April 30th

Today's LLA lecture was done by our lovable teacher Rab with the stream 2 students. It was funny how most of the stream 1 students gathered up at the back of the room knowing that Rab will pick on us during class. Anyways, the topic was about propaganda. In his lecture, he mentioned the different types of propaganda that we need to be critical about. First came ownership. The role of the authority plays a great part in the selection of information for the reason that the owner can make decisions based on his/her own preferences. Second was advertising. Since media receives a great amount of money from advertisement, they have the power to persuade them to kill certain stories in order to keep profit. Third was access. The accessibility for upcoming interviews may be limited by any disturbing news about that person. Therefore, media will try to select information in order to protect future opportunities. Forth was flak. Choice of news may also occur as a mean to avoid undesired lawsuits, and negative publicity and threat. The last one he mentioned was ideology. Media will not expose certain information that would worsen a particular person's reputation. The video that he showed of Berlusconi picking and actually eating(Gross!) his nose was really entertaining!How Rab explained each factor along with a Japanese example made me comprehend better because it enabled me feel the topic much more closer.

No one can deny the massive influence that media acts on our daily life. Mass-media such as newspapers, internet, and television programs are so close to us that we cannot avoid getting affected by them. It is the fault of those media sources that block us from accessing accurate information. However, it is impossible to ask them to quit modifying information in this profit-centered society. Censorship is inevitable. Therefore, all the receivers of media should take this propaganda for granted. Instead of blindly taking in whatever information we can get, we must take a closer look into that piece of information and identify it more deeply. We must constantly pose the question "why?".This process of will enable us to acquire multiple viewpoints, and mostly importantly, the ability to think critically.

April 29th

Today's class started off with Rab's feedback on our blogs. He mentioned how biases are not necessarily bad all the time. What we actually have to do is to identify whether that bias is acceptable or not. After knowing this fact, I came to understand how Loewen's biased view on racial minorities was acceptable. Although it may be true how slavery was quite common back then, Columbus' brutal domination over slaves and people from other racial minorities still cannot be justified because ideas that were against slavery also existed at the same time. For example, Las Casas opposed slavery and claimed the unfairness that slaves were undergoing. Therefore, this shows the acceptability of Loewen's suggestion of Columbus' brutality, which makes his biased view on racial minorities agreeable. 

Then we moved on to a discussion on the second chapter of the book. The first question was why do textbooks include the flat earth theory when it is so obvious that it is false? Our group's answer was to make Columbus more heroific and to give a better image of him as an explorer. The drawing that Rab drew on the white board about the theory was really helpful, and at the same time I was surprised of the simplicity and fragility of the theory. Next, the role of Catholic churches was put into discussion. In my interpretation, the catholic authority was used as means to justify domination over the Americas. In other words, conquest was taking place in the name of missionary work. 

Then came the most interesting topic of the day which was about culture. This topic was a familiar one since we all were able to relate to ourselves. For me, I feel that I am strongly influenced by three different cultures, which are American, Spanish, and Japanese. Since I spent my early childhood in the US, my way of talking and acting derives from the American side. Coming back to Japan at the middle of 1st grade, I struggled for a while to figure how the Japanese culture worked out. For example, to clean the classrooms by ourselves bothered me so much. I would always think "why do we need to clean when the school already hires a cleaning lady?!". This weird custom still remains as a mystery for me. However, concerning my family's background, it is inevitable for me to get influenced by this culture. As for my personality, Spain dominates a huge part of it. For instance, Spanish people are mostly loose in time and so am I. Overall, the conclusion is that I don't belong to any particular culture. And all the other members of the group also agreed. Instead, we should have a culture for the people like us so called the "returnee culture". I'm sure that the other returnees will also fit in to this one:)

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Chapter 2

This chapter focuses on Christopher Columbus's real history and the Eurocentric ideas that is hidden behind it. Frankly speaking, I didn't really enjoy reading this chapter. I strongly felt that Loewen's specialized studies on racial materials were excessively pushed out in front. However, it is true how the perspective from the racial minority side was completely neglected in many of the textbooks. Therefore, the information that he delivered in this chapter are things that we must know in order to do away with our Eurocentric historical interpretation. 

Inside the text, Loewen explains how current American history textbooks only offer inadequate amount of information so as to appreciate the full context of that period. He says in his chapter, "Our history books ought to discuss seriously what happened and why, instead of supplying vague, nearly circular pronouncements..."(35). For example, talking of Columbus, because textbooks wanted to put more emphasis on the "great discovery" that he accomplished, they failed to mention the descriptive facts about the European history of the time that would possibly give a negative image of Europeans(Americans). This concealment of the context leads to make the what and why connection of his great undertakings invisible. Moreover, Loewen points out that the way of representation of Columbus in textbooks somehow justifies domination. Despite the brutal attitudes and treatments towards the racial minorities (such as Indians, and African Americans) that had taken place during the process of domination, it is regarded as an essential and inevitable tool for the West to expand its power. Which leads to the widespread belief of Eurocentrism and disregard of racial minorities till the present. Furthermore, Loewen mentions many other accomplishments done by various nationalities before Columbus in order to illustrate the intentional selection of facts that are taking place in textbooks. They only designate information that are "important", however, those pieces of information turn out to be "important" for the only reason that they are done by white people. Here comes Eurocentrism again. The suggestion he made about the real definition of the term "discovery" was interesting for me, because this unleashed the fact that Columbus's great "discovery" turned out not to be a "discovery" at all. 

Although most of the points that Loewen made were based on racial materials, these facts were also one of the essential aspects of Columbus. The thing that caught my eyes the most inside this chapter was the countless portrait images of Columbus. I actually searched for his images using Google images (using the ultimate techniques that I acquired in last class! Yeah!), and look what I found! How can all these be one face of a single man?

April 26th

At the beginning of this class, Rab showed us how to use Google Reader and Feedly. We added everyone's blog from Stream 1A to our accounts and them sync them to Feedly. I also installed the Feedly app on my iPhone so that I can check out everybody's blog at anytime. Each time it makes me wonder if Google has any limits for its facilities because every feature that it has is just so overwhelming. The company even needed to make itself less convenient in order to be more profitable. How ironical. Next, he showed us the optical illusion test video of a women spinning. I had the weirdest experience of seeing a sudden change in the women's direction without any control in my head. Adding to it, here's another video that I found on youtube that tests you whether you're a left brain dominant or a right brain dominant, so try it out! After that, we searched through Google images to look for stereo grams, which was like the biggest struggle that I faced in the last few weeks. To tell the truth, I never figured out any of them. Despite Rab and Masamune's huge support, I wasn't able to solve any of them. I guess I'll need some more practice on being more creative, and being able to think in more three-dimensional. Then he showed the Mother of All Funk Chords video and the Angels on the moon thriving ivory video as a metaphor to demonstrate how our writings should be. In order to achieve a good piece of writing, we must choose the first-class information and mash them together and make them smooth, he said. I would like to keep this in mind and reflect it in my upcoming essays.

Rab's classes are always filled with new experience, knowledge and enlightenment. I wonder what will come next!

April 24th

In this day's class, we did a discussion about the first chapter of "Lies My Teacher Told Me". How Rab explained the differences between socialism, communism and capitalism at the beginning  of the class really helped me out since I didn't really get their differences. His explanation made me get a clearer vision of what the topic was all about. It was surprising to know that all three of them equally had both strong and weak points. Knowing that fact, I assume that Loewen's distorted views on socialism stem from his American identity. Although he picks too much on Helen Keller's later life as a radical socialist, he does make a point in that this truth was hidden from us, from the textbooks. The problem with textbooks is the selection of information. They designate and leave out certain information based on the criteria to make students feel proud of their own country, which generates the heroification of historical figures. However, the exposure of the history's truth is essential because truth makes students critical thinkers of their country. Moreover, it will give them an incentive to do more examination on their motherland.

Margaret Thatcher was shown as an example to show the influence of censorship of information on that figure's image in this modern world. Probably this doesn't really has anything to do with this whole topic but I personally related this story to Michael Jackson. Despite all the bizarre and disturbing stories about his personal life and constant criticism about him, he was praised as the "King of Pop" after his death. Well, I guess the example of Michael Jackson is kind of different compared to Thatcher because Michael actually had the exceptional musical talents, when I hardly hear any good stories about her.

April 23rd

Yesterday's LLA lecture was done separately from the stream 2 students unlike the last one, which made the whole lecture more interactive. Rab showed us how to make our arguments stronger and to perform well in presentations. In enforcing our arguments, he mentioned a number of types of evidence that we could use, including statistics, examples, expert opinions and so on. Each type of evidence was explained along with a concrete example or an actual demonstration of it which made me easy to understand them better. Moreover, Rab gave a few points of how to make our presentations more successful. Everything turned out to be useful for me since I didn't really get a chance to give any speeches or presentations when I was in a Japanese high school. 

Above all, Rab's presentation skills were amazing. I sometimes see him as the Scottish version of Steve Jobs (including his huge obsession with Mac computers). Haha!

April 22nd

In today's class, Rab showed us how to use zotero. I'm glad to know how to use this useful tool because I remember how it was such a pain in the neck to type in every single reference one by one including the numerous dates, authors, and titles when I used to write essays back in Spain. I regret myself for not knowing about zotero until present. I'm sure that my life would have been much more easier. Rab also mentioned that all he showed in class was only about 10% of what zotero can actually do, which made me really worried since I only fully understood about half out of that 10%! I guess I'll need some practice to get used to it.

April 19th

In groups of five, we discussed a few points on College Thinking by Jack W. Meiland. There were few interesting topics brought into it.

First topic was whether this whole College Thinking method of studying can also be applied to Japanese colleges as well or not. In my opinion, I felt that this whole text was written from the premise that all students and colleges had a westernized characteristic. For example, Meiland pointed out how all students must keep on asking questions to teachers and constantly be engaged with them. However, I believe that this is not applicable in Japan considering the peoples’ personalities and the style of teaching in Japanese colleges. In large-scale universities (like Waseda and Keio), most classes are held in about 400 students to 1 single teacher in a passive way. Moreover, if you think over the shy personality of the overall Japanese, it is unrealistic to expect to get the same out of them using his method. In this sense, I consider ICU different compared to other Japanese universities. ICU puts more emphasis on critical thinking and classes are done in small number of people. Unlike other colleges, this atmosphere allows students to be engaged in studying and teachers, and constantly to question the society. These factors probably make ICU more “subversive” in a good way.

Second topic was about belief and religion. Why can Meiland talk about belief based on evidence when he is a Christian? Can he prove with facts that god really exists in this world? This topic really made our group stuck in conversation. After some considerations, we finally reached to a conclusion: belief and religion are two separate things that cannot be mixed together. The former consists of the process of rational thinking when the latter is more spiritual. Religion is more of an inner and instinctive thought compared to belief. I know that I’m lacking in persuasiveness, but we simply needed more time to discuss about this topic more deeply!

I think that this discussion was pretty elaborate and thoughtful. It was also nice to hear multiple opinions from other people which broaden my view on the topic. Moreover, I appreciate my group members for making this text more interesting than how it really is. 

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Chapter 1

My first encounter with Helen Keller was when I was in first grade through a comic on her life. Reading comics on lives of historical figures was a trend at that time, and along many of the comics, Keller’s has always been my favorite. As a child, I remember being awed by her strength for survival and her firm convictions. Despite the negative aspects that the author delivers, I still believe that the hardships and endeavors that she faced remains the same and that there are many things that we can get out of her experience even if she became a radical socialist in her later life. However, it is true how the other side of her life remained in dark, when all this should have been taught in history class. At the same time, I was also struck by the author’s offensive attitude towards Socialism. Inside the text, James strongly opposes Keller’s later actions intending to bring about radical change in the American society. From a non-American perspective, I believe that his way of delivery showed excessive hatred towards Socialism. Well, I suppose that this viewpoint is natural for an American citizen.

Next, the chapter discusses about the former American president Woodrow Wilson. I have always related Woodrow Wilson with peace since he devoted in establishing the League of Nations, which led the way in receiving the Noble Peace Prize. However, the historically concealed points that James exposed totally changed the image. Although the author’s suggestions were mostly standpoints of the social minorities (because racial materials were James’ field of study), facts about his diplomatic policy and ideas based on white supremacy were surprising enough to turn down my peaceful picture of him.

Until I started reading this book, I thought that “heroification” of historical figures was not as bad. Good image in the past raises love towards the nation which can contribute to nationalism. Moreover, it also creates an inspiring role model which people can always look up to. On the other hand, the influence that it causes can pose a negative effect on our present. The present world will never improve unless we learn from the past because the relationship between past and present equals to the cause and effect relationship. In this sense, text books aren't doing a great job in providing students with the truth. If we want a better future, I guess we have to get started with giving out this book to every single student to spread the reality of history, instead of attending crappy history classes filled with made-up stories.