Why English Is Tough in Japan | A New Japan

(Originally posted at Searching for Accurate Maps. Reproduced here with permission.) An interesting article on English education in Japan over at The Diplomat. Referring to the Japanese government’s making English classes compulsory in 5th and 6th grade (that’s the last two years of primary school for you non-U.S. readers) onwards, law-school graduate Hiroki Ogawa writes, [...]

Read more »

Beyond the Education Bubble

Couple of interesting articles on “the education bubble” (excerpts and links below). Of course they are U.S. based. It takes time to extrapolate this kind of article to Japan and the Japanese situation. I have little doubt that higher education in Japan is over-rated and over-valued, i.e. too expensive for what you get. But, it’s [...]

Read more »

Is it ok for teachers to use corporal punishment? Discuss.

Image via Wikipedia I left the following comment on a blog entry about corporal punishment in (UK) schools (I’ve reposted it here so that I can add stuff and edit the writing). A succinct summary, with rebuttals, of the various arguments against corporal punishment. The non-aggression axiom provides a principled argument to the responses which [...]

Read more »