1998 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
The Cultural Study on Theories and Methods of Learning in the Tokugawa Period.
| Project/Area Number |
08610255
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Educaion
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| Research Institution | KYOTO UNIVERSITY |
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Principal Investigator |
TSUJIMOTO Masashi Kyoto University, Graduate school of Education, Professor, 教育学研究科, 教授 (70221413)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1996 – 1998
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| Keywords | Kaibara Ekiken / method of learning / sodoku(plain reading) / writing practice / proficiency / terakoya(writing school) / imitation / Confucian learning |
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| Research Abstract |
The aims of my research are the followings. 1, Inquiry into the various methods of learning in the Tokugawa period. 2, Analysis of the discourse of scholars in their texts. 3.Clarification of these theories in their cultural context.
I clarified the circumstances of learning in terakoya(writing school). In terakoya, the writing (training for a good handwriting) was much more important than the reading. In this writing, students imitate their teacher's examples repeatedly. This practice was not only for learning letters, but also for acquiring ordinary writings. The terakoya students spent a long time for the self-studies, but not so much for the inspections by their teachers. In this sense, the practice in terakoya was not an uniformed teaching but an individual learning. Terakoya was a place for the technical education of all kinds of writings.
Confucianism provided another model of learning which emphasized the importance of the thorough reading of classics(the Four Books). Soduku (the
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first stage of learning in the Confucianism model) is the plain reading of these classics of Confucianism by children. In this sodoku, young students read texts in a loud voice and commit them to memory. Sodoku is quite different from "modern reading." I argue that sodoku is an "em-bodying of the texts."
The next stage is Kougi. Kougi refers to the "discourse of the meanings" of the classic texts. It is not the same as today's "lectures" oral uniformed teaching). Kougi is an individual teaching. The last stage kaigyou, collective study, is the group reading and discussion of Chinese classics.
Kaibara Ekiken discussed a tenet of these methods in his writings. Ekiken wrote many plain texts for the learning, and made tenets of Confucianism easy to understand for ordinary people who desired for the learning. Furthermore, he elaborated a tenet of learning methods which puts stress on the proficiency in the writing and reading acquired by the practice of the bodily imitation. I argue this tenet is one of the cultural traditions in Japan. Less
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