Today, our group met to further develop our direction and ideas regarding our research into Makiguchi’s pedagogy. We discussed many different possibilities in terms of the material we could translate. Ritz suggested that we look into volume 4 of soka kyoiku taikei, which deals with Makiguchi’s ideas on educational methodology as well as his criteria for evaluating methodologies. The Japanese version of volume four is much longer than the English version, so it is clear that there is a lot of material missing in the translation.
We also discussed the idea of translating portions of two other works. One is Makiguchi’s “gairon” which is a summary and outline that he wrote about his ideas before expanding them into Soka Kyoiku Taikei. The work is significant because it also contains his vision (although brief) for the later 8 volumes in which he intended to explore a more concrete methodology. For example, he writes about how math, writing, and history should be taught in the classroom. We could combine these specific proposals with his ideas in the previous section on methodology to provide a much deeper understanding into the concrete application of Soka Education. The second potential work is “kougai” which Makiguchi wrote after publishing Soka Kyoiku Taikei. This writing is significant because it demonstrates how his educational ideas changed after being introduced to Nichiren Buddhism. He even writes that he realized a mistake in his philosophy of value after converting to Buddhism.
We may use one of these sources or a combination of them. For our next meeting, we have split up the reading of these pieces in both English and Japanese. We have also decided to create a proposal to present our results at the SESRP conference.
Students at Sherman Institute, 1919. Courtesy Sherman Indian High School, Riverside CA.
2 comments:
I am glad you want to propose a paper for SESRP. Arguably, each of these projects could result in such.
I like both ideas very much. Makiguchi's methodologies section sounds like a good and important place to start. What experience with Sari Nakayama and Nozomi Inukai taught me is that much of the "missing" material in the English editions is in the form of examples he used to demonstrate principles and their empirical validity. I also like the idea of exploring how his conversion to Buddhism changed his perspective. But I am curious about the chronology: he converted in 1928 and began publishing his (and Toda's) educational ideas in 1930. So he was already Buddhist when he began publishing.
Most importantly for you from the methodological perspective: I will want evidence of how you translate key words and why you chose the given English meaning... as Jocatot/Rancier describe, demonstrate word-by-word your understanding in the shared text before us... that's how this "ignorant schoolmaster, namely me, will be able to assist you with direct and appropriate critical questioning about your choices.
slim spady
Thank you James for your response!
I also was not sure of why Makiguchi would say that he need to reconsider his thoughts after already publishing the books. So I reread the part.
The "kougai" was written around the spring of 1935. In the "kougai," Makiguchi stated that (this is not precise translation yet and I need to read more closely to fully grasp his thoughts), after finding out that his educational pedagogy resonates with Nichiren Buddhism, he thought that it is necessary to revise his "standard of value evaluation" because it lacked important aspects. This led him to believe more strongly that Soka Education has Buddhism at its core. So, what he was saying may be referring to his mind shift "before" the books were published. In other words, the "standard of value evaluation" was revised after his encounter with Buddhism but before the books were published.
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