From Hirakata-city, Osaka-prefecture, Japan

Recently in japan, there is an argument about whether private english certificate could be used at unversity's entrance exam. Some top university said this certificate is not indispensible. I think using private english certificate is good because it is more practical than current entrance exam. Japanese entrance exam needs some "exam skill" so I think spending time for getting such skill is waste of time. Furthermore, English is just one of basic skills so if they pass certain level certificate, it is enough, I think. I don't know why so-called japanese top level university is so keen to their entrance exam. Most important thing is that whether or not these university are attractive for really talented students. Their name brand is meaningless, I think. If they are talent and boring school, they only choose high-levek university but if high-level university are stick to such "score that needs exam skill", these university is not attractive for t...

This is a question that I often think about and my answer is always like that it's a desire to know, curiosity. When I lost something important for me, I always come back to this question. It's my fundamental question and my basic philospy. Maybe this notion, value of life is rooted from my parents. Our family believe that education is most important thing for children and they helped us, supported us, to study. And they don't care about our school's scores, name of school and they didn't say anything about if we would go to university or not. It's very important, I think. Anyway, if we want to study some subjects, one good method is to utilize exam study, because it lead us to go to high level efficiently. I'm not so intersted in qualification, scores but using exam textbook is good method and fun to study!

For me, keeping time for reading is very important. Reading good books is very fatastic experience for me. It is like meeting very talent people. We can talk to top level person directly through books, and I can talk to a person who are already died through books. Recently, I always carry two type of books, one is traditional paper books and another is e-books. I'm a fan of amazon kindle. Kindle is very good for me because it is light, easy to read because it contains dictionary so I can find meanings of unknown words immediately, and is restricted for reading books. I commute about 1 hour 50 min. for one way and it is good time for reading. To make use of separated short times in a dairy life is good for reading. I fully use of this time for reading. And most important things is to choose good books. There are many garbage books around us but also there are very good books around us so getting informations about good books is very very important.

Reading today's nikkei newspaper's advertisement of University, I'm surprised to find that almost all of them says we are seeking "globa". Everytime I see this word, I always feel that it is empty word. Are they want to show their foolishness using this word ? As writing  here , It does not matter for me. But I'm wondering that if many japanese university is like that, japan is over. People want to study so they go, that's all I think. But many japanese people lose these most important thing. It is same in top university's student (of course all of them is not like that, but as far as my experience, many japanese people care about "ability of study". It's very sad. ) My opinion is that the right to study is a basic right for human beings, so it is nonsense to spend much money for studying. From that point of view, Japan is good country because public university's fee is low compared with other western university. But japanese pe...

Today , I read the article  about secret of nada-highschool elite education system. The article itself is intersting, but I feel a little strange for it. I think education should be free for everybody, not special people. If they want to learn somethings, education system support them.It is true education, I think. Education should not be for a person who study hard. It should be equal to everyone if they want to becaome studying.  And second reason I feel strange is that this article said that this school teach student to think rather than learn. Of course, it is good thing and is true, but personally I didn't like it. I didn't want school to force something to me. In my highschool (shizuoka highschool), school is very liberal and allmost every student didn't expect school lecture. But most good thing is that there are many talented student gathering and that stimulate each other. Recently, we can learn everywhere using internet + basic usage of Engli...

Recently, my son went to soroban school near our house (2min. By walk from our house ) This school is held in private house so it dose not seem like "school". Soroban is very good custom in Japan, I think, because they use fingures very rapidly so it stimulate brain. Soroban specialist can calculate adding, multiplication without soroban. It is amazing ! He likes soroban school because he can play outside with their friends after finising soroban school !

 Recently, I often see a title "G-university, L-university" in newspapers. But it seems very strange to me. At first, concept is very strange to me. My opinion is that I want to go to university that seems intersting. So goverment's definition is none of business. And second is that attitude for education. Every people has a right to study, so competition of test is nonsense to me. Test is one of a tool to know about their understanding are. So thinking such things, I find omae's article and I feel relief..

When I see articles or advertises that say they get high test score or pass XX university and they show some method of studying. I think that they are crazy. (my most unbelievable ad of cramming school showing at train enterance-gate says "why I pass XX university".Don't they feel shamed of their crazyness ?) Maybe many of japanese are tought like this since they are young, so they are natural feeling. But so what ? Do they want to show that they are mechanically high ability people ? And thinking such things, I always go to some thinking that is questioned for  that " for what I live" and it is most important issue from childhood. And for this question, I always answer for me that it is for curiosity.  And as I write down this, I remember writing same thing , but continue. I like science, especially math and physics and electronics and reading books, so I read many such books and eager to study such field, so for me score means nothing. If they like ...

Recently, I read a book written by an attorney woman graduated first on the list of University of Tokyo. As reading it, I felt strange because as far as her books, she study hard to get high rank score. I can't understand her basic idea. For what does she study ? People went to school because they want to know things they didn't know. From such view point, Score should not be the object. Studying for a name or rank means nothing. It's waste of time. If I have time, I want to use time for true study.Maybe for science favoring people like me can understand such way of thinking. Knowing fantasic idea human being got to know is fascnating things, and for me, this is the most important thing for life. But as far as I know, many of japanese people is like her, and such sense of value might be hard to change, I think.

I read books mainly from public library by internet reservation system, and sometimes buy books (mainly used books because there are many used bookstore aroud japan) or buy e-books  which are not sold in japan or are cheaper compared with translation version. Internet services including internet  accessibility is very cheap & sufficient (for example my mobile phone with internet cost about 10 $ per month). So if we memo titles of books which we had lent & read . we don't have to own books by myself.  Of course, I want to buy books if these are mine, I can write down memo on books or fold down corner of pages. But for many ordinally people, there are limit of allowance for family so using public library services plus IT is very good way for book lover.

At our branch, we are scheduled to take a toeic test from tomorrow, so I'll take toeic tomorrow. Recently, many company and school are using toeic test and japanese people likes toeic test very much. I think toec test itself is not bad because we can get english skill efficiently throught such test studying. But for me, score itself is meaningless because Englisht is just a tool. English itself is not a purpose. I think English is just a tool so if we learn a basic skill at junior highschool and high school for 6 years, that's enough. And afterthat, just use it. The reason why I think such things is that when I was a graduated student and in my twenties, I often travelled abroad by myself and thought english was just an tool, so studying for test score at school is meaningless ( of course, for people who want to say I have such title ...

There are so many things existed in internet, same as books. And I thought before that there were few good articles existed in internet compared with books, but recently I'm changing my mind. Of course, there are so many junky things existed in internet world, but sometimes there are very very talented person existed. And when I find such brilliant things, that makes me feel excited. Thinking such things, I often rember when I was a student. When I was a highschool student at shizuoka highschool, some students were very talented & unique so I was deeply moved by them. Compared with tokyo and osaka, there are no special private highschool at shizuoka, so top students go to public school like shizuoka highschool, so there are variety of people existed at this school and top level of students are very very talented so when I entered university, I felt a little sad because top level seemed to be lower compared with shizuoka highschool.. For example, one of my friend I....

Reading today's nikkei newspaper, it says about JMOOC:  http://www.jmooc.jp/ . This article says that -it is done by japanese -He (this article's author: jmooc's head) want users to power up their value to utilize it -He hope many university'll provide many lectures I think it is nonsense. I use itune-university and three moocs(cousera, edX,udacity) + khan, and it is very fantasitic ! I use them simply because they are very intersting to me, not for power up my capability or for my promotion. Mind your business ! Reading this artcile, I'm wondering about what is university now. Nowadays, we can learn many things from internet for free and it is revolutionary. So are there still something attracting things in japanese university? I simply chose TIT because I like electronics, math & scinece and this college attract me very much(cheap tuition fee is one reason: I'm not sure but maybe 1000 $ per year and second reason is easiness to enter. I'm now s...

As I read the book " Reversal of the intellect ", there are some writings saying that the education for test is very harmful and he also mention about education system of John Dewey because he studied at school of its education philosophy. I also agree its opinion because test score is just a indication of understanding, memorizing and there are no other meaning. But as I wrote this , score or ranking is sometimes main goal for study in japan and it is ridiculus. Reading books and find something that we didn't know is fantastic experiences. And thinking about the origin of university or college, I think it all started from people' s curiosity. In case of japan, maybe at the begining of meiji-era (1868-) , young people wanted to know abount unknown things or about foreign countries and were gathering and studied at small cram schools and those were the roots of many japanese universities. But the times goes by and the original desire for wanting to know turned out...

In today's newspaper nikkei, I found the article that university of tokyo join the online education "Coursera". Recently, circumstance of education is changed rapidly, because we can learn many things from good quality of materials like i-Tunes university, coursera,edX, Kahn. In japan, MBA course are becoming popular among business people, newspapers said, but paying such high tuition is hard for many people. But by using such materials, we can learn by almost free (needs internet access fee but very cheap in japan and tools like i-pod are recently cheap). Seeing this ted video, it seemed very intersting and learning platform will be important. I think that education is most important thing for human beings, but in japan, many people seek the name of university and licences etc. Maybe that's why they don't know the fun of learning. I like studying when I was child and I am very gladful for my parents to give me a circumstance of studying and most impo...

For what purpose do we study? There must be many reasons for each persons. My reason is same as when I was a child (about age 3) until now. I want to know many things, simply curiosity. This is all that motivate me. I simply choose my school and company simply because it might give me much intellectual excitement. If this level might be low, it is boring. Nowadays, there are booms to learn, for example studying at some school like MBA school, etc. Of course it is very good thing, but like me who had little money for free and want to stay my own home with my family and play with my son, IT tool is very excellent things for studying. Because there are huge amount of excellent videos,text,etc for free in English. The amount, quality, its level of materials is very higher than things of Japanese (of course there are good things existed, but there are huge gap between them because people all over the world use English) And cost of IT environment is very cheap now. Foe example in my...

Recently, we often see a topic about changing japanese university system in various media. And Tokyo university annouced to start disccusion about changing of entrance timing from spring to autumn. Many people including other university's presidents said it's good and I also think that it is good idea, but truely saying that it doesn't hit my heart. That might be because it comes from what is university means and what is about the ranking of university. Tokyo university said that it aimed to enter the world top ranking (now tokyo university is ranked 30th ), but what it meaned ? Maybe that is why I didn't dislike this topic. I think that education is most important thing for human being and searching for truth is very important thing, but in japan, entrancing high ranked university is the aim, and I think that it is strange thing. I think internet is changing intelligence world so isn't there any meaning to study for entrancing university with so many times ...