Spirit of Soka Education.docx
The Spirit of a Soka education
Part 1 – introduction (5min)
Hi Everyone,
I am weizhi, now teaching Biology in a junior college. Today, i am going to share with all of you this topic on " The Spirit of Soka Education".
What does "Soka Education" means? I believe everyone of you over here, somewhat knows that Soka Association is a Buddhist organisation. So does "Soka Education" also means an education philosophy infused with buddhists teachings? or is it a kind of education philosophy that is practised by the soka members who are teachers? What does "Soka Education" really means?
I'm a member of Soka, a Buddhist organisation established in Japan in 1930, before our organisation became a Buddhist organisation, it is actually an educational organisation that promotes educational reform in Japan, based on the ideal of a "Value-Creating Philosophy", an educational philosophy coined by the first two founding presidents of Soka Gakkai, Makiguchi and Toda. Both of them are actually teachers themselves.
When our organisation becomes a Buddhist organisation after WWII, it continues to promote education and our third president, Ikeda then went on to establish a full-fledge Soka School system, which now comprises of 18 schools all over the world spanning from kindergarten, elementary, junior and senior high schools in countries like Japan, Korea, Brazil, and 2 universities in Japan and US respectively. You are right now in the auditorium of this beautiful Soka Kindergarten! Soka School Soka schools accept students regardless of race and religion.
Really, The hallmark of the soka school system it is based on the ideal of "Value-creating" philosophy propounded by our 1st president Makiguchi.
In fact, the word "soka" means "value creation" came from the Japanese word創価, which means創造価値. Soka education is also commonly known as Humanistic education. (which means the main focus of education is on human themselves)
1st president of Soka Gakkai used to say: "Happiness is the aim of human life, and as such, must be the aim of education. The fundamental purpose of education is to enable children to live happy lives.
so for me, as a member of soka and as an educator, I have three questions in my mind which i keep asking myself
- What is this "value-creating philosophy"?
- How can value creating philosophy taught in school?
- How could education allows my students to lead happy lives especially in our society that has an education system still focus a lot on exams. this concept of education for the happiness of the children is sounds like some idealistic
Therefore, I decided to take a 6mth no pay leave from my work from March to Aug this year to study at Soka University Japan to experience the soka education.
This was really a very good learning experience. Beside taking Japanese language lesson, i also took two education modules taught in English. I have the opportunity to discuss education issues with my professors. I attended an exchange session with visitors from Canada who were also there to learn about soka education. I was staying in a dormitory and my dormitory mates are just 18, 19 , 20 years old. I'm 32 this years I was still able to fit into them quite well.
But it is really through these interactions with the professors, students themselves that I really got a glimpse on what is soka education all about, because the students who I interacted with are "products of soka education".
Part 2 – What does soka education means to the students at soka ? (10min)
i actually asked some of my friends this question "What does Soka education means to you"?
Firstly, from an exchange student from Hong Kong, Bobby who is my dormitory friend. He is a non-soka member, meaning before he came to Soka university, he has no idea about what Soka education is all about and he says
"Soka University is such an international stage which allows their students to get along with people from all over the world easily. Their students are really friendly and with a wide global vision as well. They are eager to communicate and understand others."
Secondly, from Koichi, an 3 year education major student, he says:"I think soka education is to contribute to a peaceful world. To contribute to it, expand our own possibility, encourage each other with a thankful heart."
The reason why I placed these two comments side by side in the same slide is because, I saw a match between Bobby's and Koichi's view, Bobby being someone educated in a different education system while koichi is a 3rd year Soka U student.
What i observe is that Soka students are very aware of the larger purpose of education, that is to build a better world, a more peaceful world, and they are taking very simple, yet, concrete actions to realise this ideal of world peace. like for koichi, world peace to him means communicating and encouraging with people with a thankful heart. And therefore, their actions can even be felt by students who have no idea about soka education.
Let me now share with you what does my 3rd friend, Hironobu, says about soka education. This friend of mine is not a Soka University student, but he graduated by the Tokyo Soka senior High school (JC). (3 years of soka education )
"Soka Education had a big impact on my life, it changed my life. I entered Soka high school in 2011, when i experienced hard time. For the first time, I couldn't truly understand why I was studying. it was ambiguous for me.
(He is experiencing a hard time because his parents were in the process of divorce and he could not understand why he needs to study because it does not help him to solve his unhappiness that he is facing. Personally, i felt a lot for him because in my JC years, i was also struggling with my own sets of issues, and JC syllabus is so hard i also could not understand the purpose of studying when in my jc years and my students are actually telling me the same thing too)
I, however, gradually found that i was studying to realize world peace and happiness. Our founder, Dr. Ikeda always encouraged us saying that the more we study, the more peaceful the world would become, which really impressed me.
Furthermore, i learned the true meaning of Soka. Soka means "creating values" literally in Japanese. I was taught that I can create value from whatever I go through in my life, even from great difficulties that seems impossible to overcome.
But we can't create values with nothing. To do so, we have to have a correct way of thinking and power to judge what is right. Above all, i strongly think that the philosophy of the dignity of life is the most important.
from him, i really learnt that what a value-creation education really means – to create value in whatever difficult situation we found ourselves in, because we are bound to face difficulties and challenges in life. Happy people are the ones who are never loss hope and courage in the midst of difficulties. To use a very Singaporean education term, value-creating means "resilience".)
I think my friend Hironobu puts it very clearly what he needs to study. To firstly gain knowledge, and more importantly, to acquire wisdom, to become critical thinkers, and compassionate person who respects others. In this way, he could realise help to realise happiness and world peace.
to be honest, when I saw these reflections, i was like thinking to myself, if i were to ask my JC students this question " what does education means to you"
Let me summaries briefly "What is value-creating education"?
- Students having a sense of awareness of their greater purpose of studying – that is education for contribution to the society and the world at large.
(they will a strong intrinsic motivation to want to study)
- Students take concrete actions to realise their own potential and create values in whatever circumstances that they are in.
(very positive outlook and resilience)
- Student grounded by humanistic values like respect for life and diversity and compassion.
Some of these thoughts might seems idealistic to some of you, but i feel that, the fact that these youthful students to have such positive outlook in life means to them education is meaningful. And because they have a very strong intrinsic motivation, soka students study really hard. They are able to acquire both academic knowledge and humanistic values. and i believe this is what all along we teachers are trying to do in our classroom. We push for results but at the back of our mind, we are alway thinking, how do you make a difference in our students life? how do you infuse values to our students.
This brings me to my next question
How is value creating philosophy taught in school?
During my stay in Soka U, i took the opportunity to have dialogues with the professors and even the admin staffs to ask them, is there a method, lesson plan or pedagogy to teach so as to infuse their students with humanistic values. (i guess this is a very typical singapore mindset. Everything must have a lesson plan)
do you think there is a method or a lesson plans to infuse values in our students?
yes and no.
We can deliberately and meaningfully infuse values into our lessons. The key element in Soka Education is the quality of the relationship between teacher and student – the teacher's sense of care for the student, their efforts to appreciate and develop the unique character and potential of each students, through moment-moment interactions during the academic process."
"Teachers are the most important element of the educational environment. Educators striving to perfect their characters and grow as human beings are the core of humanistic education. "
I would like to share my very own experience of the kind of care that i felt as a student in soka university which actually makes me feel that i must also do my best during my studies in SUJ.(10min)
- i was very impressed by the care and concern demonstrated by all the staffs involved in the education process from the founder, to the principal, teachers and even admin staffs.
The founder of Soka University, Dr Ikeda , is already 88 years old this year. So he no longer attend school functions. However, he was able to continue to show care and concern to all the soka students through his unique ways.
Example 1: In his message to all the foreign students like me during our completion ceremony, he says: ""I ask that you, the treasures of humankind, take pride in your efforts due to your lofty mission, and continue walking on the path of learning cheerfully, without fear and hesitation towards the glorious future. Please encourage one another through your good friendship, and spread the light of value creation, paving the path for the century of peace and dignity. I will continue to watch over your growth.
this is a very typical message from the founder to the students:
he always reminded students that each of us have a unique mission in life. we must create value in our life in whatever place we are and we must respect people and build peace.
His message, reminded me as an educator that our words matter to students and i shd strive to share positive messages with my students as well, that would be useful for their lives.
Ikeda also encouraged students to write letters to him to tell him their struggles and victories that they faced in school as a way for him to connect with the students. So for me, i sent him a scrapbook with some photos and my reflections to tell him what i have learnt in my 1 semester in soka university. So he actually replied after 1 week via the soka leader in singapore, with a very short message : "I have received your gift. Please accept my warmest regards." Many of my friends in SUJ also shared with me that they have also written to the founder and received personal thank you message from him.
This gesture of the founder actually have a very big impact on me as a teacher, because during teacher day, i also received cards from students, placed in my pigeon hole, but i usually don't even send a message to thank them. So i could really feel the sincerity and the care of the founder to his students. Knowing that there is someone who is always there to watch over me is very comforting.
Example 3: Another group of people who i really felt warm and cared for are the admin staffs in soka university.
1 incident. I was walking along the corridor when suddenly one of the admin staff of the international office, who i only talked to once, came up to me and says that he knew i was from singapore and i graduated from NTU. He says that there is a group of NTU students who came to suj for summer exchange is having a buffet lunch for their end of course celebration, then he invited me to attend the buffet lunch as well. It's a very simple gesture, but it shows the kind of effort he puts in while he is processing through the paper work, and how he really wanted to take care of international students and really have this mindset that he wants to grab every appropriate opportunity to engage students. (moment-moment) So again, it got me to reflect on how much attention i pay to my students background and actually my JC does have a large number of international students, so how much care and concern have i shown these students who are in singapore alone, having to deal with growing up pains and the stressful study in singapore without their family member around.
Example 4: You might be wondering why i didn't quote any examples of teachers showing me care and concern. They are generally very nice and friendly. So I was reflecting why i didn't feel as much care and concern from my teachers. I guess i wasn't showing any sign of distress that warrant my teachers extra attention, but i have friends who told me how their lives have been changed because their teachers were able to support them when they are facing difficulties and crisis in life.
for example, i have a friend who has a tatoo on his hands. In japan, a tatoo means that you are really somehow associated with the Maffia/ gangster. So one day, out of curiousity, i asked him to tell me his story, about why did he has tatoo on his hands. He recounted that he was actually a 2x school drop-out, drop out once in junior high and once in senior high as he hated studying. He was caught by the police for a sort of offences like stealing and driving without a license. However, he was given a third chance to go back to school. Then, in his third school, he met a teacher who brought him to a open house visit to soka university. The journey from his hometown in Hiroshima to Tokyo is actually 5 hrs by shinakasen. His teacher told him, Please try to enter soka university. The belief that his teacher have for him spurred him to work very hard and eventually he managed to enter soka university. He told me that now his dream to also be a teacher for school drop out like himself. Then i ask " do you like studying now…..Then he actually No. he still dont like to study. But he is determined to study hard to fulfill his dream.
for me, i feel that as a teacher, i must strive to have a sensitive heart, so that i can detect the problems that my students are facing and reach out to them I dont have to do it for everyone but if i can show this extra care and concern to the one or two students in class who really need that kind of extra attention. i guess it's enough.
i really have many stories of my friends to share on how they met this particular teacher, admin staffs, or seniors in their schools who encouraged them during time of difficulties and how they became became inspired and became a stronger person. So there is actually a very strong culture of care in soka schools and i guess my friend, Hide, summarizes very well why care and concern for one another is a very important part of soka education:
" I met a lot of people since i entered soka university..People who never give up challenging, even if he has some problems. People who are always worried about my health. People who always encourage me if I have some problems. I am often inspired by them. Their attitudes always encourage me. When I was high school student, I often thought that I might not be able to do anymore, but now after I just see them, I can challenge everything even if I am facing extremely difficult problems. Therefore, soka education can change human nature like me!!!"
Conclusion to the spirit of soka education.
soka education/A humanistic education does not deny the importance of grades. Things like pedagogy, lessons plans, classroom management skills are all very important skills are we teachers must have in order to deliver our lesson well.
The key element in humanistic education is the quality of the relationship between teacher and student.
"People are shaped by people. There is no genuine education without earnest life-to-life interaction and inspiration."
As such, as an educator i must also continue to polish my own character, so that my character and personality can also be an inspiration to my student.
I guess that is also the beauty of our job, where both teacher and students can grow together.
Sent from my iPhone
