| Popis: |
The author has been involved with educating early-childhood educators for the last 40 years. Approximately 20 years ago, the enthusiasm of students to acquire the necessary knowledge and techniques they needed to become early-childhood educators began to decline. Though there was no doubt that, after graduation, these students did in fact intend to become early-childhood educators. One did get the sense that they realized the importance of study, of practicing their piano lessons, etc. Unfortunately, however, it would be difficult to conclude that they were making dedicated efforts to achieve their goals. If this does not change in the near future, there is a danger that parents will no longer feel comfortable placing their children in the care of such people. The emergence of this issue likely has something to do with problems related to “raising children” from the time they are infants. The issues that Japan has been struggling with in recent times ―urbanization, the increased number of “nuclear” families, the low national birth rate ― have resulted in children having extremely few chances to play to their heartʼs content and instead help out with household tasks and chores. Meanwhile, there are more and more places that offer education, including early-education and attendance at juku (so-called “cram schools” or courses). The author, whose specialty is Buddhist students, considers these trends to pose serious problems. The Buddhist position is that there is an intricate relationship between the working of the mind and physical activity, as exemplified by Buddhist ideals of shinjin ichinyo (perfect mindbody unity; in Zen, this is called gyogaku ichinyo, which refers to the unity of practice and study). In Zen teachings, there is also includes an term called samu; Although this term is often translated to mean “work” in English, it also includes an element of “education” together with the idea of “labor” (in early-childhood education, this can be translated as the term o-tetsudai, which is used with children to mean “help out” or “give a hand” to someone, or to do something). This study aims to clarify the problems lurking in contemporary early-childhood education from these Buddhist perspectives. |
