies 13 (1987): 1-25.
24. "Sexual Harassment and Kokusaika," JET Journal, autumn 1989, p. 50.
25. "Assembly Votes to Remove Official: Allegedly Pawed 23-Year-Old AET at Village Party," Daily Yomiuri, 2 May 1993. The story was also reported on the national news.
26. "1989 JET Program Living Conditions Survey."
27. Toby did go on to work at CLAIR, and at the next orientation he invited himself to the prefectural dinner for new JET participants. Sato-sensei showed no visible anger when he saw Toby, but he complained bitterly to me afterward that Toby "had a lot of nerve to show his face here tonight!"
28. Robert Whiting recounts similar criticisms about the haggling by American baseball players in Japan over minute contract details; You Gotta Have Wa (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 131.
29. JET Program(me), 8o.
30. On these school visits, Kevin invariably ended up meeting with the ALT alone instead of with the JTLs as well, though that was not his original intention.
31. Some prefectures effectively used other strategies to deal personally with their ALTs. Toyama Prefecture, for instance, hired a middle-aged Japanese woman with excellent English skills and years of experience living abroad. Based in the prefectural "education center," she single-handedly kept morale high and defused potential problems by virtue of her excellent rapport with the ALTs; at the same time, the board of education administrators retained key decision-making powers. In Osaka City the municipal board of education created a special position-ALT liaison-and filled it with a very young Japanese teacher of English, a fluent English speaker who had spent considerable time abroad. While his school-based colleagues lamented that he had moved to a position where he couldn't speak his mind freely (ienai tachiba), his language skills and his similarity in age and marital status to other ALTs made him a very effective liaison.
32. Frank K. Upham, Law and Social Order in Postwar Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 223. As Clifford Geertz points out, the dominant Anglo-American worldview is based on the notion of an autonomous individual that is a "bounded, unique, more or less integrated motivational and cognitive universe, a dynamic center of awareness, emotion, judgement and action"; "From the Natives' Point of View: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding," in Meaning in Anthropology, ed. Keith Basso and Henry Selby (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1976). It logically follows that a society made up of such individuals would be contractual in nature.
33. In any given community, there may be a number of levels of honne-at the level of work group, males in the work group, and males of the same age in the work group, for example.
34. Gaikoku Seinen Shochi Jigyo Ukeiredantai yo Manyuaru (JET Program host organization's orientation manual) (Tokyo: Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, 1988), 112-13.
35. Stanley Heginbotham, Cultures in Conflict: The Four Faces of Indian Bureaucracy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975056.
36. Ibid.
37. It is difficult to judge how typical the experience of these two prefectural educational administrators was, for I did not have similar access to other boards of education. At one extreme, Sato-sensei had a friend in a neighboring prefecture who was literally at wit's end (Sato-sensei threw his hands up in the air to signify despair) due to the governor's decree that an ALT be placed in every prefectural high school; at the other, a minority of ETCs who were exceptional at English or who have lived abroad found the chance to use their skills very rewarding. I interviewed ten ETCs; Sato-sensei seemed slightly more rigid than some of his colleagues in his approach to team teaching (more adamant about using the textbook) and his handling of conflict (less likely to budge from established policy). The ALTs, too, viewed this prefectural system as fairly strict in comparison with others.
38. Harry Wolcott, The Man in the Principal's Office (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1974).
39. Michael Blaker, "Evaluating Japanese Diplomatic Performance," in Japan's Foreign Policy After the Cold War: Coping with Change, ed. Gerald Curtis (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1993), 3 •
CHAPTER 5. BEYOND THE STEREOTYPES: THE JET PROGRAM IN LOCAL SCHOOLS
1. Hayano-sensei linked this need for secrecy explicitly to foreign pressure (gaiatsu)-the widespread critique of Japan as a nation of "workaholics" and the corresponding implication that citizens in a "developed" nation ought to be able to enjoy leisure time.
2. My own negotiation of access to this school followed a similar pattern. Sato-sensei made the request to the principal, who said he would leave it up to the English Department. Hayano-sensei (the head English teacher) and Uedasensei backed my plan to visit the school twice a week as an observer; but the vice-principal objected, saying they had turned down an exchange student the previous year and it would not make sense to admit me. T
here was some resistance among the English teachers as well. About two weeks later the viceprincipal called to say that he and Ueda-sensei had decided to let me visit on an individual basis (kojinteki ni). Ultimately, their sense of obligation to Satosensei and the board of education's commitment to my mentor at the university unlocked the doors, but I felt compelled to keep a very low profile at first. It took some time for me to gain the confidence of other teachers at the school.
3. By and large Nishikawa was extremely conservative when it came to following protocol. Thus Karen was not allowed to teach by herself, even on the day that Ikuno-sensei called in sick and asked Karen to take the class. When Hayano-sensei double-checked with the head of curriculum, he was told that such solo teaching wasn't allowed, so Kitano-sensei was asked to accompany Karen to class. Karen fumed, "I don't want an audience." Hayano-sensei also recalled having been scolded by the principal for arranging with a teacher at another school for Karen to make a special visit. He was informed that he should have gone through the official channels, involving both principals and the head of the other school's English department.
4. In the one instance when Karen was asked by Ueda-sensei to help put together an exam for his advanced students, the article she recommended for the reading comprehension section was deemed too difficult. His polite refusal prompted Karen to grumble to me, "Why does he ask me to help out if he's just going to reject my ideas?"
5. Harumi Befu, "An Ethnography of Dinner Entertainment in Japan," in Japanese Business: Cultural Perspectives, ed. Subhash Durlabhji and Norton E. Marks (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 136.
6. Gerald LeTendre, "Shido: The Concept of Guidance," in Teaching and Learning in Japan, ed. Thomas Rohlen and Gerald LeTendre (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 275-94-
7. Rebecca Erwin Fukuzawa, "The Path to Adulthood According to Japanese Middle Schools," in Rohlen and LeTendre, Teaching and Learning in Japan, 317.
8. With respect to the contrasting disciplinary approaches, Yamada-sensei added, "Their school is orderly on the surface, but students do bad things in the community. We have lots of problems inside the school, but because of that, our students aren't so bad outside of school. They actually look forward to coming to school." ALTs who are placed in schools that do sanction corporal punishment are invariably shocked to witness it; though both atypical and officially outlawed, such behavior is rarely reprimanded.
9. Fukuzawa, "The Path to Adulthood," 304.
to. The typologies of the JTLs were constructed on the basis of the responses to my questions of fifty-four teachers interviewed, observations of their team-taught classes (where possible), and comments from ALTs about their own style of interaction and their classroom demeanor.
ii. I witnessed the results of such stress firsthand when I visited a night school for working students who had not been successful in the regular school system. My friend who made the arrangements had apparently failed to warn the JTL that I was coming. When we appeared in the teacher's room and he requested that I be allowed to sit in, the poor fellow's face turned beet red and he went into a coughing fit, fanning himself furiously and opening the window for fresh air. He calmed down and was able to speak after about two minutes, and he even graciously agreed to allow me to visit the class.
12. See Anthony Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure, and Contradiction in Social Analysis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), passim.
13. Michelle Fine, Framing Dropouts: Notes on the Politics of an Urban Public High School (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 154-57-
14. Robert Hicks, "Impressions," JET Journal, summer 1995, P. 42. Interestingly, by the end of his stay he had become much more sympathetic toward Japan, thus demonstrating how one's "Japan experience" can change over time.
15. Ben Court, "If Something Goes Wrong, First Look in the Mirror," JET Journal, summer 1995, P. 48.
16. Stephane Labranche, "Global Education in a Japanese Senior High School," Jet journal, summer 1994, PP- 44-45-
17. Jeffrey Strain, "More Than Just a Language Teacher," JET Journal, summer 1995, p. io6.
18. Lada Toptschan, "Kokusaika or Alienation," JET Journal, autumn 1989, pp. 66-67-
i9. Takie Sugiyama Lebra, Japanese Patterns of Behavior (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1976), 125.
20. "Research on the Situation of Foreign Teachers of English in Japanese Schools," IRLT Bulletin, no. 2 (1988): 23.
21. Thomas Rohlen and Gerald LeTendre, "Introduction: Japanese Theories of Learning," in Rohlen and LeTendre, Teaching and Learning in Japan, 7. On the preschool and elementary classroom, see Catherine Lewis, Educating Hearts and Minds: Reflections on Japanese Preschool and Elementary Education (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
22. John Singleton, "Japanese Folkcraft Pottery Apprenticeship: Cultural Patterns of an Educational Institution," in Apprenticeship: From Theory to Method and Back Again, ed. Michael Coy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 13-30.
23. Yoshie Aiga, "Is Japanese English Education Changing?" Cross Currents 17, no. 2 (1990): 139-45.
24. I am indebted to Thomas Rohlen for this insight.
25. Uehara Shuichi, AET to tsukiau i8 sho (Eighteen steps for interacting with an AET) (Tokyo: Sankaisha Shuppan, 1988). Other advice includes how to introduce your foreign teacher to the principal, how to throw a welcome party for the ALT, and how to ask the ALT to be a judge at the school's English Recitation Contest.
26. Rebecca Brosseau, "Gaijin on Parade," JET Journal, summer 1994, P. 25•
27. The framework of the following analysis relies heavily on Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation (New York: Basic Books, 1977)• She writes, "Tokens are ironically both highly visible as people who are different and yet not permitted the individuality of their own nonstereotypical characteristics" (211).
28. Therese Simpson, "The Gospel According to the JET," JET Journal, summer 1994, PP- 35-36.
29. Hiroshi Wagatsuma, "The Social Perception of Skin Color in Japan," Daedalus 97, no. 2 (1967): 407-43.
30. Teigo Yoshida, "The Stranger as God: The Place of the Outsider in Japanese Folk Religion," Ethnology 20, no. 2 (1981): 87-99.
31. Natsume Soseki, Botchan, trans. Umeji Sasaki (Tokyo: Charles Tuttle, 1968), 49-50.
32. Bruce LaBrack, "Is an International Identity Possible for the Japanese?" paper presented at the International Education Center, Tokyo, 21 May 1983-
33. Harumi Befu, "The Internationalization of Japan and Nihon Bunkaron," in The Challenge of Japan's Internationalization: Organization and Culture, ed. Hiroshi Mannari and Harumi Befu (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1983), 244-
34. See, for example, Thomas P. Rohlen, "Conflict in Institutional Environments: Politics in Education," in Conflict in Japan, ed. Ellis Krauss, Thomas P. Rohlen, and Patricia G. Steinhoff (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1984),136-73.
35. Masao Miyoshi, Off Center: Power and Culture Relations between Japan and the United States (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), 77.
CHAPTER 6. THE LEARNING CURVE: JETTING INTO THE NEW MILLENNIUM
i. The JET Programme: Ten Years and Beyond (Tokyo: Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, 1997), n.p.
2. Shiikawa Shinobu is quoted in the transcript of "Discussion Meeting," in ibid., 196.
3. Ibid. Several Arab nations have expressed a strong interest in joining the program, but thus far they have been denied.
4. Kenneth Pyle, "Japan and the Future of Collective Security," in Japan's Emerging Global Role, ed. Danny Unger and Paul Blackburn (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1993),107-
5. Danny Unger, "Japan's Capital Exports: Molding East Asia," in Unger and Blackburn, Japan's Emerging Global Role, 165.
6. Se Hee Yoo, "Sino-Japanese Relations in a Changing East Asia," in Japan's Foreign Policy After the Cold War: Coping with Change, ed. Gerald Curtis (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1993), 303-22.
8. Paul Knight, "Thoughts on an Annual Marathon," in ibid., 350-
9. This official went on to note that the Center for Global Partnership (an organization created in 1991 to honor the late Shintaro Abe, former Japanese minister of foreign affairs) is badly misnamed, as it is primarily dedicated to furthering U.S.-Japan cultural and educational ties.
10. Nakada Masaaki, a CLAIR official, quoted in "Discussion Meeting," 194.
ii. Kim Chishyku, "Looking Back upon a Bygone Year and Four Months," in JET Programme, 294.'
12. Yvonne Thurman, "American Americans," JET Journal, winter 1995, PP. 30-31-
13. The letter from the Welsh ALT is reprinted in Yvonne Thurman, "America under Attack," JET Journal, summer 1995, PP- 79-80-
14. Public opinion polls, insofar as they can be trusted, continue to show that the United States is by far the country that Japanese like the most and dislike the least. See Masaru Tamamoto, "The Japan That Wants to Be Liked: Society and International Participation," in Unger and Blackburn, Japan's Emerging Global Role, 39.
15. At the outset, the Tokyo orientation was a weeklong affair beginning 1 August, the day after the JET participants arrive. In response to the increase in numbers of participants, it has now been divided into two sessions and shortened. Until 1998 the smaller midyear block conferences were conducted in December for ALTs in eight "blocks," or regions, throughout Japan for the purpose of letting ALTs and JTLs reflect on their experiences in schools and share their frustrations and ideas with each other. They are now held separately in each prefecture. The renewers' conference, first conducted by AJET and then taken over by CLAIR, was originally instituted for all renewing JET participants but has since been restricted to first-time renewers.