This chapter analyzes how Japan’s traditional strengths—moral discipline, early education centered on reading, writing, and arithmetic, and a high standard of social conduct—have been undermined by the adoption of foreign educational models. It highlights the decline caused by policies such as early English instruction, IT-centered curricula, and imitations of Finnish or Western systems. The text emphasizes that Japan’s historical excellence over centuries stemmed from consistent national standards and disciplined primary education, and warns that abandoning these foundations threatens the country’s future.

Japan overwhelmingly surpasses other nations in moral norms, compassion, and what is called civic character.
There is no country that matches Japan in discipline, consideration, and empathy.
This was written on May 10, 2024.

The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
The emphasis in the text is mine.

Global education is a lap behind.
Fujiwara says he studied in the United States and the United Kingdom and traveled around the world.
He noticed something.
Japan overwhelmingly surpasses other nations in moral norms and compassion.
There is no country that matches Japan in discipline, consideration, and empathy.
Chinese people have almost none of these three.
Americans and British people will be kind if you explain, but they do nothing if you remain silent.
Forgetting this superiority and merely imitating foreign countries is dangerous.
No matter how much English is learned, it does not lead to national prosperity.
The United Kingdom, which continued its decline throughout the twentieth century, proved this dramatically.
They are the people who speak English better than anyone else in the world.
However, their economy is weak outside of finance.
Translation and interpretation can be handled by specialists.
English and business have no inherent connection.
It does not make one an international person.
Among American university students, perhaps only one in ten can be considered international.
Interestingly, as far as he knows, Japanese people proficient in English tend to oppose English education in elementary school.
In elementary school, Japanese language comes first.
Those who lack English skills tend to force their children to learn it intensely.
A generation that forgot the Japanese way and bowed to English and IT tries to pass its inferiority toward the West to the next generation.

Fujiwara continues.
The sight of second graders across Japan learning the seven-times table at the same time is admirable.
This is thanks to standardized national textbooks and uniform instruction.
In many countries, educational content and standards vary by state and lack basic discipline.
Scholars in the West noticed this in the 1980s and began to say that they could not defeat Japan economically unless they imitated Japan.
However, Japanese education theorists read older Western papers and, from the late 1990s to the 2000s, promoted “relaxed education.”
When relaxed education was shown to be loosened education, the next trend became “Learn from Finland.”
Finland achieved the highest scores in OECD academic tests, which was the main reason.
Recently, this trend declined.
The reason is simple.
Immigration caused the level to fall sharply.
Even so, Japan says that China and South Korea teach English intensively from elementary school, and Japan must do the same.
Thus English, previously introduced from fifth grade, was moved to third grade.
Japan imitates countries with weak economies and no Nobel Prizes.
This is bewildering.
Japan jumps from one global education trend to another, such as IT and presentation skills.
They do not realize that Japan was overwhelmingly superior for four centuries, from the early Edo period until around 2000.
The essence of Japanese primary education lies in mastery of reading, writing, and arithmetic.
The most important is reading.
Children must pick up books.
Otherwise, the country will truly perish.
Believing that forcing children to learn English or IT makes them international or fosters diverse values is a simplistic view.
Education is far more difficult than economics or politics.
Keidanren or the government must not reform it on a whim.
This chapter continues.