| Constitution, Flag, and Anthem in the Schools |
| Wednesday, 17 October 2007 | |
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Page 9 of 9 Horio: これは女性の権利に関しても、あるいは障害者の権利に関しても、権利宣言から条約へという仕方で個別、具体的な権利が認められてきているわけですね。子供の権利も正にそういう動きの中で発展しているということがあります。 Field: This is similar to what has happened with notions of the rights of women, or the rights of the disabled: first you have a declaration, and then the attempt to elaborate, concretely, the rights that accrue to each group in the form of legal conventions. Horio: 更に具体的な国際機関からのレコメンデーション等もあるわけですね。教育で言えば、例えば教師の地位に関するILO、ユネスコのレコメンデーションがある し、あるいは、子供の権利条約を調印した以降は、政府とNGOが報告書を出して、子供の権利委員会がそれを審査して、そして政府に勧告するという、そうい うシステムも今動いています。 Field: Then, there is advice conferred upon the signatory states from international organizations such as the ILO, the International Labor Organization, or UNESCO, in the case of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Signatory states and non-governmental organizations are obligated to submit reports to the Commission. And then, the Commission evaluates and responds, and this is in fact happening. And just to add, the two countries that are not signatory to the Rights of the Child are the United States and Somalia—great company! Horio: そういうことで、私達の憲法や教育基本法を支えている思想というものが実践の中で豊かにさせて行き、同時に国際的な教育に関する条約の発展とも響き合っているんだというふうに私等は確信しています。 Field: I want to convey to you my conviction that the principles of the Constitution and the Fundamental Law of Education are being enriched through concrete practice, and that this is also happening in tandem with efforts going on internationally. Horio: そういうことを証言でも話しながら、それでは、その学校というのはどうあるべきなのか、教師の責任と権限というのは何なのか、ということを軸にしながら教育の自由の必要性、必然性を訴えたということになります。 Field: This is the basis for my own arguments for what education should be: What is the school? What are the rights and responsibilities of teachers, and the necessity for freedom within education? Horio: その教育の自由というコンセプトもそういうことを通して、豊かに、より構造的に捉え直すという、つまり国家と教育の関係だけではなくて、子供の発達を軸に し、教師の実践の自由を含んで、全体として教育の自由というコンセプトが成立するんで、教育の自由は決してフリーダム・オブ・ティーチングということでは ないという、それはほんの一部でしかない。そういう考え方も提議しているというわけです。 Field: This is how, structurally, the notion of freedom within education is enriched. It is not just about the relationship of the state to schools, but rather, it has as its axis the developmental principles of the child and the freedom of teachers to practice their profession. These are the multiple axes through which we can elaborate freedom of education. It is not just teachers proclaiming or asserting their right to do whatever they please. Horio: そして、最後に、この君が代の教師に対する強制というものが、実は、子供の内面の自由、内面の豊かな発達を課題にしている人間にとって大きな制約になる と。で、子供の内面の自由は一層豊かな配慮、そしてフレキシブルな対応が必要なのであって、大人と同じように子供も内面の自由があるという、そういうレベ ルだけではなくて、その豊かな内面を育てる、その力を子供達が身に付けるというのが教育なのだから、それに権力的な枠組みを与えるということは、これは教 育を非教育のものにすると、マインド・コントロールを含めたインドクトリネーションの国になって行くのではないのか、という証言をしたのです。 Field: Therefore, the imposition of the singing of the anthem on the teachers is not just an imposition, an unlawful coercion on teachers, but rather on the interiority of children. Professor Horio is not saying that children have the same interiority as their adult teachers. Rather, that there is a vulnerability and an adaptability such that adults have a particular responsibility to foster and respond to flexibly, so that children will acquire the capacity to develop their interiority. And to impose, for the state to impose the singing of a particular song on the teachers and, through them, on children is, has to be, called an act of anti-education, rather than education. It's indoctrination, not education. Horio: この証言のタイトルは、「強制に教育は馴染まない」というタイトルです。そう証言をしたということになります。 Field: The title of his testimony is, "There is no place for coercion within education." Horio: これでとりあえず終わりにしましょう。 Platzer: I want to put it all back into perspective by finishing my introduction. First, I was mentioning how Professor Horio was a student of Maruyama Masao. And for those of you who have read Maruyama's work on the prewar state, you know how the state tended to do whatever it could in disrespect to the internal freedom of its citizens or other people in Japan. If any of you have been listening to what he's been talking about for the last 15, 20 minutes, you can really see that Maruyama knew they put him in the education world was a really, extremely good move, because he's taken that whole Maruyama emphasis upon, on the abuse of human beings in Japan. And firstly, there's also a whole form of critique and a whole form of scientific method. Secondly, it is really important to see how intellectual practice, scholarship, and political activism become completely the same thing. They're not two different things. One informs the other. In fact, they're indistinguishable. And third, the other important core element is that, I want you to understand that this voice as you've been hearing him speaking today, this isn't just simply—I was being silly before when I said he was notorious—but this is not a random voice in the woods, this is a man who is chosen by the educational world of Japan, three times by the Science Council of Japan, as the representative of the educational world. He is also the head of the Japan Society for Educational Research. This is a voice, a leader and the voice of the education movement in Japan. Field: And let's not forget that this researcher's testimony starts with a lot of material on Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, and Condorcet, and the history of the universal development of the notion of the "child." And Professor Horio has a very careful reflection on how we should deal with the concept of universality in itself, not in the vein of a cheap postmodernist dismissal of it as Eurocentric. But, anyhow, he has worked consistently in tandem with schoolteachers on the ground, in the classroom—not just high school teachers, but he's also done a great deal with early childhood education. So, he's involved himself with the everyday practice of that much beleaguered person, the classroom teacher, at every level. |