What Do Our Textbooks Really Teach Us?

These books are the devil's educational instruments.

When I was in high school, I participated in a homestay exchange in Japan. When it came my turn to host a Japanese exchange student in America, my guest brought with her a bizarre habit that I, and my entire family, have been wondering about ever since. It’s a well-known fact around the world that the Japanese do not wear shoes indoors. Even in many restaurants or workplaces (including my three schools and Board of Education office) you must wear indoor shoes or slippers, leaving your outdoor shoes in the genkan (entryway location for shoe-switcharooing). Despite this, throughout her stay with my family, this Japanese girl INSISTED on wearing her shoes in the house. My family, let it be noted, doesn’t wear shoes in the house. We take ours off and leave them by the door, as evidenced by the Amelda Marcos-worthy heap of footwear adorning our entryway. We could never figure out just why, in light of her cultural background and our obvious habit of removing our footwear, just why this kid refused to take her shoes off.

Now that I have moved to Japan and begun working as an English teacher, I have finally solved the mystery. Its answer is lurking on page 44 of the New Horizon English Course Level 2 book. This particular lesson is about doing a homestay in America, and offers cultural advice and rules. It also states flatly that in America, you must wear your shoes in the house. I have concluded that, thanks to New Horizon English Course, this kid arrived Stateside with the fear of God instilled in her about going sockfooted indoors in America. Because, you know, not tracking dirt through my house on an ongoing basis would most definitely amount to an egregious and offensive cultural sin. God bless the Japanese educational system.

This little gem, however, is far from noteworthy in the context of New Horizon. Along with a few other absurd moments (‘Oh no! My cola!’), the main lesson that most JETs will warn you about - and legitimately so - is Freddy the Leaf. If you’re considering becoming a JET, or already are one, take your senpai’s advice and read Freddy the Leaf before you get into a classroom situation. If your first encounter with the sheer absurdity of a six-page narrative revolving around a neurotic leaf’s struggle to come to grips with death, terminating in his inevitable frost-bitten autumnal demise, comes in front of 30 middle schoolers - trust me, you will lose it right there in front of the class.

Sadly for all of us, Freddy the Leaf is NOT the biggest doozy awaiting you in the treacherous pages of New Horizon. That award most likely has to go to the innocuously-titled ‘A Mother’s Lullaby’. Do not be fooled as I was. When I saw the title, I suspected nothing.

For some reason, my JTE decided that this day, it was appropriate to begin class by springing an impromptu karaoke session on me, sticking me in front of the class with a boom box and making me sing John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’. Why? That three-letter word, friend, should probably just be wiped from your vocabulary in this country. So we finish up with Mr. Lennon and proceed to start the class. Today’s lesson was a reading lesson, the story entitled ‘A Mother’s Lullaby’. I foolishly assumed it had something to do with kids, parents, and maybe bedtime. My JTE asked me to read aloud to the class, as usual, and so I blithely began.

‘A big, old tree stands by a road near the city of Hiroshima.’

I will give you three guesses where this is going.

This entire lesson is about the sad deaths of innocent young children in the holocaust of the Hiroshima bomb. To help the kids follow the story, the teacher put large picture cards up on the board, featuring such glorious images as mushroom clouds and a post-apocalyptic wasteland littered with corpses and scorched, shrapnel-peppered wounded staggering around with blood all over them and bones jabbing out. In the meantime, I’m standing in front of this feel-good picture show repeating words like ‘bomb’, ‘bodies’, ‘burned’, and ‘dying’ for pronunciation practice.

During a quiet moment while the kids were filling in a worksheet, I spoke privately to my JTE off to one side. I told him this lesson was a little awkward for me, as an American (the previous ALT was British), because my country dropped the bomb. I intended this as a gesture of sympathy and understanding. For whatever reason, my JTE interpreted it as a request to turn around and shout ‘Everyone! Attention please! Miss Amanda’s country dropped the bomb on Hiroshima!’.

Sofia Coppola’s choice of movie title to explain Japan could hardly be more apt. And for the icing on the cake? This lesson is really long. It will probably take us four or five class sessions to get through it.

Since beginning to work with New Horizon, I’ve begun reflecting quite seriously on just how many different levels our textbooks influence our thinking, understanding and assumptions about the world around us. From the shoe rule to the presentation and context given to Hiroshima, I think New Horizon is a more powerful tool than just a mediocre English text. I think it is also a means of cultural indoctrination and a reflection, for outsiders, of the internal Japanese mind. On a related note, it will also give you the impression that the Japanese really, really, REALLY like giving moral lessons through stories told by anthropomorphized trees. I have come across no less than three lessons so far featuring the emotions of talking flora.