Internationalization

Woohoo! Who feels like poop, me. My body taking a pounding from shitty weather. But anyway, back to the title “internationalization.”

So I think about this topic a lot obviously. It of course involves language. Let me just jump right in: I think that many nations around the world are facing a grave dilemma. A grave dilemma as defined by them, a grave dilemma known as the “problem of diversity.”

It’s no secret that I live in Japan, nor is it a secret that I see the education system everyday, especially since I work at 9 schools. Now, the island is quite different in many ways from the rest of the country, but by and large, the education system is very similar to other places in Japan. Unlike the U.S., Japan has a national system, so there is much less variation throughout prefectures than there would be within the States (This does not mean I think the U.S. is better or worse, merely that it is different).

So the problem of diversity. I find it interesting, because I think nationalistic ideologies are crumbling, and I think that as the stick-hard generation wanes in power, the new generation is beginning to see the world as less defined by borders and more defined by opportunity. I.e., it’s less scary these days for young folks to simply leave their “homeland” and live/travel elsewhere. And this has created chaos for national systems of government.

I think that Japan and the U.S. share very many similarities in many important ways. Both are very proud countries, both are very industrialized (Japan has just kept more of its ancient stuff and still doesn’t believe in central air control, that was a joke okay, calm down), and both are very concerned with using their school systems to “create” [i.e. produce] model citizens.

Now, so what, what should I care? U.S. folks should be proud of being “Americans” and Japanese should be proud of being “Japanese.” Right? Well, yes. However, that becomes an issue in today’s world where multiculturalism slaps you in the face daily, can be easily accessed by most [I said ‘most’ alright] anyone, and well, language barriers and national borders become more and more blurred. It’s a problem however, because being “insert nationality here” can sometimes come at the expense of a more holistic, “reality-aware” approach to learning.

A vague, but potent example. In many parts of Japan, at least in current times, English is being pushed “hard.” The idea behind this is that “English” will be the lingua franca and will allow Japanese folks to be more powerful and successful in the world arena. Well, yes, English is useful, but language itself does not determine success. [If this was the case, I would argue that learning Chinese and Korean would give Japan more of a “world” stronghold than the dominance English shares as is currently the case]

So, in my experience anyway, it seems like English goes from this “let’s build interest by making English as fun as possible” in the elementary years to “let’s use a strict translation approach and kill any interest students once had in a language because now they need to pass the high school tests for high school” in middle school years. Now, please recall that I said “in my experience,” so don’t go overgeneralizing my observations, I’m just trying to add some perspective to what I see as a larger world phenomena.

Back to internationalization. So, the strict translation approach is tough, because English and Japanese are linguistically quite different languages. In fact, I hate the strict translation approach, and I have found it almost useless in trying to bridge Japanese/English languages. A note: what I mean by “strict translation approach” is things like taking paragraphs in Japanese/English and then having students translate word by word [even if the context becomes incomprehensible] in order for students to “learn.” This is different than translating a few words in a story to better develop the context to understand the work as a whole, which obviously is a method I prefer.

So internationalization plays in here because at school, these students are “learning” [well, mostly saying English is hard or boring] all sorts of complicated translation shit, like all the words for parts of grammar that most English speakers will not know, nor do they care to know or ever use. Then in life, these same students listen to English songs, visit English websites, maybe [maybe] attempt conversation with English speakers, and have very different lived experiences with English than what they learned in the classroom. And then English is fun again. Just because a student doesn’t know how to tell the difference between and adverb and adjective (which can be difficult for many words in Japanese) does not make this student any less smart or “less apt” at language learning, but it does mean that the pedagogical methods must be critiqued and changed.

So the world is changing because many governments are using archaic systems of education, while that same population of students this system is meant to educate, are using new forms of communication [lots of technology and exposure] to learn language, and are traveling more than ever, and are learning so much more outside of school [when it comes to language].

So where does nationalism play into this? Well, governments panic. In Japan’s case, and the U.S. (and many other countries) the idea of a declining population is used as rhetoric to hopefully get young people to procreate. Maybe? Get married? I don’t know. The fear is, that if young people don’t procreate and be faithful to their motherland, then there will no longer be any more Japanese [or Chinese, Mexican, U.S., I don’t care which nationality you insert here, it doesn’t really matter that much].

But the fact of the world is, these governments with the goal to push their outdated systems onto their citizenry in order to create compliant nationalists should worry. Yes, there will be less “Japanese” less “Americans” less “___.” The issue is not so much that all the people in that country will die off, or be overtaken by some other (usually hated[i.e. Korean or Mexican in my immediate experience]) nationality, the issue is that as a byproduct of globalization etc. people will mix. So young people are still having sex, they’re still making babies, they’re still raising children and all that jazz. But that their doing it in a way that would be approved by the governments [or parents] in which they were born into is a different story. Because more young people are also dating outside their socially imposed box, are speaking more languages than ever before, and essentially, living in the real world of today. A world of great mish-mashing of cultures.

So yes, these outdated nationalistic views should be scared that their borders and that their nations will change. Because nationalism itself is a paranoid jealous spouse. One who thinks you’ve cheated on them just by simply visiting another’s house (like how it’s such a huge deal for people on this island to go to Korea even though you can see it, better yet, how it’s such a big deal for people from El Paso to go to Mexico [pre-violence]).

Governments are meant to serve their people in theory right? Well, they’re still pretty good at providing basic services for their “citizens” and making sure that their children grow up knowing what it means to be a true “insert nationality here.” Well, at least this is the case for many wealthier nations. But governments are also good at ostracizing outsiders. The simple act of birth, one which you did not consent to (how could you), did not play any part in, nor did you choose, will determine many of the rights, services, and freedoms that you will have access to for the rest of your life [unless you change nationalities in some cases, and even then you’re never “truly” __whatever nationality here__].

But people are a crafty bunch. When their government says “you can’t” they say, “well then I’ll do it somewhere else.” So we go to Mexico and Korea for cheaper stuff and different laws etc. It can feel very liberating to not be confined to the reality of the country you were indoctrinated into since an early age, and to develop parts of your mind you may never knew existed had you not decided to step out of your own indoctrination of your own mind.

So essentially what I’m saying is that governments need to grow the fuck up. Instead of being so concerned with creating model citizens and forcing (well, trying hard to force) everyone from a young age to fit some very narrow definitions [like in the U.S. and Japan], nations should focus more on talking to each other, should build up and strengthen the idea of multi-citizenship, and should worry less about being so paranoid about the allegiances of their citizens. After all, it is very possible to be born to parents of different nationalities, and it is possible to speak and interact daily in more than one language. So rather than focus on the “dilemma of diversity” and state that if our students learn ‘that,’ then they will no longer be true ‘insert paranoid nationality here,’ we should understand that diversity is an asset.

When you allow your citizenry to breathe, when you allow them to not worry about maintaining a strict identity [such as in the U.S. and Japan in my experience], you give them the psychological resources needed to be open minded enough to try new things. You give them the freedom to express new ideas. And wow oh wow, imagine that, you give them the opportunity to bring back all that they’ve learned and perhaps even the willingness to share that with other people (and in turn build better citizens). Just like a kick ass parent, rather than telling you how you must live your life, they allow you to think for yourself, allow you to understand that there are always consequences for every action. They understand that learning what your good at takes time, can change over the years, and building, maintaining, and encouraging all of their many childrens’ diverse talents is what any great parent would do. And suddenly, there’s no such thing as traitors, because the new national identity encompasses, values, stimulates, and encourages the many identities, talents, and diversity of ALL of its citizenry regardless of variance.

Suddenly, the national identity isn’t so black and white but is full of color and beauty and life. And if we’re to survive and fix the problems that we as people kind now face, it’s going to require a lot of creativity, a lot of collaboration, and a whole ton of stepping away from the idea that you can be only one thing your whole life. I hope nationalism as it stands today continues to be weakened, and that people continue to challenge outdated social education systems and pedagogies. We need more global citizens, we need more internationalization. We need all of that, after all, we’re all in this together, there’s just no getting around that fact.