4/30 class record (OMG it's the end of April already!)

Today I went into a small panic when I found out that the Google Docs keep records of our revision history, being the procrastinator I am (hope to change that to was). Hopefully, I'll get out of the habit of finishing things at the last minute with this device in mind!

Peer editing was a bit hard to do, especially since our group had five people. Unfortunately I couldn't comment equally on each person's essay but I appreciated the editing and feedback that I received from my friends. I'd gotten so used to reading my essay the way it was and thus needed a fresh perspectives to point out some parts that sounded a bit confusing. Thanks guys :)

Thank you, Rab for your comment and Fumika and Izumi for explaining the expression to me! I feel a bit embarrassed that I didn't know about this expression :/ And I agree with Yuji, maybe I was being a bit narrowminded towards Nisbett's ideas... :O (Oh by the way, please don't jump off a cliff, if you're reading this haha.) It's so hard to stay objective, especially when one's own culture is being described and when we have these unconscious biases inplanted in our minds (like the surgeon/son quiz). I'll try to be more openminded with chapter 4!

Have a great Golden Week!
:D

Chapter 3: Living Together vs. Going It All Alone

I cannot accept many of Nisbett's arguments in this chapter because I feel that they are too fixed and do not take any exceptions into consideration. For example, statements such as, "In general, East Asians are supposed to be less concerned with personal goals..." sounds a bit too strong to me (48). I mean in Japan, it has always been a part of culture to come up with individual resolutions and wishes at the beginning of the year, during the Star Festival in July, and sometimes even at end-of-year parties. Although good health and fortune for the whole family or company is a common hope expressed at these events, children, for instance, are encouraged to write their own personal goals such as doing well at school or becoming a baseball star.

I personally did not like how Nisbett mentions only "sushi chefs and math teachers" when he is trying to make the point that self-criticism continues throughout peoples' careers (55). Maybe he uses that in the way that our ELP teachers changed the historical figure to George Washington in Meiland to make it easier for us to relate to. However, I feel like those examples are kind of stereotypical... don't you think? lol I guess I feel this way because when I lived in the States, my classmates assumed that I was good at math because I was Asian and asked me if I ate sushi everyday. Unfortunately math is one of my worst subjects and I don't have enough money to afford that much sushi! lol

The objectivity in Nisbett's arguments are growing weaker to me. I know that there must be many similarities between Asian countries such as Japan and China since they are close in geography, share some religions and writing systems, but what about those countries compared to India? Or Hong Kong? Hong Kong probably has many similarities with Britain, making it closer to the Westerners. Thus, he is not including all Asian countries when he says "Asians". In addition, I feel like Nisbett often compares modern Western cultures with traditional Asia (particularly China). For instance, the quote "the peg that stands out is pounded down" sounds like something that came from an ancient proverb and would not be encouraged in modern day schools (48). I tried looking up the origin of this expression on google, but the top results were sites that directly cited that expression from Nisbett. So I'm still unsure where this expression came from and now I'm a bit suspicious if Nisbett really translated this correctly. Do you guys know this expression?

4/28 class record

I'm so so so tired... I just came home from basketball practice which went on until 9 and am pretty much dead... I don't know if I should join or not :/ LAMBS sounds really fun too.

Anyways, today during class we focused on basic parts of a paragraph such as topic sentences, concluding sentences, and the appropriate order/content of supporting sentences. I found the tasks to be harder than I had expected and noticed that I totally missed the pronouns and contractions in the paragraphs. I learned that questioning does not end with Meiland... contradictions and false information are lying around everywhere and I need to be careful to question these as well.

Okay well that's about it for today.... Good Night everybody... zzzz

4/27 class record

I always feel really rushed to get to class on time on Tuesdays. The gym/pool area is just too far from the honkan! It feels like P.E. class doesn't end until we finish running to our classroom. lol

In today's class we discussed the eleven test prep questions in groups. I was with Natsuko, Tomoya, Yuji, and Izumi. At first the Meiland content was a bit hazy in my mind but with the help of everybody, we were able to discuss the possible answers together. I'm glad I was able to talk with my group because I would have only been able to come up with very limited answers had I done the same task by myself. It was funny because for every question that asked us to give our own examples, the same keywords such as "Rab's NP" "Milk" and "Tomoaki" kept on popping up in our conversation, haha.

Anyways, today was a really good day :) Sayako is such a sweet girl! She prepared chocolates for everybody. Thanks Sayako <3 I hope you, Kaori, Ayaka, Asami, Yusuke, Saori, Izumi, Yuga and Rab can come to the next dinner!

Good Night :)

4/26 class record

Hi guys. I'm writing this from the library... it's sooo quiet and peaceful here!

Though today's class began with lots of 「えー!」s and unhappy faces with the discovery of an upcoming PWT test, that soon changed to lots of "OooOOoOoo"s and "Aaaaaa"s when we were pulled into Rab's card tricks. I liked the first one that Rab performed because it contained a story about the four robbers and the bank, making it easy for me to follow. It was a nice surprise to find out how the card trick worked, but the matter left my mind almost at once since there was nothing more to wonder about. The second card trick, on the other hand, confused me so much that I was left staring at the cards with my mouth open - making me look like a complete idiot lol. Unfortunately I was still confused as my classmates tried to explain to me how the whole thing worked and was still in wonder when Yusuke managed to do it too! It was interesting to discuss the different possibilities behind the trick though. I think constructivist education is necessary and effective in almost all subjects. Come to think of it, we were introduced to Critical Thinking in P.E. the other day when our teacher asked us to question the purposes or the ways in which we did our stretches. The only time that direct education would be necessary is when we learn the basics of any subject such as the ABCs, counting, or how to play an instrument. Though we could spend our own time coming up with creative ways to play the flute, it would be more time consuming trying to fix a habit when we could have just learned the correct way to play it in the beginning.

Anyways, I'm excited for our dinner tomorrow and I hope Sayako had a great day :D
Happy Birthday, birthday girl! :)
See you all tomorrow!

ZOOTEROOO

In a

Zap
Our jumbled sources
Transformed
Efficiently into a
Refined list
Oh thank you dear Zotero!

My attempt at creativity, haha.

Chapter 2: The Social Origins of Mind

Because there are many references to Aristotle and Confucius in the first chapter, I think I had begun seeing them as the roots from where culturally different thought processes sprouted from. However, Nisbett mentions how they are more of a product of their cultures than their ancestors. With this in mind, I now see that social practices affect thinking, which affects social practices, which affect thinking and back again; that these factors affect each other in a cycle and therefore thinking processes are continuously evolving and changing.

But speaking of thinking processes, though I mentioned in my previous entry that I started to see the differences in the ways Easterns and Westerners think, I think I might have made that decision too early. So far, Nisbett has compared mainly the Ancient Chinese with the Ancient Greeks. Though he supports this by stating how more than a billion people origin from Ancient China or Ancient Greece, thinking processes are bound to vary among cultures which branch off from them.

As if to reassure me though, Nisbett uses phrases like: "... if the social differences between East and West today resemble those of ancient times..." (44) or "...if it really is the case that Easterners and Westerners have fundamentaly different ways of seeing themselves and the social world..." (45). His careful tone suggests that he is not a black or white thinker. He is bending down to our level, to make his claim as if he too is about to learn something new. It ensures me that he is not going to try to brainwash me, but instead is still leaving me the freedom to believe what I want to.

Chapter 1: The Syllogism and the Tao

Reading the first chapter, I was a bit overwhelmed by the various concepts and theories that were being introduced from the Ancient Greek and Ancient Chinese cultures. I had to go back many times to read over and understand each one, but now that I think about it, I might have tried too hard to understand them as individual concepts instead of reading them as a whole to see the big message. However, I found it interesting to see how completely opposite were the ideals of the Ancient Chinese and Ancient Greeks in topics such as the role of an individual and freedom of opinion. Furthermore, by showing how these attitudes affected other aspects of their cultures, such as language or academic fields in which they are skilled at, made it convincing to see that there is a difference in thought between Westerners and East Asians. Despite it being a difficult chapter, I do feel more curious about how Nisbett is going to support and develop his argument from this chapter on. There is one thing that makes me unsure if this book is totally objective though. I was reading the introduction and as Nisbett begins to explain how he launched his research on the difference of thought processes between Westerners and East Asians he mentions:

"I began a series of comparative studies, working with students at the University of Michigan and eventually with colleagues at Beijing University, Kyoto University, Seoul National University, and the Chinese Institute of Psychology" (xviii).

Maybe he is just abbreviating all the people he worked with in his research, but to me, it sounds as if he worked with only his colleagues, and no students, at these Asian universities. Since colleagues and students would fall into different age groups, I'm wondering if his result would have stayed the same had he compared Western students with (more) East Asian students. Especially since countries such as Japan have become more Westernized over the years, the difference in thought processes may be not that drastic, for example. However, he does include his inspirational experience with a brilliant Chinese student at the beginning and so, it may just be that he didn't mention his studies with Asian students in that particular sentence.

4/21 class record

Since I'd written some essays before at my high school, I thought I had the basics down for essay writing. However, today's class showed me that there was a lot that I had forgotten or had not taken into consideration before. For example, I realized how a title of an essay can either pull someone into the essay or may have them pushing the essay back to its folder. I liked the examples we used such as "Bad Bananas" or "A$$h*** Aso"; they were very amusing! It also never occurred to me that one way to order our paragraphs could be to have it so that (if we use the Rule of Three) the second most important reason goes first, the least important reason goes second, and the most important reason goes last. At first, I wondered why it shouldn't be least important to most or vice versa. But then, I realized I hadn't really considered how the audience's attention span works and that this technique we learned today would accommodate that.

I hope I got everybody's topic down correctly... In case you didn't get mine down, it's: Is music education necessary in schools (wondering if I should specify this... i.e. limiting it to elementary), and if so, how? (I'm hoping it is, since I like music... lol)

Anyway, today was a really nice, sunny day :) Hope we get more days like these!

4/20 class record

Today we tried to further develop our possible essay themes by asking our assigned groups whether or not they noticed any assumptions/dogmatic attitudes in the topics. I was glad Shantonu asked what the difference was between assumptions and domatic attitudes were because I couldn't tell either, until Rab explained it to us. After discovering what was wrong with the research question "What is the best way for the Japanese government to give more educational loans?", it scared me to see how some assumptions are so deeply inplanted in our minds that we forget to question them. Questioning the obvious is really not as easy as it sounds.
Uh oh, I haven't even gotten through the first chapter of The Geography of Thought yet. :O
Have you guys read the assigned chapters already? I'm going to go read it now... See you all tomorrow!

4/19 class record

So... I was busy trying to come up with a reasonable essay topic yesterday that I completely forgot to write my first class entry! Woops! Thanks Naoko and Sayako for reminding me...!

During yesterday's class I felt very unsure about what topic I should choose to write an essay on. I wanted to write about the sengan/heigan entrance exam systems in Japan but I realized that would not work since we need at least 80% of our sources to be in English and those systems I just mentioned are unique to Japan (I think?). I was a bit confused after hearing that we need to write something that includes educational values. Hmm...

Oh and I had no idea that there was a huge protest on Valentine's Day just 7 years ago. I wonder why almost none of us knew about it. Though I was shocked, I thought it was really interesting how the number of student protests had dropped so drastically from the 1960's to 2003. I personally thought this happened because we have grown so used to living without direct warfare in Japan that we take peace for granted. What did you guys think? :)

video recording

Taking a video was very embarrassing, knowing that my peers would be able to look at it later. I immediately deleted my video in relief when Rab said it was okay, but I did think it was a good idea to try to explain things with a video. It made me think on the spot and practice my English speaking skills, which I feel is my weakness. Also, it works as a good reflection when I go to watch it later on.

I really liked the music that was being played in both videos and was impressed by the creative ways in which they were created. I was surprised to see their connection with paragraph writing but having watched the videos it was clear to me that constructing a paragraph is very much the same as how these music videos are made. In order to write a good paragraph, one needs to collect different pieces of evidence from numerous sources to make it sound convincing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tprMEs-zfQA

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