Osaka Meisei Gakuen High School - Osaka, Japan.
A boys' school with both Junior and Senior campuses, Osaka Meisei Gakuen High School has international language studies and an inbound international student program. The students have undertaken this project based on life at the home front during the second world war focussing on the power of education.
The power of education and the influence of education in the world
Communication objective
Japan experienced the power of education through the sad history of World War II. We have learned that education can be very powerful even when it is abused. So we want to acquire the skills to distinguish right from wrong. To realize that, we want to be careful with education and expand people’s view.
Our research idea
Japan has a very sad history in World War II. We have researched about why the war was so long. We have found the answer to be education. During the war, the Japanese government and schools brainwashed children. For example, in school for P.E. class, the children learned how to use guns or reading “Kyoiku Chokugo” that Japanese emperors’ study. Also, they were brainwashed at home. Some toys were changed. For example, “Aikoku Hyakunin Isshu,” a card game that has hundreds of “Waka” written on one side. During the war, the poems were written patriotically. Through this school changed the children’s thinking from “I don’t want to be a soldier” to “I want to be a soldier.” In addition, we know that the war time education is not only a big part of history, but also a problem presently. So, we need to think about education more carefully.
"We Japanese, learn the war. But it is very superficial and we haven’t learned why the war occurred. So we research the war, from the angle of education. Then we found, biased education or lack of education was one of the big reasons of war.
In conclusion, we want everyone to think about education more carefully. We think it is the best way to make world peace."
Story by Mizuki
I did not know about war, not only World War II but also the others. So I searched “World Peace museum” that there is in Osaka and can learn about war and library in my school for information of war very hard. Also, having made use of a lot of data that I got from there, I wrote two essays about this program. Through this, I will try to make use of them for my life in the future. I want to tell you two things:
- First, you should research many things that you are interested in and write many essays
- Second, you make use of leaning things for your life
Story by Kai
I think that I try to make use of my experience in “War and Peace in the Pacific 75” program. For example, I would like to take part in volunteer work to help many people. In this program, I learned not only our theme of education at school or life of children but also how people at that time revived Japan. I was deeply impressed to know their efforts. Now, there are a lot of disaster areas by some natural disasters in Japan. So I want to help disaster victims as a member of a volunteer organization like people who reconstruct their towns.
Story by Kyosuke
I worked as a leader through this program. I learned many things from this experience. First, I learned about war. I hadn’t researched about war deeply. Especially, researching about my school was very interesting because I found how my school was survive during the war. Then I am proud of my school. Second, I learned how difficult working as a leader was. For example, to keep a lot of work and arrange the date of meeting. Particularly, doing some job at same time was very difficult. The job was very difficult but through this experience, I think, I could bring me up. I want to try to use my skill and I want to improve my skill more and more.
Story by Kei
During World War II, education was heavily controlled by militarism government. The government tried to justify the war and encouraged students to serve the nation. However, the education’s influence differed among the generations. For example, my maternal grandfather was eight years old when imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor. He simply accepted what teachers taught. He was strongly influenced by militarism ideology. He became politically conservative and enjoyed singing military songs when he grew up.
On the other hand, my patrilateral grandfather was fourteen years old in 1941, then he recognized the possibility of being drafted. He pretended to be obedience to what teachers taught. He became liberal, criticizing the centralized government during his life.
Education is double-edged sword!
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