The Anti-Missionary Position

[djgizmoe]

It's "publish or perish" time in the djgizmoe household, and this time I'd like to tackle a topic that's actually interesting, namely content-based EFL college classes in Japan that focus on world religion. If anybody has any links or book/article/survey recommendations concerning:
1. Japanese (student) attitudes (or lack thereof) towards religion(s)
2. How missionaries integrate religion into EFL
3. Atheist/humanist perspectives on teaching religion
4. The teaching of world religion in general

then, let me know. And for those bored by my post, well, you can look at the pretty picture.

[Neo-Rio]

I think you'll find that most Japanese people consider religious people to be whacked out freaky otaku who do weird things, like aum shinrikyo - not too dissimilar from the freaks at harajuku (but at least they don't bang on your door and offer you toiletp... I mean pamphlets.)

Japan has "moral studies" in school though. That basically consists of reading stories about people, ijime, war time experiences, etc and getting the kids to discuss it. However, the kids usually don't discuss it and the teacher is forced to rant on about it for hours. Moral studies has a reputation in schools as the best class to go to sleep in.

The temples here are just for praying, only because every one else does it on New Year and it's a tradition more than anything else. In general there are not many people into religion heavily at all. People are too busy just looking after their own behinds, with creeping schedules and busy work days.

If there was a religion of Japan, it would be called "sleep". You can see people doing the ritual on trains in the morning, and to many is regarded as a heavenly experience.

Seriously though, if there was a religion in Japan, I think it would be extremist confucionism.

[dimwit]

The private religious based high schools in Matsuyama (there are 3 of them - one catholic and two protestant) do teach religion. A friend of mine who is an Anglician Minister taught at one of the protestant schools, but he was not a missionary.

In the public school system knowledge of religions is astonishingly poor (or more accurately on thew same level as their knowledge of WWII).

[NeoNecroNomiCron]

Reverse-cowgirl?

[djgizmoe]

The private religious based high schools in Matsuyama (there are 3 of them - one catholic and two protestant) do teach religion. A friend of mine who is an Anglician Minister taught at one of the protestant schools, but he was not a missionary.

Teach religion (aka Christian studies) or world religion? I noticed on Amazon that there were several books on using the Bible to teach ESL (which seems pretty bizarre to me), but hardly any texts on even general education of world religion.

In the public school system knowledge of religions is astonishingly poor (or more accurately on thew same level as their knowledge of WWII).

Yeah, I've been here almost seven years, and taught at both junior highs, eikaiwas and uni, and that's my general impression as well. Know any books/articles/links that spell it out in print? Japanese links are ok...

[dimwit]

[NeoNecroNomiCron]

Withdrawal Method.