Takashi Gohira - Retiring in AY2016

Looking back on my 30 years as a faculty member in the Faculty of Economics, what comes to mind is not so much a collection of memories, but rather a sense of concern I can't help but feel about the temperament of today's students. Many of them will likely work all over the world after graduation, but will they be alright?

Most of the students I interact with at the Hiyoshi Campus are minors. It's unreasonable to expect them to possess the knowledge and culture of their elders, so my concern about whether "they will be alright" doesn't stem from their lack of it. I entered the Faculty of Letters at Keio University in the year Yukio Mishima committed suicide. The level of my own knowledge and culture back then was probably not much different from that of today's students. However, 45 years have passed since then, and I feel there is a clear difference between students of the same age then and now. As I approach retirement, this is something that still weighs on my mind, and I'd like to write a little about it.

At that time, in a French literature class, a professor said, "Keio students, just by walking on the Mita campus, can sense and become imbued with 'modernity' in its free academic culture. There is no other university like it." For that professor, a researcher of modern French poets who knew France well, this must have been a tangible reality. Regardless of the talk of "modernity," what I could feel as a 20-year-old was simply that Keio was a free school. I never felt the presence of any rules governing student life in my daily routine; I just spent my days reading books I liked and diligently studying French, so it was certainly free. The question "Is this the 'modernity' the professor was talking about?" never even crossed my mind. However, a few years later when I began living in a dormitory at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, I didn't feel any gap at all between those two schools. If "modernity" was born in Europe with France at its core, then Keio University must have had it, or at least it's true that it was enveloped in that atmosphere. In that free, modern atmosphere, both the students who attended class regularly and those who didn't were full of intellectual curiosity and studied hard.

Three years after returning from my studies abroad, I began teaching French at the Faculty of Economics. The students were excellent. My impression was that they were very smart. For French exams, if the questions were ordinary, everyone would get the highest marks, so I would prepare a set of difficult questions as a challenge. But most students could handle them. So, I decided to assign five or six French novels and essays available in Japanese translation and have them write long reports, reflecting the quality of their work in their French grade. There were no students who complained, asking, "Why do we have to read novels, biographies, and history books for a French exam?" All I had to say was, "It's no good for someone learning a foreign language to have no interest in or knowledge of that country's culture and history, is it?" I still remember a student who read Victor Hugo's epic novel "Les Misérables" and wrote a 50-page report from an economic perspective. I was taken by surprise and marveled, thinking, "So this is another way to read it!"

After about 10 years of this, a voice was raised: "Why do we have to read books?" It didn't take long for this small, hesitant voice of resistance to swell into a chorus of "We absolutely refuse!"

Wasn't it around that time that we started hearing faculty members frequently say things like, "Today's students don't know anything, they lack intellectual curiosity, they show no motivation"? And I feel this general trend has become more pronounced with each passing year. Of course, there must be a certain percentage of students who are not like that—it would be a problem if there weren't.

I think today's students have it tough. They are expected to acquire knowledge and culture covering various fields from a young age. We have entered an era where it is no longer enough to simply immerse oneself in the 'modern' atmosphere that envelops the campus. I can only wish the best for all those who will live and learn at Keio University in the future.

(Interview conducted in January 2017)