“Seriously, it really is a free country over there. Compared to Japan, that goes for just about everything. Living in that kind of atmosphere, you understand how children can quickly be brought up to be cheerful. It’s completely different from somewhere like Japan, where parents want to send their kids to the best schools possible and drive them so that they’re red-eyed and jittery all through their upbringing. Especially considering how generous the mothers are over there, the fact that Japan has ‘Education Mamas’ (*) really seems like a problem. Especially one like ours….”
Keiji looked cynically up at the ceiling. His mother, Masako, was in his sister Eiko’s study room on the second floor, helping her prepare for next year’s high school entrance exams. Keiji had little love for academics, and Masako, who was infamous in their neighborhood as an Education Mama, had quickly washed her hands of him and immersed herself in teaching Eiko. In fact, it had been Masako who had forcefully encouraged Keiji to go to America – as if to say that his presence in the house would set a bad example. Today, too, only his father had come to meet Keiji at the airport. His mother, in the midst of study, hadn’t even come to the front hall to meet him, and had yet to come down from the second floor.
“Well, no helping it, that’s your mom’s purpose in life,” said his easygoing father, taking his pleasure with a cigarette.
“But seriously, it’s strange. The people in my homestay family said this a lot. True education is finding your strong point, even if it’s just one thing, and focusing on that. ‘Specialization,’ you know. And Japan, they say, aims for the average in everything all at once. If you do it like that, you can’t find your purpose, and it’s only natural for kids to lose their motivation. Much less if you’ve got an ‘Education Mama’ next to you, glaring at you and trying to cram as much as she can into your head.”
Here Keiji closed his mouth suddenly and gave a little shrug. His mother had come downstairs.
“Oh, Keiji, welcome home! So it was today you were coming back?”
Keiji met his father’s eyes with a bitter smile.
“Oh!” said Masako suddenly, and clapped her hands together. “That’s just perfect! Keiji, come spend some time with Eiko while she studies.”
“What, me?”
Keiji was startled. This was the first time he’d had such a thing said to him. In this house, Eiko’s study room was a kind of sacred ground, and even her older brother wasn’t allowed to just come in if she was studying.
“Come on already, hurry,” said Masako, beckoning to Keiji, and quickly went back up the stairs.
His father grinned and said, “Well done, Keiji. You’ve finally been upgraded to ‘teacher.’ It’s specialization, like you said. Setting aside anything else, when it comes to English at least you’re a specialist with on-site training.”
“Oh, I get it.” Keiji nodded and went upstairs and into Eiko’s study room. The floor was covered with a red carpet, and as always it was kept spotlessly clean.
Keiji hadn’t been home in a long time, but without so much as a hello Eiko looked into his face with a robotic gaze, and suddenly shoved a sheet of problems in front of his nose.
“For starters, try this,” she said in a flat voice, and gestured with her chin at the desk beside them.
Keiji, bewildered, looked at their mother. Masako, standing in front of the door with her arms folded, looked into his eyes and nodded with a satisfied smile.
“Even after two years of practical experience living in America, they want to test my ability, huh….” Keiji sighed and took the question sheet, his eyes not leaving Eiko’s expressionless face. Then, reluctantly, he turned to her desk and picked up a pencil.
When he looked at the problems, his eyes widened. He had assumed that it would be English, but instead it was a neat row of problems in math, his worst subject. At a glance he could tell that there were hardly any that he’d be able to handle.
“This…”
Even as he started to speak, Eiko’s voice came from behind him, addressing their mother. “I got over eighty percent on that. You’ve gotten really good at it too, haven’t you, mama. Compared to at first, when we could hardly solve any, we’ve really come a long way.”
“That’s not mama, that’s you, Eiko. It’s your growth. All I did was gain the ability to teach you how to study. But we can’t slack off. Our ultimate goal is to raise your children in the future to be top honors students who don’t lose to anyone. For that purpose, I want to cultivate in you an even stronger ability to teach as a coach at home. So, please turn into a top-class Education Mama. ...If you get to the point where you can even teach that Keiji, then you’ll finally be the real thing.
From now on, the teachers will teach and the students will be taught. None of that teaching each other, or distribution of duties, or ‘specialization.’”
<+ + +>
スペシャリスト － 津島偵二
アメリカでの二年間に及ぶホームステイからついさっき帰ってきた圭治は、コーヒーを飲みながら、父親に土産話を聞かせていた。
「いやあ、やっぱり自由だよ、向こうは。日本に比べると、すべてにおいてそう思えるね。あんな雰囲気の中で暮らしてれば、子供だってそりゃすくすくと明るく育つのも分かるよ。日本みたいに、親たちが子供を少しでもいい学校へやろうって目を血走らせてる中で、子供がびくびくしながら育つのとはぜんぜんちがうよ。とくに向こうの母親の大らかさを考えると、本当に日本の教育ママの存在なんてのは問題に思えてきちゃったな。特に、うちみたいに……」
圭治はそう言いながら、皮肉っぽく天井を見上げた。二階の、妹の英子の勉強部屋では母親の正子が、来年高校入試を控えている英子の勉強につき合っている最中だった。正子は近所でも評判になるほどの教育ママで、飽きっぽく向学心に乏しい圭治に早々と見切りをつけ、英子の教育に没頭しているのだ。すべてを、英子の勉強優先に考えているのだ。
今日も、父親だけが圭治を空港まで出迎えに来てくれて、勉強中の母親は玄関にも出迎えず、いまだに二階から降りてもこない。
「まあ、仕方ないさ。あれが母さんの生き甲斐だからな」
と、のんびり屋の父が、うまそうに煙草をくゆらせながら言った。
「でも、やっぱりおかしいよ。向こうの家族の人たちはよくこう言ってたよ。何かひとつでいいから、自分の得意なものを見つけてそれにうちこむのが本当の教育だって。スペシャリストってやつだね。日本は、すべてにおいてとりあえず平均点を目指すんだろうって。そんなやり方じゃ目的を見つけることもできなくて、子供たちがやる気を無くしちゃうのも無理ないんじゃないかってね。ましてや、『教育ママ』が隣で、少しでも多くのことを子供の頭につめこんでやろうって目を光らせてるような状態じゃあ」
そこで急に圭治は口をつぐみ、父親に、軽く肩をすくめてみせた。母親の正子が階段を降りてきたのだ。「あら圭治、お帰り。帰るの、今日だったっけ？」
圭治は父と苦笑いした顔を見合わせた。
「あっ」
不意に正子が声を上げて、ポンと両手を合わせた。「ちょうどいいわ。圭治、英子の勉強につき合ってやって」
「え、俺が？」
圭治はびっくりした。こんなことを言われたのは初めてだ。英子の勉強部屋は、この家の中でも一種の〝聖域〟のようになっていて兄といえども勉強中に間単に立ち入ることなど許されないのだ。
「いいから早く、早く」
と正子は圭治に手招きして、また、さっさと階段を上がっていってしまった。
父がにやにやながら、声をかけてきた。
「やったな、圭治。いよいよ〝先生〟に昇格ってわけだ。お前の言ったスペシャリストってやつだな。他のことはともかく、もうお前は英語に関しては、本場仕込みのスペシャリストなんだからな」
「ああ、なるほど」
うなずきながら圭治は階段を上がって、英子の勉強部屋に入った。赤いカーペットの敷きつめられたその部屋は、相変わらず綺麗に片付いていて、ちりひとつ落ちていない。
ひさしぶりに帰ってきたというのに、英子はあいさつもせずにロボットのような眼で圭治の顔をながめながら、いきなり一枚の問題用紙を彼の鼻先に突きつけてきた。
「じゃあとりあえず、これをやってみて」
抑揚のない声でそう言いながら、傍らの勉強机をあごで指し示す。
圭治はとまどいながら母親のほうを見た。扉の前で腕組みをしている正子が、満足そうな笑みを浮かべて圭治の眼を見ながらうなずいている。
「二年も実際にアメリカで暮らしてたっていうのに、力試しからやらされるのか……」
圭治はため息をついて、英子の無表情の顔をにらみながら問題を受け取った。そして渋々、英子の勉強机に向かって鉛筆を手に取った。
問題を見た途端に、圭治は眼を見開いた。てっきり英語だとばかり思っていたのに、そこには彼のもっとも苦手な数学の問題がずらっと並んでいるのだ。ちらっと見ただけで彼の手に負えそうな問題はほとんどないらしいと分かった。
「これは……」
と言いかけたとき、後ろで、英子が母親に話しかける声が聞こえた。
「採点したら八十点を超えてたわ。ママもすっかり実力がついたわね。最初のころ、ほとんど解けなかったのと比べるとずいぶんの成長ぶりだわ」
「それはママじゃなくて英子、あなたの成長なのよ。英子に勉強を教える能力がついてきたってことなの。でも、気を抜いちゃダメ。未来の英子の子供を誰にも負けない優等生に育てるっていう、わたしたちの究極の目的のために、あなたはもっともっと勉強を教える家庭教師としての力を養わないとね。超一流の教育ママになってちょうだい。……あの圭治を教育できるようになたら、いよいよ本物なんだからね……
これからの時代はやっぱり、教える方は教える、教わる方は教わる、お互いに役割をわきまえたスペシャリストでないとね」
2 comments:
This was a difficult story to translate. At first, because the story comes from a collection of short shorts with twist endings, and because the mother gets the final speech, I read this piece as a blockheadedly nationalistic, xenophobic diatribe against foreign judgments of the Japanese educational system. If this is an accurate reading, then it discourages me deeply that not only the author, but the editor of the collection, could have such wrong-headed ideas about how human society works -- given that the history of civilization has been one of ever-increasing specialization and the advantages it brings.
But given the impression in Japanese society of "kyouiku (education) mamas," perhaps the true interpretation is that this is a horror story. The reader isn't intended to share the mother's and Eiko's moment of triumph, but instead be horrified by the way the kyouiku mama mindset has turned them into inhuman monsters.
Either way, given Eiko's attitude, she's liable to be a complete failure at English -- if not in school, then certainly by the time she tries to teach it to her children, assuming she can find a man willing to marry her.
"Top-class education mama" sounds funny. I can't quite tell if it's supposed to be a literal translation of a Japanese colloquialism, or a dynamic translation into an English figure of speech.
What about "first-class," "first-rate," or "top-notch"?
The story doesn't have quite the punch of the other ones, but I'd say that's because the message is a little mixed. I don't see it as pitting specialization against generalization so much as one kind of specialization against another; namely, specialization of subject vs. specialization of natural giftedness. In that setup, Eiko shouldn't presume to teach everything because she's not an expert at everything, but she could presume to teach everything if she is, in fact, a teacher. It's not so different than what we demand of our primary educators, where we call on them for their specialization in the act of teaching, not in what's being taught. And you could be a specialist in, say, English, without being any good at teaching.
The brief glimpse provided of Eiko hints that she would be a boring teacher, but I didn't see enough to know one way or the other, so I don't see any glaring difference between the program laid down for her in the story vs. some of the teacher training programs here in the States (given the people who do, in fact, go into them and graduate from them).
It's that last comment: "The teachers will teach and the students will learn" that gives the greatest clash with the "anti-specialization" sentiment. Why should those two be opposed? "Let them teach their specialty (and eat cake ^^)."
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