Learning by Taking a Leave of Absence and Going Abroad: An E-mail From Ghana

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Do you remember a student I introduced on this site some time ago who took a leave of absence from school and went to Ghana?(ref.1).  The purpose of his visit was to participate in an AIESEC program in Ghana. AEISEC (Japan Office) is a student-run organization from more than 100 countries that focuses on creating youth leadership development, offering young people opportunities to be global citizens.  This particular student sent me an e-mail from Ghana. After staying in the capital, Accra, for about 10 days he described what he saw, felt, and learned as being much more than he expected.

After sending me this message, he traveled to the northern parts of Ghana and stayed there for about 3 weeks. He returned to Accra and sent me another e-mail.  I could sympathize with his long silence, since I too, while traveling in Ghana(ref.1,2), had a difficult time finding internet access, even in first-rate hotels.

His e-mail was as below:
●I spent some time at a rural village located in the northern part of Ghana and am now back to Accra.  I chose to go to this village because I wanted to learn more about Ghana, and a farming village seemed to be a good place to see the poorest part of this country.  There, I started to observe distant affects from our development aids which I would not have known had I not gone to this place in person.

●I assumed this village to be highly dependent on the aids from the NGO, since I was told that this village was poor, even by Ghana’s standards. However, they were apparently self-sufficient people.  They hunt chickens running around in the village, grow corns, yams, vegetables, beans.  They are not at all in hunger.  When they need cash, they get them by selling things to passengers on the buses that stop by their village occasionally.  Men do not seem to have particular jobs, they love to play board games, or just hang around all day.  Women, on the other hand, appeared to be busy farming, cooking, doing laundry…

●There is a primary school in this village, but since only two teachers are taking care of all 6 grades, their workload seems to be very heavy.  The fee for school seems low, but even so, some children were not attending.  Financial excuses were not so much the explanation for not attending school as the need of parents for domestic labor (mostly doing laundry).  As a foreign person, I worried about their lack of education, since I had been taught that, ‘if you don’t learn English, your perspective of the future will be very narrow, and you might end up staying in this village your whole life’. But this anxiety seemed to be pointless to them. For them, they probably figured understanding the local dialect would be sufficient for their long tradition in living a self-sustained, local life in their village.

●The most shocking of it all was to feel that the activities of the NGO that was so instrumental in my travel, was not so appreciated by the villagers. This NGO is run solely by the money of its founder.  The salaries of the local staff also come from the founder’s pocket money.

●This NGO is working to support developments through agriculture, and is currently focusing on rice planting.  Their plan is to get the villagers involved in this effort.  So, they are donating used tools, giving text books and providing uniforms to village school.

●I was impressed with the volume of the donation and support, but, strangely, no one in the village seemed to be truly thankful of the NGO.  Rather, their attitude implied a stance of ‘It is not because we are in need, but because they offer it us that we accept their aid’.  Maybe this lack of appreciation is due to the fact that this NGO is run by its owner’s pocket money and so the support is given according to the needs that he perceived from from an outsider’s viewpoint.  In other words, he gave what he wanted to give.  In a way, he did not try to understand the true needs of the villagers, or try to support them as one of the foreigners.  Actually, whenever I talked to local NGO staff or villagers and said ‘I think our NGO is doing a great thing!!!’, all I got in return were smiles, not agreement.

●Through this observation, I strongly felt the difficulty of giving support to the people with respect to the values they live with.  It is easy for us, people in developed countries, to point out the ‘needs’, as we see, of the developing countries.  The lesson I learned was that whenever we seek to build relationships with developing countries, we must always be careful not to become ‘preachy’.

●Another thing I noticed by staying in Ghana is that African people do not think ‘being different’ is a bad thing.  In Japan, if someone can not do things as you do, the most commonly heard comment is; ‘You can’t do even this?  What a shame.’  If someone is not capable of doing things that you can do, then you take it as their failure because you think they should also be good at what you do.  In short, we see what is different from ourselves as being not good. However, during my stay, the Africans were very kind to me.  They always tried to find cool tree shade for me, and cared much about my appetite.  ‘You are Japanese, you come from where food and climate are so different’, they said, and treated me, a foreigner, with respect to the differences that I hold.  They never made me feel bad because of I was different from them.

●So, as for the ability to accept different values, and the ability to build relationship with respect to those differences, I came to think that Japanese is far behind African people.

I was happy that this student sent me such a long e-mail to share his thoughts with me.  Although I trust that many ODAs are aware of such issues and they take them into considerations before putting their plans into actions, there is still much to be done in terms of understanding the value of local people, and the way they feel about our aid.

Regarding the activities of ODA, Dr. Toshiharu Yamamoto provides lots of good information and also points out many local issues in his blog.  Here, I found many observations similar to the student. In my mind, what really counts is whether or not you have been to the country, whether you have a sense of that place, and whether you will take actions.  It is by these measures that you will be judged in the future.

Going to the area and having first hand experience during early stages of your life, such as this student did, can be very helpful in the process of building your career.  Of course, you could choose to go through tons of research before you go and I wouldn’t deny the importance of ‘careful planning before taking actions’, but quite often, excessive prudence ends in inaction ? that is, with nothing being done.  It seems to me that the power of putting things into action, as this student demonstrated, is hopelessly lacking in Japan today.

There is more value than you think in lessons you gain through actions, and I recommend actions particularly to the young generation.  Understanding the local situation by being on the site and having your senses refined is not something you acquire overnight.  I am confident that this student will continue to grow, because through this experience the way he sees the world has changed, his point of view has become much broader, and without doubt this will work positively in his search for his dreams and in his efforts toward his goals.

A week after his return to Ghana, this student sent me an e-mail saying, “In just one week I came to feel that I became friends with so many people, that I am connected, and the world is going to change.  I am filled with so much wonder.”

With telecommunication technology ?e-mails, cell phones, and websites ? you can sense the powerful connectivity.  Indeed, today, this world is one world.

‘Book Return’ Project: Let’s Support Learning For All

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I assume that you remember my postings on ‘Learning for All’ (Ref.1).   Mr. Matsuda and his colleagues are working hard every day.

I think this activity will become one of the major movements for creating a positive cycle of change in Japan for the future.  If you look at Teach for America’s 22 years of history  in the United States, it is quite clear that the outcomes stemming from it are extraordinary.

Raising funds to support Teach for All is a very difficult task.  Hard work does not necessarily mean enough funding.

Because of this, Mr. Matsuda and his colleagues have been trying to think of ways to lessen the expenses. One idea is the Book Return Project  (in Japanese).  This project is basically about recycling used books.  As you see at their web site (in Japanese), the books can be of any category.  If you have more then 5 books to give, the Yamato Transport will come to your place, pick them up and will deliver them to the Project collect.  All you need to do is fill in the form and call the organizer.
 
What a beautiful idea this is to support the future of less priveledged children.

Such small things accumulated become a forceful power in making children’s future bright.

Here is my message of support to Learning For All:
By teaching, you teach yourself.
Education for poor youths, by youths.
Through this youths will grow to become true leaders.

Learning For All – Anyone can participate in this fantastic project. By participating you are taking part in that which will trigger a positive cycle for the future by educating children and nurturing youths to become leaders.

Hot Youths Helping Themselves to Create Careers

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As I have written on many occasions, today’s Japanese youth is not in as bad of a place as you think (Ref.1). They are just perceiving the world differently from conventional Japanese views, and therefore are taking courses of action that diverge from traditional paths.

I hope you remember Mr. Saisyo (in Japanese), a Waseda University student who took leave of absence from school and founded the ‘Dragon Cherry Blossoms E-education’ in collaboration with Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. I have great respect for his work and so I’ve written about his story and his progress in many different entries (Ref.1, 2). 

After being on ‘sabbatical’ for two years, he has returned to school. To hold his place, Waseda charged him 100,000 yen (1,200 dollars) for each year of absence.  I do not agree with this policy. It seems to me the University should encourage such experience by reducing the tuition. Still, Mr. Saisyo’s friend, Mr. Miyoshi (in Japanese), is now traveling around the world to discover his passion for the thing he really wants to do in his life.

I spoke with Mr. Saisyo soon after he returned to Japan. I listened to the difficulties he faced, learned of all the plans he worked on, and discovered how though his work was very challenging, the tasks were extremely rewarding. He also told me that after spending 2 years in Bangladesh, he is able to see that the focus and seriousness between the teachers and the students at Waseda is severely lacking.

Recently, I introduced another group, Mr. Matsuda  (in Japanese) (Ref.1) of ‘Learning For All’  (in Japanese) and Ms. Muto, a proxy for Mr. Fukazawa, the secretary-general, to speak at a 2 hour meeting hosted by the National Institute for Educational Policy Research of MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology).

 They spoke about a new organization that will appear in Japan soon. ‘Learning For All’ is a new project in Japan that is a prerequisite to associate with ‘Teach for America’, a highly respected organization  amongst American college graduates of which I wrote about 2 years ago.  Teach for America is a body of outstanding college graduates from all different backgrounds. They commit to two years of teaching in urban and rural public schools of underprivileged communities of USA, abecoming leaders and broadening opportunity for themselves as well as for the students they teach.  Still in it’s infancy, Mr. Matsuda and his colleagues plan to test and prepare the details and operations of ‘Learning for All’ for two years before making ‘it a public opportunity in Japan.

In the beginning of the meeting, the officers at MEXT were curious about many things. In particular, they wanted to know why Mr. Matsuda began such a project and how it could be funded.  But as they listened to Mr. Matsuda, they gradually understood his passion and the deep implications such an organization could have on the Japanese youth and education.  I felt this visit very worthwhile.  Thank you all for your time and commitment.

As adults, it is our responsibility to help youth with dreams and passion explore as many paths as possible and to alleviate whatever obstacles might be in their way  They will benefit from our helpful guidance, but to block their way is a sin.  Big cheers to all the youth!!  I ask you all to please join me in supporting them in becoming diverse and impassioned. . They are our only future.

 

Welcoming Mr. Kohei Nishiyama at the Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus

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This semester, I am conducting a course on ‘Innovation in Globalization’ at Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus. (Ref.1)

As I have previously reported here, I recently was traveling outside Japan for a duration of two weeks. Because of this, Dr. William Saito  and Mr. Kazuhiko Toyama (in Japanese) kindly helped me with my course and delivered exciting lectures to the class in my absence.  Just after the October 13th class, I called from Seattle and thanked them.

This week, on October 20th, my guest was Mr. Kohei Nishiyama of Elephant Design.  He delivered  a very stimulating lecture about his business and on how he founded such an innovative enterprise that incorporates unique global vision and processes.

If you are interested in hearing this lecture or another from previous weeks, all of the lectures from my class are online in Japanese. They have all been extremely informative and I recommend that you take time to watch them.
・ Dr. William Saito
・ Mr. Kazuhiko Toyama
・ Mr. Kohei Nishiyama

After class that day, I went to PASONA’s head office in Tokyo to give a lecture at the joint session by Osaka University Graduate School and PASONA Career Juku.  This was again a very exciting session.  Mr. Nanbu, the CEO of PASONA, is a wonderful business leader.  He designed a program to support young professionals find jobs by providing them opportunities to learn business skills through hands-on experience.  By providing such opportunities, Japanese youth gain invaluable knowledge about what they want to do in their professional life. It is important to participate in this sort of activity in anyway possible.

Supporting and encouraging Japanese youth to build their careers is crucial for the Nation to prosper.  Elders must never try to discourage youths from dreaming. The more repressed children and students are, the less chance there is of this portion of our population to reach their full potential. If a country is dominated by adults who only want to fit youth into a preconceived box, limiting opportunity and growth, then the future of the country will not be promising.

So I encourage you all to invest in our young people.

GLOBE Live 2010

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'GLOBE'  is an eight-page long special brochure created by the Asahi Shinbun, a widely distributed newspaper.  Twice a month on Monday mornings these stylish brochures appear and cover various topics of the world. As you have read in one of my posts on GLOBE (Ref.1, 2), I was invited to write some articles for them.

The title of my article was "Why University of Tokyo is Poor in Producing Nobel Laureates – Blame Goes to the Easy Going Conditions of the '4 Lines Professors' " (in Japanese) . The  term '4 lines professors' seemed to have been a catchy expression, and the editor received many comments from the readers.  However, my primary message was to 'Make the Best Use of Human Resource' – one of my core themes which I have been writing about repeatedly in my website.

Another nice thing about the 'GLOBE' is that everything is On-line. (in Japanese)

On Sunday, October 17th, I was invited to 'GLOBE LIVE 2010' (in Japanese) held in Tokyo to celebrate its 2nd anniversary (the 1st anniversary took place in Nishinomiya, the western part of Japan…).  The venue was packed with guests.

The programs were fantastic (in Japanese); the guests were interviewed, there was a performance on the piano by Mr. Takatsugu Muramatsu, (Ref.1 in Japanese) and during intermissions, songs were sung by Ms Miu Sakamoto.  The  interviews started with myself, followed by people such as Mr. Atsushi Ogata,  a multi talented film director 、Mr. Dai Fujikura (Ref.1), a composer, Mr. Steve Yamaguchi, (in Japanese), (Ref. 1 in Japanese), (Ref.2) , Ms. Sakie Akiyama (in Japanese),   (Ref.1 in Japanese), (Ref.2),  Mr. Hiroshi Watanabe  (I have introduced him to you as one of the '7 samurais') . It was a breathtaking list of talents of which I am humbled to have been included.  These people are all introduced in the GLOBE, so please see their web site.  The host of this event was Ms. Maki Nomura of Asahi Television (in Japanese) ,and editors of GLOBE, Asahi Newspaper.

Overall, the production was conducted nicely and with good tempo. I fully enjoyed this event.  Thank you to all who participated.

(I removed the sentence about the reception because it seemed “anti-climactic and to derail attention from the event itself)

Below are some of the blogs commenting on this event.

． http://legendokiki001.at.webry.info/201010/article_1.html　
． http://changemylife.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2010-10-17　

It would be great to have English version On-line report on 'GLOBE LIVE 2010' .  I am looking forward to seeing it.

 

 

Speech on Healthcare Policy

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My reports are somewhat delayed than usual, but I have returned home on October14th from a slightly long travel which started on 5th.

Next day in the morning, at the Denmark Embassy in Tokyo, I gave speech on ‘Healthcare Policy for the Aging Society’ to the audience of about 30 or so of legislators and other members of Denmark’s delegate visiting Japan.  I was told that  Ambassador Melbin  (Ref.1) and the audience enjoyed my speech.  (by the way, around April or so, I went to see the Ambassador to talk about the World Cup; and, of course, the Japan-Denmark match….)  The discussions in Seattle turned out to be very helpful in preparing my speech.

After leaving the Denmark Embassy, I headed to Haneda airport to fly to Matsuyama.  The Panasonic Shikoku in Matsuyama is focusing on healthcare and they asked me to speak on topics on ‘Healthcare Policy for the Aging Society’.

I was being so focused on this theme for these days, so I was able to learn much from these events, and also was able to develop new ideas.
 
Developed countries share common challenges; ‘1. Continuing growth of the aging society, 2. Chronic diseases as a major disease burden, and 3. Public funding for healthcare being hard to increase’.  I have written about the framework of my ideas in many occasions, and my view remains essentially the same as of today.  What I think is uploaded in recent On-line article of Nikkei (in Japanese), so please have a look.

These are without doubt one of the top priorities of political issues today.

 

The 100th Anniversary of the Swedish Hospital in the beautiful City of Seattle

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Recently, I have posted a series of reports from Seattle. The distinguished Swedish Medical Center (SMC), one of the oldest organizations in Northwestern America, invited me to participate in their 100th Anniversary celebratory Symposium (Ref.1)at the Bell Harbor Conference Center.  Since I have been interested in their activities for quite some time and the proposed program was quite impressive, I thought this was a good opportunity to experience SMC first hand. The overall theme was local health care systems, particularly in the Northwest regions of America. Experts in various fields joined to speak about their experiences so that they might apply their findings to the ailing American health care system.

The Symposium opened with these videos (Ref.1). I had the pleasure of being seated at the same table as Ms. Lisa Cohen, the Executive Director of the Washington Global Health Alliance and who appeared in the latter video. We spoke and found we had several friends in common. I enjoyed our conversation immensely and discovered that apparently she began her career as a journalist.  

Each person was wonderful in his or her own way. Aside from those in my field of medicine and health care, I was particularly impressed by Mr. Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric. There were also two congressmen from Seattle who appeared in the panels, Dr. Jim McDermott (Ref.1,2) and Mr. Jay Inslee(Ref.1). Their speeches were very inspiring and innovative.

I found the lectures so intriguing that I ask the organizers of the Symposium to let me know when the rest of the lectures are available on the web.  I would very much like to share them with my friends and the visitors of my web site.   The photos from the Symposium is uploaded on the web already.

There were many debates and conversations had throughout the Symposium, and though there were many things discussed, there were twelve ideas that seemed to be more or less ubiquitously agreed upon. 

Because the Symposium was located along the waterfront of downtown Seattle, I was able to take short walks between sessions. Luckily, the weather was bright and sunny. I enjoyed the views of the Puget Sound, and of the Olympic Mountains. I also stopped by the original Starbucks in Pikes Place Market. I also stopped in at the Seattle Aquarium and saw a variety of fish (I happen to quite like aquariums).  Also, as reported in my previous postings, I met several Japanese students (Ref.1,2) who took leave of absence from school and are currently studying in Seattle. Over the course of two evenings we had a wonderful time together during dinner.   In closing, I found Seattle a beautiful and tranquil city.

‘Recommendation to Take Leave of Absence from School’, Seeing Students….’, A Follow Up of Follow Up from Seattle

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Today is the last day in Seattle.  I found an e-mail message when I returned to my hotel room from the meeting.  It was from the senior student at Keio SFC (Ref.1) who is now studying at ISAYA, University of Washington  for a semester of 6 months.

The message went as follows;

? “How do you do?  I am a senior student at Keio University SFC.  Please forgive me for this abrupt contact.
? I am currently studying at University of Washington in Seattle, taking a leave of absence from school.  To my regret, I was not able to join the dinner you had because I did not find your message in twitter early enough.
? If you plan to have another such gathering, I would very much like to join.“

So, I quickly responded by e-mail; ‘I am having dinner with your ‘senior’, a Keio alumnus, so why not join?’; ‘Thank you. My class will be over in an hour, so I would be happy to join you then..’

It took a while for him to come because he took a bus, but he managed to arrive in time to the Waterfront Seaffod Grill  His ‘senior’ whom I mentioned, is Dr. Kubota, the founder of a Biotech Venture ‘ACUCELA’, formerly an ophthalmologist graduating from Keio University School of Medicine.  Another guest is Ms Claire Topal  of ‘National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR)',  an organization that started in Seattle, whom I have been working with for these 4 years.

Just as we were having a good lively conversation in Seattle, in Japan, my course at the Keio SFC was being held.  Today, the guest is Mr. Kazuhiko Toyama, well known for his open and frank remarks such as in his books; ‘Yubi ippon no syunen ga shyobu wo kimeru (A finger-tip of obsession decides the winner)’ and ‘Kaishya wa atama kara kusaru (A company will rot from the head)’.  I made a phone call to find out how things were going at the class, thanked Mr. Toyama over the phone and we had a good conversation.  Truly, the world is one world, and things are getting so convenient.  Lectures in my course are posted on this web site for free viewing.

I advise you all to go ‘out’ of Japan, just as this student at Keio did.  Something good will happen.

 

“‘Recommendation to Take Leave of Absence from School’, Seeing Students….”, A Follow Up from Seattle

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In my last posting, I have reported to you about seeing and having dinner with three Japanese students in Seattle.

Two of them posted columns about our dinner on their blogs.  They even had photos uploaded.

I will introduce to you their blogs here for you to take a look; Ms. Tomo and Mr. Miyamoto  (both blogs are in Japanese).

I could see from the students’ comments  (in Japanese) that Japanese universities, probably because of lack of experience, are having a bit of difficult time trying to organize the procedures for student’s taking leave of absences.  However, if more students go on to file in the applications, I think university administrations will eventually learn to handle them more efficiently.

By the way, it seems that quite many private universities charge considerable amount of tuitions even while the students are on leave.  This is stupid.  Universities are halls of education more than anything else.  I strongly wish such weird thing as putting the cart before the horse to be stopped.

The objective of education is, after all, to encourage the youths to seek their potentials, and to support their future.  It is a pleasure and a vitalizing experience for me to read the writings of the students who are currently on leave of absence, as those whom I have introduced to you today.

 

‘Recommendation to Take Leave of Absence from School’, Meeting Students Who Took Leave of Absence From School and Are Studying in Seattle

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I posted in my twitter from Toronto that ‘I will be leaving for Seattle.’  Two Japanese students (one of them is a graduate student) currently studying at the University of Washington  in Seattle sent me responses via twitter.  I replied on the spot and we arranged to meet in two days.

On the evening of 10th, the day of my arrival at Seattle, we had a dinner at The Edgewater Hotel (top photo) where I stayed.  One more student joined and four of us had a good time together.

Two of the students were juniors at class of undergdates.  They took leave of absence from Japanese university and are studying here from this September.  Since their home university will not admit credits earned at University of Washington, they decided to take leave of absence.  However, I am sure that they are having opportunities to study many things, and moreover, will be able to acquire broader perspectives, to see Japan and themselves in the global framework.  They will also build networks of friends from all over the world.  All of those things are very valuable for their future careers.

One other student, a graduate school student, is doing research for one year.  She said that she enjoys being here very much.  She also feels that things are very different compared to Japan.  That reminded me of a student I saw at Harvard University this January, who was a Post-doctoral fellow, saying that ‘So far, in the not so many years I have lived, having earned Ph.D. in Japan is the only thing that I regret.’  I think this young doctor was able to feel that way because he was in a US leading university research environment where MDs and PhDs from variety of universities gathered as Post-docs; the ‘Place’ for ‘open competition with many MD and PhD peers from different insitutions’. ‘A frog in a well does not know the great sea’ – just as the proverb goes.  I expect a lot from you, all professors and teachers of Japan. ‘Students are Mirrors that Reflect Their Teachers’ – your ability as a mentor/educator/researcher is judged by the PhDs you have supervised.

By the way, I hear many comments worrying about Japanese youths not going abroad, but we should also be aware of the fact that the number of researchers going abroad is also sharply declining. (in Japanese) This is horrible.  Do professor want to keep their students under his/her supervision as subordinates?   The two Japanese Nobel laureates  of this year also have overseas training as their backgrounds, I understand.  One of them built his career in the U.S.  Professors of Japanese Universities, I urge you to encourage youths to mix with other students or researchers for training and competitions as samurais did.  ‘If you love your child, let him/her travel (kawaii ko ni wa tabi wo sasero)’, ‘speech by Steve Jobs of Apple’…their points are all the same.

The three students seemed to be enjoying their leave of absence from school in Japan.  It may be a rare but a great opportunity to find your ‘self’.