4月20日月曜日の読売新聞に「読解力向上　教育の責務」と題する記事がありました。劇作家の山崎正和さんの文章です。

 文部科学省の求めるものに賛成できない面もあるが、文部科学省の真意も忖度しながらと前置きして「文部科学省の本意は、実社会の役に立つ国語教育を目指す、という点にあるとみられる。文豪の高尚な叙情や哲学ではなく、簡明で実用的な文章を教えたいということではないだろうか」と言っています。

 　私も大賛成なのですが、残念なのはこれが2022年から始まる高校国語の新指導要領の話だということです。高校国語に選択科目「論理国語」が新設されるという話なのでした。私はこれが小学校国語の話ならば大賛成なのですが。

 　山崎氏は国語力を伸ばす方法として２つの提案をしています。その一つは正に拙著「見たこと作文」の考え方です。しかも福沢諭吉が慶応義塾の生徒に教えた、「描写する訓練」として紹介されています。

 「福沢はどこにでもある人力車を取り上げ、それを見たことのない人に分かるように文章で描けと命じた。そこには情緒も哲学も入る余地はなく、ひたすら即物的で、しかし多様な語彙の柔軟な駆使が求められる」

　まさに「見たこと作文」ですよね。福沢諭吉も同じことを考えていたと思うと嬉しいですね。

 　「プレバト」という番組が好きで良くみますが、その中に俳句のコーナーがあります。芸能人がある課題に対して俳句を作って順位を競うのですが、夏井いつき先生が俳句を評価するのです。これを何回か見ていると俳句も「見たことかぁ」と思えてきます。五七五の短い言葉でイメージが伝わることが大切なようです。やはりイメージを伝えるということは大切なのですね。

 　国語力を伸ばすもう一つの柱は長文要約だそうです。これも大賛成です。人の話を聞いたり、文章を読んだり映画をみたりしてもそれを短く的確に伝えるのは難しいですね。でも、要約をしようとすると文章を書いた人の考え・論理の進め方が良く分かるようになり、自分の話し方にも文書にも影響がでてきます。

 　「見たこと」で表現力をつけることも、長文要約も大賛成ですが、これ、高校の国語の話ですか？といいたくなりますね。

See below for the English version

On April 20^th an article appeared in the Yomiuri Shimbun with the headline, “Improvement of Reading Comprehension a Duty of Education”. It was written by the famous playwright Yamazaki Masakazu.

Although there were some aspects of the Ministry of Education that he could not agree with, when writing about their intentions he said, “The Ministry seems to be aiming for language education that is suitable for real life situations found within society. Rather than the flowery prose or deep philosophical pondering of literary masters, they feel that clear, concise, and practical language should be taught.

Although I agree wholeheartedly, these changes unfortunately won’t go into effect until 2022 and, in addition, will only be implemented into new curriculum for Japanese classes in high school.  To do this, they will introduce a new subject,“Logical Japanese”. I would be in favor of introducing this into the elementary curriculum as well.

Mr. Yamazaki proposed two plans to help improve the level of Japanese ability in education. I’m proud to say that one of those was a writing style similar to my own “Mitakoto Sakubun”. He introduced “Byosha suru Kunren”, descriptive writing, which was personally taught to students at Keio Univeristy by Fukuzawa Yukichi.

According to Mr. Yamazaki, “Fukuzawa would challenge students to describe a rickshaw, a common mode of transportation at the time, to someone who had never seen one. In doing so, they were not allowed to attach personal experience, emotion, or philosophy to it, just an honest, practical description. Word choice was left up to the writer but was encouraged to be flexible and diverse.”

This sounds a lot like “Mitakoto Sakubun”, don’t you think? I was really happy to find that my way of thinking was in line with Fukuzawa Yukichi.

There’s a TV program that I’m quite fond of called “Prebato” in which they have a  segment dedicated to haiku. In it, TV personalities are challenged to write a haiku on a specific topic and are then judged by essayist Natsui Itsuki. Every time I watch this segment I can’t help but think how haiku is also very similar to “Mitakoto Sakubun.”. As you know, in haiku it is important to convey an image using only three short sentences in the syllabic pattern of 5,7,5. Alas, the image we create with our words is very important.

Mr. Yamazaki’s other proposition was to focus on the ability to summarize large bodies of text. I also agree with this proposition. Being able to effectively summarize someone’s speech, an essay, or even a movie is a skill that is more difficult than it seems. However, by summarizing the words and works of others you are able to get a better understanding of the people who created them and that in turn will have a positive influence on your own speaking and writing.

Should exercising descriptive writing through practices like “Mitakoto Sakubun” or learning how to better summarize be restricted only to high school classes in Japan? That is the question I would like to ask.