6 February 2004 (14 Shvat 5764)
I wonder how many people could/can spend all their lives in the countries where they were born and how many people had/have to migrate to other countries in the past and in the present for political, economic and/or cultural reasons communally or individually. From the viewpoint of the former the latter may be exceptions rather than norms, but these exceptions must be quite large in number, especially in our era. Researchers may be more interested in this phenomenon in the macro level, but as a person for whom migrating from Japan has been a possibility for occupational reasons, I am more interested in the micro level, that is, what these people thought/think and felt/feel before migrating from the countries where they were born.
In the past (even until quite recently), when crossing the border of one's home country to migrate to another country probably meant an irreversible process in that one could not see one's home country again, migration must have been similar to death in a sense for those who would be physically separated physically, if not emotionally, by this fateful decision. Although physical borders between countries are not what they used to be thanks to the development of means of transportation and communication, I am not sure whether psychological borders have also been removed.
There are naive people who often call themselves "world citizens" and underestimate the centrality of states among all the possible affiliations we can have. Unlike an idealized world they imagine, in the real world where we live what passport(s) we have still have both practical and symbolical implications, whether we nativize in the country where we migrate and get its citizenship or not. So it seems to me that migrating to another country is like experiencing death in a way. I do not know whether I will have to migrate from Japan for an academic job as I will probably be unable to find one here in my area of specialty, but I am sure that if this possibility should become real, my life in Japan would not be the same.
13 February 2004 (21 Shvat 5764)
Strangely, what I say just in passing seems to interest my students more often than what I officially plan to teach. I have been wondering whether they are instigated by the way I speak spontaneously (and often passionately) or by the contents of what I say in passing; probably by both.
I include in the syllabus what I officially plan to teach, not necessarily because it interests me personally, but partly because I believe my students must know it, and partly because it is easier to formulate, hence easier to teach in the classroom. For this reason I am often forced to exclude certain things that really interest me but are difficult to arrange in a more "palatable" way. Of course, this does not mean that I am always successful in totally suppressing my interest in them. The smallest association with these suppressed topics is often sufficient in order that my interest in them may be rekindled suddently. As a person who is "good" at digressing I often find myself speaking about them spontaneously (and often passionately) in the classroom, even forgetting what I was talking about originally.
What surprises me recently is that such digression can often benefit not only my students but even myself. Seeing their positive reaction, I often reinforce my interest in those topics, which then prompts me to (re)investigate them more seriously.
Onomastics, proverbs and jokes, especially in their Jewish settings, are three recent examples, especially after I was invited to teach an intensive course entitled "Languages and cultures of the Jewish people" at Ehime University this week for the third time. I originally intended to include these three topics, but with my background in linguistics they turned out to be much more difficult to formulate in a short period of time I had at my disposal before the start of the course. So this time I gave up the idea of dealing with them systematically; instead, I only mentioned them here and there in passing. Nevertheless I received a much more positive reaction to them than to languages per se, which were the main topic of the course. Fortunately, I am asked to teach the same course at the same university in the next semester. So I hope I will be able to present these fascinating topics to the participants in a well organized way then.
20 February 2004 (28 Shvat 5764)
Since I started teaching in Japanese universities ten years ago, I have changed (and hopefully, improved) various aspects of my teaching. There is, however, one thing I have not changed at all, somehow taking it for granted: how to evaluate my students. In language courses I evaluate them on the basis of their participation in each lesson and the final examination; I cannot see any better way though there may be room for argument about the proportion of the participation and the examination.
On the other hand, in lectures (I have taught only those of introductory nature, such as introduction to Jewish languages (and cultures) and introduction to linguistics) I assign them short term papers instead of examinations. This is because I think it more important for them to learn how to think critically and express themselves formally than to memorize fragmented pieces of knowledge that may be forgotten largely or totally soon after the examination. Besides, I consider it an important learning process for them to find appropriate topics for their term papers by themselves; good answers presuppose good questions.
For two reasons, however, I have been wondering if this is the best method of evaluating participants in introductory lectures these days, especially after receiving and checking term papers from the students who took my courses "Languages and cultures of the Jewish people" and "Introduction to sociolinguistics" this semester.
Although I cannot find much positive value in memorizing something only for examinations, there is a minimal amount of basic knowledge in any academic discipline that is indispensable for producing something creative. I say this because I have noticed that some of my students write something in total oblivion of what I explained in the classroom.
Another possible problem is plagiarism. Although I cannot compare the references my students used and their term papers, I have good reason to doubt that there is some degree of plagiarism, sometimes even verbatim, because of what I wrote above; since authors of books and articles some of my students seem to have copied from have never attended my courses, the latter explain about something in their term papers as if it were the first time for them to encounter it.
So if evaluating them on the basis of their participation and term papers is problematic, what alternative(s) do I have? I will keep on asking myself this question, among others, during this spring vacation. Any suggestions?
27 February 2004 (5 Adar 5764)
It is ironic and sad that technologies originally invented for our benefit are so abused by more and more people for various reasons, whether commercial or psychosomatic, that they do not so much give us a benefit as cause us a nuisance.
Email, which I consider as one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century, is a good example of these technologies. If you have actively spent enough time on the Internet even with the utmost precautions for your privacy, you will start receiving unsolicited email messages sooner or later, and their number will unfortunately keep on growing, no matter what you do to stop them. I had to cancel my previous email account due to an intolerable number of these spam messages that inundated my inbox every day. Although I do receive several spam messages every day to my two-year old address, the mailer and anti-spam tool I use and recommend to others (Mozilla and MailWasher respectively) detect and hide/delete them from my eyes, so I do not become so frustrated or angry as I used to before I started using these programs.
Telephone is another example, but it has far more disadvantages. For this reason I have stopped using it as a regular means of communication except with my parents, sister and closest friend. I think that making a telephone call is a form of verbal violence in a sense since only one side has the right to decide when to speak though he or she pays for it. In this respect cellular phones are even more violent as you are forced to answer no matter when and where you are. Naturally, I am one of the last Mohicans with no cellular phone and with no intention of using one, at least in the near future. I always ask people with email addresses to contact me by email and not by telephone, so what few telephone calls I receive regularly are either from the above four people or from, alas, telemarketers.
Unfortunately, I have found no efficient means of preventing these unsolicited telephone calls or detecting them in advance unlike unsolicited email messages. I am not sure how these telemarketers found my telephone number, but I am aware and sorry that when I acquired my own telephone number more than ten years ago, I was not so careful about my privacy; registering my number in publicly available telephone directories was in retrospect the worst mistake I made. I have been bothered by a certain telemarketing company that has been pestering me with its persistent and frequent calls in spite of my repeated requests to stop calling me; I am afraid that I have asked this at least 30 times. I could not stand these calls any more, called the headquarter and asked them to delete my telephone number from their list. Time will tell whether this will work out or not.