Comments on: Japanese teacher punished for criticizing war history comments

By: juan

juan — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 14:01:05 +0000

Umm.. Wiesunj, jtb-in-texas was Korean? Didn’t know that.
Guys becareful when you say anything “bad” about Japan, they might think you’re Korean. Shhh……
Wiesunj, your post was the perfect example of how pent up, frustrated “Koreans” express themselves. You must be Korean!

By: shakuhachi

shakuhachi — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 05:31:37 +0000

The above post is me.

By: matt

matt — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 05:30:55 +0000

Miyako Masuda has been fired from the middle school in Adachi-ku for discriminating Half-American student.
http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~no....._index.htm

She is typical pro-Pyongyang teacher. (ex:Japan teachers union)
She sent letters which insulted the Half-American student’s family to all the parents of the school.

Her student describes “She was insane”
http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~nomaki/oshiego.html

A student asked “Why are you always talking about Amrican troops?”
Masuda said “You are moron”
http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~no.....ikata.html

Gorea, thanks for the interesting link. For anyone that wants to know, the site tells of egregious abuses by Japanese teachers of the civil and political rights of their students, often politically motivated.

It doesnt matter if you agree with the personal opinion of this teacher or not. She badly abused her students by forcing them to take a political position that many probably did not want to take. It was extremely inappropriate behavior, and she is unrepentant. I hope they never allow her to be in the classroom again.

By: mae

mae — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 03:08:09 +0000

kushibo
i checked but could not find relevant english documents. anyway if you can read some japanese, please google ?????and you can find tons of pages, and you really dont want your kids being taught by her for sure.
please dont consider her an innocent peace loving history teacher.

By: jtb-in-texas

jtb-in-texas — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 09:51:06 +0000

As with any teacher being fired, there are more details than those published on the internet.

Japanese hubris brought the diastrous defeat in 1945. Since they apparently didn’t learn the first time, they’ll repeat.

Heck, their economy is poised on a knife edge, ready to implode like the Korean economy did in the late 90s…

Wait a few more years and you’ll be ablew to trate won and yen at 1=1…

Because of false pride…

By: Kushibo

Kushibo — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 00:59:29 +0000

Do you have anything in English on that?

By: Gorea

Gorea — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 23:56:31 +0000

Miyako Masuda has been fired from the middle school in Adachi-ku for discriminating Half-American student.
http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~no....._index.htm

She is typical pro-Pyongyang teacher. (ex:Japan teachers union)
She sent letters which insulted the Half-American student’s family to all the parents of the school.

Her student describes “She was insane”
http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~nomaki/oshiego.html

A student asked “Why are you always talking about Amrican troops?”
Masuda said “You are moron”
http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~no.....ikata.html

By: kushibo

kushibo — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 16:37:48 +0000

Virtual wonderer wrote:
I think it’s kinda sad that a lot of Korean people won’t be reading this news. Had the Japanese teacher told the kids to write a letter to Roh, “Takeshima is ours!” I think a lot more people would have read it.

I’m not so sure it hasn’t been in the media. But if it does end up there, I think there would be a lot of people focusing on the incendiary stupidity of the Tokyo councilman’s remarks just as much as what Ms Masuda did about them. Then there’s the whole issue of what then happened to her.

I don’t think there are a lot of positives for the average Korean to extract from this story. If anything, it illustrates why and how Japan might be going to the far right in a handbasket.

By: kushibo

kushibo — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 16:32:42 +0000

I think the lack of good analogies simply underscores that looking at the Korea-Japan problem in American terms (I’m not saying “American” to exclude everyone else, but virtually all of the analogies have been America-related) doesn’t work very well.

Stuff is too far away from the collective memory, few acts came even close to Imperial Japan’s horrific misdeeds during the first half of the 20th century, especially where America was the aggressor.

By: Sonagi

Sonagi — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 12:12:41 +0000

Ms. Masuda’s class letter on Japanese colonization obviously hit a political nerve. However, she also directly criticized a government official who’s still in office. That is a big no-no for teachers.

The war with Mexico is a forgotten conflict for Americans, whereas the wounds of WWII still fester in Asia.

If Ms. Masuda had written a letter to Koizumi in support of Intelligent Design, she probably would have been pulled from the classroom for teaching kids pseudoscience.

Relations between Native Americans and Whites are still an issue in states with large reservations; The hypothetical letter to the mayor of Gallup could anger parents and put the teacher’s job in jeopardy.

A closer analogy than the ones given by Virtual Wonderer would be a Korean teacher having her students write a letter of apology to Bush over the tearing down of MacArthur’s statue. Imagine how the Korean teachers’ union would react, considering their recent infamous video.