Catch a Message from Young Socrates K. T. Tamagawa University, Tokyo, Japan

These days, many Japanese people seem like forgetting how important life is. Maybe not forgetting, but treating life lightly as less important. There are many such sad news as child abuse, abortion, and teenager's murder today. Don't you think these incidents are all reflecting our distorted society? Why did such incidents increase rapidly these days? Why can they easily kill people who are very close to them? I think it is a time for us to think about life, which we often take it for granted, in order to find a clue of solution for those incidents. Let me review one of the miserable incidents here. A girl, who is only twelve years old, killed her classmate because she got angry and could not control herself when she saw what her classmate wrote on the bulletin board on the Internet. Twelve or thirteen years old is the age that we try to establish our identity, the entrance of the adults. That is why early teenagers often feel pressure, stress, and complex. Through communication with their family, friends, and teachers, children learn how to deal with conflicts and angers. I think this girl might not have had enough chance to learn such communication skills or skills for conflict resolution. If she had such skills, they might have had talked and found out a way to reconcile the problem. They needed to understand what they really meant or how the other felt by what one wrote. As I mentioned before, one of the causes is that many teenagers tend to play alone inside the house with the violent TV games or computer games. They do not communicate with people like the elder generation used to do. TV or computer games can not teach how to deal with people who have different feeling and value. In addition, those games can never teach the feeling of compassion, sense of compromise, how to lead others, and so on. Children need to play outside where they are connected to the environment. Through such play, they can directly and indirectly feel and learn what the meaning of "life" is because every creature on the earth including animal, plant, flower, insect, etc. is all living. Children will find the cycle of nature outside the house even if you live in a big city. In the society, you will find various people: men, women, elder, young, children, handicapped, various ethnic groups, etc. In this way, children expand their view and knowledge. The serious problem of today's Japanese children, including myself, is that we do not have a chance to think about questions. Therefore, children need to have such "real" experiences before they became teenagers. In Japan, teenagers are treated as children who could not stand by themselves, I think. I had been in Bolivia for eight and a half years and in Indonesia for four years. I went to international schools while I had been in foreign countries, and I felt that I had never treated as a child over there. In school, every teacher often asked us what, how, and why we think. It seemed teacher respected our opinions as a person. For example, when we were reading a novel in English class, we did not just go through the story or surface understanding. Teacher always tried to make us analyze and discuss our opinion, which rarely occurred in Japan. The school had a program to "think" since children. In addition, there were many presentation and projects to work with other students to learn not only academic subject but also teamwork and leadership. In such learning, we were all respected and never treated like children. However, what I found in Japanese school was a teacher centered class and students' pressure. Students felt a great pressure that they did not want to do something off from other students. That is why most of the students do not want to raise hand to answer the question during the class even if he or she knows the answer. In addition, Japanese students are not accustomed to speak out their opinion. In Japan, parents and teachers treat junior high school or even high school students like children who cannot think or find their own answer. Therefore, they have not well trained to think. Nobody can solve any problems without having training to think his or her own idea. Japanese students need a time to think about themselves since they were small. In the reality, we have to overcome various conflicts in order to avoid violence. However, people who were not trained to think tend to rely on the act of violence. Therefore, skills to think critically or to analyze the situation they confront are really imperative for Japanese youth. As for the meaning of "life", today's teenagers do not seem to have the energy to "live" comparing to the old days. As I wrote above, Japanese children do not have a chance to think of the meaning of "life". One of the reasons is that they do not realize the reality that they are fortunate to go to school, buy things they like, have meals and snacks every day, and so on. Yes, Japanese children live in a wealthy country without any worry about money and future. Teenagers seem like they are always looking for some places where they can release their stress. They struggle to satisfy themselves by wandering around the city in the midnight looking for something. They buy clothes, follow the fashion, and try to be like others because their inside is empty. They do not try to face themselves. Nobody likes to be alone but we can never find a perfect place to enjoy all the time because something we are looking for should be established in yourself. Parent(s) or the home always should be the place where children could feel love and care. The fundamental communication starts from home where "true love" exists between parent(s) and children. Through how parents behave and treat their children, children learn trust, moral, manner, kindness, and how to live their life. Teacher also has important roles. Many Japanese people in these days said that school should emphasize the class of "moral" to teach how important the life is and what is right and what is wrong. However, I think communication between students and teachers can teach more than the moral class. Students learn such "moral" from how teacher behaves. One of the teachers' roles is to realize students' anxiety. Students are always sending a signal or message to teacher and parents, however they do not want to show it at home. For example, students whose parents just divorced are obviously feeling insecure, but probably he or she would try to hide the anxiety not to make his/her parent worry. I think teacher can support the students in such situation by talking with him/her or the parent(s). Students will realize that there is an adult who really think them important except their parent(s). In conclusion, teenagers' personality and attitude will be affected by how they were treated by adults and society. Adults need to realize how teenagers want to be treated or cared. Also, it is important to give enough chance and challenge to teenagers to think. The key is "communication". We can raise children who can gain wisdom and skills by themselves if adults play good role models. Children are the one who will undertake all the tasks that we have now. Therefore, we should not miss any sign or signals from them. We need to support them so that he or she will be able to explore his or her own future. As for myself, I want to work at a nursery school or a kindergarten in the future. Maybe I do not have a chance to involve with teenagers, but the age from 0-5 is a significant years to establish fundamental human behavior and attitude. As an education major student, I think I need to train myself to acquire skills to listen to what children want to tell or how I can help them to express themselves. I want to make children's life "lively". In addition, I want to encourage children to "think" through positive communication because I believe each child will grow to be a good thinker, young Socrates. Good communication and thinking bring rich creativity and imagination. And I hope we will have the bright future that many young Socrates feel and think the meaning of "life."

Child Research Net would like to thank the Tamagawa University and Kana Tominaga, student and author, for permitting reproduction of this article on the CRN web site.

Copyright (c) 2004, Child Research Net, All rights reserved.