The first English teacher in Japan
… was called Ranald MacDonald (no relation to the most famous American clown in Japan*, I believe) and was also the first English teacher to discover that Japan can be both an adventure and safe and pleasant, being at least as useful to the Japanese for sending positive reports back home as he was for telling them about the rest of the world and “internationalizing” them. Sounds just like the average JET teaching assistant.
Other interesting similarities and differences include:
“With a respectable education and a gentle presence, he was clearly a cut above the usual rough necked castaway, and he was put to teaching”(quote from this month’s Economist magazine)
How the status of English teachers have fallen! But just as in those day, US sailors (nowadays US Marines) do still make us look slightly better than the worst gaijin, and replace “respectable education” with “any degree” and “gentle presence” with “not scary” and that is still what Japanese students and immigration are after in a teacher.
The fact that students came to be taught by him in his cell does remind me slightly of my first year of Eikaiwa too…
More on the interesting life of Ranald MacDonald on (where else) Wikipedia, or in this month’s bumper Xmas Economist magazine for the thick of wallet and alert of brain.
* Called Donald MacDonald in Japan, apparently to avoid pronunciation difficulties.
January 10th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
So you read that great Economist article too!
Expectations for teachers might have remained similar, but the goals of students might have changed a bit. Studying abroad, traveling, and perhaps working outside of Japan might be more 21st ambitions than early 19th aspirations.
Perhaps I’m biased since I only meet Japanese students who have decided to voyage to Los Angeles to pursue their studies. They might be the rare exception in Japanese classrooms.
Thanks for the post and additional information on the first ESL teacher in Japan!
January 11th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Am I alone in suspecting that the very last EFL teacher in Japan will not be too disimilar?
January 14th, 2008 at 12:21 am
As historically the aim of Japanese institutions has always been to learn everything from foreigners and then send them home, “The last (native speaker) English teacher in Japan” could well be a post for the year 2100.