I keep meaning to blog, and I keep thinking about blogs in my mind, but I never seem to get around to actually blogging. I wonder if my students ever actually feel like this. I think part of my problem is that I have two blogs, one for my IES class (this one) and one for my English II classes. I think I would put all the blogs together if I ever do this again.

Anyway, the thing that has been burning in my mind lately is the issue of academic freedom. I heard that another teacher here at Kansai Gaidai had been teaching the class about the Nanking Massacre and one of the studnets took an article home about the Nanking Massacre. Anyway, I guess the father of this student didn't like the article, so he complained to Kansai Gaidai that the teacher was forcing the students to study a controversial issue. To make a long story short, the university then spoke to this teacher and repremanded him for the way he was teaching the class about this issue. Needless to say, I was a little bit shocked about the entire thing. To imagine that a teacher cannot teacher any position he or she wants to teach is unfathomable to me in a university setting. If the student doesn't agree with the teacher, then the student is perfectly able to disagree with the teacher by presenting the opposing viewpoint. As I teach in my class, there are many sides to every issue,　and everyone is free to disagree with everyone else. That is the way that knowledge is created in the classroom. To be silenced, I think, is the worst thing at all.

I remember reading somewhere (John Stuart Mill, I think) that freedom of speech is absolutely necessary in a society. For example, I may be complete right, and the person I am speaking to may be completely wrong, but only through the process of dialogue can I be sure that I am right. Or perhaps I am completely wrong and the other person is completely right. I can only learn if we are all free to express our opinions. Or maybe I am half right, and the other person is half right . . . it is only through dialogue that we would be able to put our two halves together and come up with the whole truth. If the process of dialogue and understanding is not gone through, then beliefs become dogma without any reason behind them.

Additionally, if the boy's father disagreed with the Kansai Gaidai teacher, the boy's father could have explained his own position to the son, and then let the son decide what is the truth about what happened in Nanking. Forcing someone to believe something is not the way to do it.

Anyway, if this were to have happened to me, and I found the university against me having academic freedom, I would be shocked beyond words. As it is now, I am merely flabberghasted, yet, cynically not so surprised.