講評 |
Congratulations to the Stevenson Seminar members of the graduating class of 2018! More than any previous seminar, you included field research in the writing of your graduation theses, covering great distances to make observations and conduct interviews and surveys.Befitting a university and department that value the moral dimensions of education, what nearly all of your theses have in common is the explicit or implicit focus on ethical issues.This includes several theses that look specifically at human rights education, as well as theses that looked at the status of Japanese-Koreans, the treatment of foreign workers in Japan, the depiction of Chinese in Japanese textbooks, the education of“gifted”children, and the educational emphasis and meaning of shutaisei.Those theses that are less explicitly focused on morality examine alternatives to mainstream education, exploring topics such as language immersion education, project-based learning, and the charter school phenomenon.In all cases, you looked for ways to improve current educational practices.Finally, each paper contains sections that are thoroughly original,evidencing the effort to either work with new topics or take new approaches to more familiar themes. Naturally, in addition to the normal challenges of researching and writing, all of you wrote your final papers in English using at least some English-language materials.I am proud of your work and convinced that the process of researching and writing has enrichened your intellectual growth. |