An elementary school and community in a remote rural village (Kanayama, population 400) of northernmost Japan (Hokkaido) are the dramatic focus of this highly professional documentary video. Filmmakers from the University of Alaska Museum organize their images to show an elementary school year, following the rhythms of the seasons. Harvest, snow, New Year's and graduation festivals frame the seasonal sections. At the end, we are reminded of remote bureaucratic controls over the school as the beloved principal, after two years in the community, is reassigned to a distant city school.
We do see lively kids, respectful and ever ready to speak out in public and school ceremonies, who entertain local elders, and cooperate in school tasks such as cleaning the school building. We hear from the articulate and philosophical principal, who feels that "School is where kindness should soak through." He is echoed by dedicated teachers, concerned parents, local leaders, and older people who contrast the present with their past. Teachers and parents have become more like friends than disciplinarians. All agree that the most important goal of the school is to develop children's individual spirit and "heart" in their entry, via the school, to "society." No one is willing to put academic knowledge and test preparation ahead of the social goals. Building a community through school friendships and activities is the curriculum. Cooperation, not competition, is expressly valued in the work of the school.
The narrative is spoken by adult informants and translated in subtitles. The only English one hears is in a fifth-grade English class--a unique curricular addendum since in the national curriculum English is officially introduced as a subject in the middle school. Though unsaid, one suspects that the "foreign teachers" referred to by the children are the unseen filmmakers. Some messages are conveyed by visual means, including a delightful sequence of the principal and a teacher doing their morning physical exercises in the hallway while children follow their teachers in their individual classrooms. There is a radical egalitarianism here that defines everybody as a full participant in the school community--which is often extended to include local elders, as well as parents, in school celebrations.
The title, "Heart of the Country," is taken from the traveler and poet Basho, whose quote opens the film.
Culture's beginnings;
from the heart of the country
rice-planting songs.
It is a nostalgic vision of the simple agrarian origins of a society, which the filmmakers seem to appreciate as much as the contemporary Japanese public. Even though we see dairy farming, rather than rice-growing, the community appears as an harmonious ideal of Japanese culture. One farmer recounts how his friends helped him to rebuild his barn after a disastrous fire. The title in English (but not in Japanese) carries the ambiguity of "country"--is it the heart of rural, or national, settings that is implied?
The adults recognize, however, that they are far from the mainstream of Japan. One mother worries about how her child will fare in the competitive society of the big city. Not everybody expects their children to stay in place--though the dairy farmer hopes that his son will follow him on the farm. The school does not represent the modal reality of Japan, even while the ideal images are more widely shared. Average class sizes of Japan (40 or more) do not compare with classrooms with only a few students. The sheltered rural lifestyle is found only in a few remote places. Most Japanese will never set foot in such a place, not only remote, but cold and snowy for much of the year. One is tempted to speculate on a comparable representation of school life in America--perhaps an Alaskan bush village as the "heart" of our country?
Nevertheless, much of what is said in the film is the same as my interviews more than 35 years ago with similar people in a community much closer to Tokyo and more typical of Japanese schooling. Parents comparing their children's schooling with their own said much the same things--though a number added criticisms of student disrespect for teachers and the "friendly" relations which teachers wanted with their students. "A little more kibishii (severity) would be better," they said. Then, as now, a request to compare their own school experience with that of their children led to an outpouring of educational philosophy. The formal New Year's party for teachers at the principal's home was exactly what I experienced.
Educational uses for this video could well include university classes in comparative education, educational anthropology/sociology, and Japanese society. It shows the school as an institution that reflects the assumptions and structures of Japanese society. It is, in itself, a model of how one might inquire into the myriad connections of a school with its community. I would encourage viewers to figure out the unstated questions of the filmmakers--both those that underlay the larger project and those questions not heard as people responded to interviewers not shown in the film. Because the film is not child-centered and does not focus on children's perspectives of the school, it would not have as much interest for children. But it is an excellent antidote for a narrow educational interest in Japanese children's high rates of academic achievement.
