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Abstract
This study focuses on the life history of a Japanese teacher who was actively involved in social and educational movements in the 1960s. There are traditions of teacher resistance against social oppression worldwide, and this study brings forth one such example in Japan. This study highlights how one teacher, collaborating with his colleagues, parents, and students, opposed dominating forces, such as the government and big corporations, and tried to practice education for freedom: Education that would enhance children's development so that they learn how to struggle against oppressions they face in the society. The story also reveals fierce conflicts of interest of people influencing and being influenced by educational policies. This study challenges the image of teachers in Japan being passively obedient to bureaucratic control and depicts teachers as socially active members of a community.
Notes
1. Italics are my own to indicate that knowledge needs to be scrutinized, rather than be taken for granted.
2. Soon after the war ended, Zainichi people started the ethnic education movement and built Korean schools in their communities. Despite the general headquarters (GHQ) attempt to destroy the movement and discrimination deeply embedded in Japanese society, Zainichi people continue to provide the ethnic education to their children. Because Korean schools do not follow the National Curriculum, the Ministry of Education refuses to acknowledge Korean schools as “legitimate” schools, hence they are not eligible for financial support. Their struggle to maintain their schools financially and politically continues even today.