Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Rewarding moment

Today I had a fantastic day teaching my Contemporary Japan students.  The discussion went particularly well this week; it was energetic, interactive and fairly critical. 

The key point of the session was to question the definition of the term 'freeter' to see how a particular social classification in general can change from one context to another (e.g. Japan vs Australia).  

While navigating through the key themes, I threw in few questions to let them to consider the term's fluidity and arbitrariness; Could 'freeters' exist in Australia? How would social stigma attached to the term/classification be re-configured in a different cultural/historical/national context? 

With their willingness to participate in the discussion, I was able to give every single student a chance to talk about their thoughts and stories about the topic during the class.  The open-discussion that I facilitated enabled them to share different points of view about issues, such as working conditions, life styles and definitions of happiness, while also letting them to evaluate other people's opinions about those issues. 

The greatest moment was when the time was up but then there were still some students who were raising their hands to say something that has yet to be said.  The conversation continued and different points of view were added.  That was indeed a rewarding moment that I embraced and want to remember as an educator. 

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