＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
I have doubts about the response of the Kobe City Board of Education and the school to the “teacher-to-teacher bullying” incident that occurred last year at Higashisuma Elementary School in Kobe.
1. The Reality of the “Teacher-to-Teacher Bullying” Issue
This is clearly a criminal offense and cannot be dismissed as “bullying.” This is especially true because it is not “child bullying.” Furthermore, it is a heinous crime committed by a teacher in a position to educate children.
(1) Coercion: Forcing the victim to eat extremely spicy curry, even though the victim did not want to eat it.
(2) Damage to Property: Intentionally damaging the victim’s vehicle.
(3) Defamation: Publishing a video that was humiliating to the victim.
(4) Insult: Publicly insulting the victim on school grounds.
(5) Obstruction of Business by Intimidation: Inciting students to disrupt the victim’s class.
(6) Assault or Injury: In addition to physical assault, causing severe physical and mental harm to the victim, resulting in depression
2. Questionable Response by the Kobe City Board of Education
I believe that teachers who engage in such mob lynching should be immediately dismissed and criminally charged, but the Kobe City Board of Education and the school have not responded appropriately. I believe this is an incident that should be treated as a warning to others.
I believe this is a manifestation of the long-standing “protective mentality” and “cover-up mentality” that exists in government offices and schools. Surely this would be unacceptable not only to the victimized teacher, but also to parents, Kobe residents, and the general public.
Furthermore, the measures taken by the Kobe City Board of Education after the incident were so haphazard and misguided that they leave one scratching one’s head.
(1) Measures to Remove Curry from the School Lunch Menu
Curry was removed from the school lunch menu, citing the “psychological impact on children” of this “incident of forcing super spicy curry on children.”
Furthermore, curry was later reinstated following protests from parents. This is a haphazard, irresponsible response that leaves one scratching their head as to what they’re thinking.
(2) Measures to Introduce “Private Company Training” for Teachers
The Kobe City Board of Education has decided to introduce a “Private Company Training Program” starting in the 2020 school year. The goal is to “apply corporate know-how to school classes and operations.”
Elementary, junior high, and high school teachers will receive training at approximately 100 companies, including Kawasaki Heavy Industries and JR West, for three days during the summer vacation. Starting next school year, this training will be introduced for newly hired teachers.
The reason given is that “a closed environment is one of the causes of teacher-to-teacher bullying,” so the idea is to have students learn about society at a private company. However, the summer vacation is a busy time for private companies, with many employees also taking their summer vacation, so this is a huge inconvenience for them.
This simply seems like a simple, irresponsible approach to “leaving it all to others,” which means simply handing over teacher training to private companies and calling it a day.
Shouldn’t the Kobe City Board of Education take the lead in coming up with a substantial and robust policy for teacher re-education? Furthermore, the Board of Education should take responsibility and implement thorough training to thoroughly reshape the character of all teachers, except for the perpetrators in this case, who became teachers after becoming adults without their “bullying mentality having been reformed.” The perpetrators should be brought to strict and fair justice.
Furthermore, the Board of Education’s lukewarm response to the perpetrators seems to be due to an overly strong sense of camaraderie, or simply a desire to protect themselves so that their own management responsibilities are not held accountable. The fact that such an incident occurred is deplorable and evidence of a decline in the quality of teachers, and the Kobe City Board of Education’s educational, supervisory, and management responsibilities must be severely called into question.
3. The response of Higashisuma Elementary School’s current principal, Nio, at the press conference is also questionable.
The victim teacher reported the incident to the vice principal last July, and Principal Nio heard the report. However, he merely issued a verbal warning to the four teachers and did not report it to the Board of Education as problematic behavior, instead suppressing the incident at the scene. As Principal Nio was previously vice principal at the same school, he should have been aware of the details of the incident; in fact, he is in a position where he should have been aware of them.
He held the press conference with a “non-concerned” expression, as if to say, “This incident has nothing to do with me,” but he showed no sense of responsibility, which leads one to question his management skills as vice principal and principal.
4. The integrity of the former principal, who used the “Kobe Method” to poach the teacher who masterminded the mob lynching, is also questionable.
I believe he has a responsibility to publicly explain why he poached the perpetrator teacher.
In order for the Kobe City Board of Education to check whether teacher transfers under the “Kobe Method” are appropriate, there should at least be something like a “selection statement” outlining the reasons for recruiting the offending teacher as an excellent teacher. I believe the Board of Education should make this public.
If nothing like this exists, it leads one to suspect a system that mixes public and private matters, like a “trade” in which principals at each school nominate and arbitrarily recruit “teachers they like” to their own schools.
The Kobe City Board of Education has decided to abolish the “Kobe Method” from the 2021 school year. However, absent personal relationships such as “connections” or other special circumstances, it is puzzling how a principal at a school can know whether a teacher at another school is excellent in the first place.