Skip to main content

2021/5/13

    Today, our class started in the hallway, at least mine was. When we tried to walk into the classroom, Mr. Paterson stopped us and asked if we lived in the Saitama prefecture. I live in Tokyo so I wasn't let in. I was very confused because I couldn't find the connection between where I lived and why I wasn't let in. Only a few people were allowed to go inside, I was very curious about what they were doing inside. I was a little jealous that they get to have a special experience. When Mr. Paterson came out to the hallway again, he told us we can get in unless we show our ID cards. Since I had mine with me I was let in, but Haoto forgot it in her locker so she was told that she had no permission to go in. I couldn't hear what Mr. Paterson told her but she was eventually let in. Mr. Paterson opened the door to let in few students at a time so the people in the back of the line took more time to get in. Even after the non-Saitama students were given permission to come into the classroom, we were told that we had to stand up during the class because the chairs are for Saitama citizens. 
    When I was told that everything we experienced today, Palestinian people face every day. I didn't know that the people in Palestine had to face this kind of discrimination, and I was concerned about why I wasn't informed of this reality. If people had to face these discriminations regularly, I would want to just stay in my house, since I don't want to wait at the checkpoints until the Israeli soldiers feel like they want to open it. When we talked in groups, the student that lives in Saitama told us that she felt uncomfortable seeing us getting discriminated against. She also mentioned that she felt bad for us and she believes that there are Israeli people that feel the same. I agree with her statement that there are people who oppose what the Israeli government is doing but I think that the education in Israel or the Jewish religion might interfere with people's opinions. During WW2 Japan had a very biased, war-based education that taught people that the colonizing, the killing, and the war itself is not bad and is necessary. This made many people not question the brutal actions of Japan. Therefore, if the government interferes with the education children get, most students won't even feel guilty about their actions. I am very curious about how they teach people about the government's actions. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

9/30 Reflection

Today Mr. Paterson introduces us to a tool that shows us if our choices of color are color-blind friendly. I never thought of the color choices that deeply. I knew that some combinations of colors are hard to see but just for normal people. When we checked our site, there wasn’t that much to fix but I learned that there are choices that normal people can’t notice.  Today the class was supposed to start the presentations but we were given more time. I hope that we can do a better presentation than the last one. 
Post a Comment
Read more

2021/1/14

    Today, Mr. Paterson told us about an article about paper textbooks and digital textbooks that sparked debate.       When he showed us the news article, I recognized the professor immediately and I was surprised to hear this from him. I've read a few of his books about the Japanese language (since he studies Japanese) and seen him on TV multiple times, and I liked him. I'm all in with digitalizing textbooks since it's much more efficient and most of all it's so much lighter.       Mr. Paterson told us about vertical and horizontal reading. With digital textbooks, students can do horizontal reading. When I read books I note down the words I didn't understand and search them up later. But when I forget which page I got it from, I can't consider the context clues making it harder to understand the word. I like paper books but I find this really inconvenient.            I couldn't really get why he disli...
Post a Comment
Read more

2021/10/12

    Today in class, we were introduced to the world-systems theory. This theory was developed by Immanuel Wallerstein. Mr. Paterson showed us a graph with Kondratiev waves, when the graph goes up the monopoly of the technology and when it goes down the monopoly ends. This suggests that the world is divided into 3 countries, ①core countries, ②semi-periphery countries, and ③periphery countries. It argues that technology gets passed down through generations; rich countries get to use the new high-tech stuff first and when they are done with it, the poorer countries get to use it, when it's not high-tech anymore. The richer countries don't like it when other countries infringe on their monopoly and they try to come into the "core countries". They don't like sharing so it's very rare for semi-periphery countries to bump up to the core countries. One example was when the US was developing rapidly and becoming a bigger country, Britain, France, and Spain fought in th...
Post a Comment
Read more