Importing Diversity: Inside Japan's JET Program (58 page)

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. There 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.

7. Huang Bao zhong, "Working for Friendship between China and Japan,"
in JET Programme, 335-36.

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.

16. Robert Juppe, Jr., "Debuilding Blocks," AJET Magazine, October 1988, p. 2.

17. Ibid.

18. Satoko Nozawa, "AETs Overwhelm Japanese at Kanto Block Seminar,"
Daily Yomiuri, 1 December 1988.

19. See Robert Levy for a discussion of a similar attitude in his fieldwork
sites in the Himalayas and the South Pacific; "Person-Centered Anthropology," in Assessing Cultural Anthropology, ed. Robert Borofsky (New York: McGrawHill, 1995), 180-89.

20. See Yoshio Sugimoto, An Introduction to Japanese Society (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1997), 245-58.

21. Minoru Wada, letter to AJET Magazine, October 1988, p. 2.

22. Kevin, the ALT coordinator whom Sato-sensei had brought into the prefectural board of education, was one of those who had the misfortune of being
caught absent from this session, and he was thoroughly embarrassed when
Sato-sensei and Tanabe-san were notified. "Since he's the ALT advisor in our
prefecture, he has to serve as a role model for others," scolded Sato-sensei.

23. Robert Juppe, Jr., interview with author, Tokyo, 2 June 1996.

24. Masao Miyamoto, Straightjacket Society: An Insider's Irreverent View
of Bureaucratic Japan, trans. Juliet Winters Carpenter (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1994).