ARW 5/22 Response

ARW 5/22 Response

We had our class at Bakayama. The first thing we heard from Rab was stupidity of the ELA Director. I can accept the fact we are not able to observe other ELA classes, although I was interested in this idea and have already signed up for Miguel's class, as long as an appropriate and convincing reason was given. Her answer was that students in Stream 3 and 4 could be possibly demotivated from our higher levels of English. This is not so convincing. When I heard this, I thought her opinion symbolizes currently popular "Yutori Kyoiku", or relaxed, overprotective education. I believed that professors at ICU know this policy is ineffective, but there was one who does not. I might not be able to be objective about this issue because I am the one who gets to observe them, but still I don't understand why she has a right to make this decision by herself. I mean, she is the director but isn't she supposed to pay attention to all other people's opinions? In fact, many ELA teachers were willing to carry this out, and what she really should have done is conducting a survey on students in other sections. It does not have to be anything official; each teacher could just ask his or her students if they allow us to observe them. Before considering any of these solutions, the director shut this opportunity down. I personally think she does not deserve to call herself a professor. According to Rab, it's been only 5 weeks since she got her position. She might know what ELA stands for, but definitely does not know what "liberal" signifies.

What is even more upsetting is that Rab does not get to teach Stream 1 next year. I would like to question this to all other ELA teachers too, but I do not understand why they do not prefer the way Rab teaches. Since I got into Stream 1, I've learned a lot: a bunch of Google programs, Zotero, iMovie, flaws of MSM, Web 2.0...I can't even recall everything. His segmentation method always made the class interesting and intriguing. It was the first time for me to take English class that does not involve any grammar rules or boring repetition of readings and writings. And they are not letting him teach next year and replacing with someone less enjoyable. This is a complete nonsense.