Recently, I read the story "Totto-chan". The story is a short autobiography of the author's, Kuroyanagi Tetsuko, childhood and a tribute to the headmaster, Kobayashi Sosaku, of her elementary school.
The story talks of the values and the teaching system of Tomoe, the elementary school Totto-chan studied in. The teaching system in Tomoe is vastly different from society then and even now, and it gave the students the freedom to choose which subject they wanted to study first. The headmaster, Kobayashi Sosaku, was a man who studied eurythmics under Emile Jaques-Dalcroze in Paris and he implemented eurythmics in his style of teaching at Tomoe. Even through the immense fun that the students experienced while studying in Tomoe, they brought home more than fun but also lessons that benefitted them later on as they grew up to be adults.
In fact, studying at Tomoe was so fun that none of the students wanted to go home after school! They wanted to stay back in school and enjoy the lessons at Tomoe.
The friendship and bond that the children made during their years in Tomoe never diminished even though the school was burned down during World War 2. For years, even when they are now in their 40s and some reaching their 50s, they still meet annually and reminisce about the time in Tomoe and about their headmaster and his methods of teaching that groomed them to be the people they are today.
As I read the book, the fun, laughter and even sad times in the book brought tears to my eyes. It was like I, too, was a student at Tomoe and I really experienced such wonderful times there even though in reality I wasn't born yet. Experiencing what Totto-chan experienced in the book felt a little nolstagic, yet it brought about a tiny pinch of envy and dissentment with the system in Singapore. I wished I was like Totto-chan, blessed with such a wonderful headmaster and such fun and enjoyable ways of studying. Perhaps, if every educator was like Kobayashi Sosaku, students would enjoy studying and be more motivated. Kobayshi Sosaku never condemned any one of his students, but in his own way, nurtured and encouraged them to do what they liked, to chase after their dream. And he even helped them to chase their dream during their time in Tomoe.
Indeed, in the epilogue of the book, author Kuroyanagi Tetsuko contacted her classmates from Tomoe and wrote down what her classmates are doing in this present age. And many, if not all, attributed their social standing now to their headmaster, the founder of Tomoe, Kobayashi Sosaku.
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