Makiguchi the value creator, revolutionary Japanese educator and founder of Soka Gakkai,

By Dayle M. Bethel

Book Overview

Tsuneasburo Makiguchi (1871-1944) was one of Japan's most significant educators, who in the 1930s proposed educational reforms that were as revolutionary as those advanced by his American counterpart... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0834800772
• ISBN13: 9780834800779
• Release Date: January 1973
• Publisher: Weatherhill
• Length: 174 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Life and Wisdom of a Great Educator and Buddhist Leader

Tsunesaburo Makiguchi is one of Japan's most significant yet perhaps least-recognized educators. His fame as the founder of Soka Gakkai has somewhat eclipsed his reputation as an educator. (Soka Gakkai International is now the largest Buddhist organization in the world with over 12 million members in 128 nations.)Mr. Makiguchi had spent a lifetime developing his "value-creating" educational philosophy from his experience as teacher, principal, and teacher of teachers before he founded the Buddhist lay organization. A man ahead of his time, Mr. Makiguchi made proposals over sixty years ago that are being made anew today. He was staunchly opposed to the rote memorization that was the backbone of Japanese pedagogy in his day (and largely remains so today), and he called for greater involvement by community members in the education of children. The author, himself an educator, gives a clear and vivid picture of the magnitude and revolutionary quality of Mr. Makiguchi's theories. Until this book, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi has gone virtually unrecognized in the West because so little information on non-Western educators has been available in English. This work fills a need at a time when Mr. Makiguchi's impact on education and society is of increasing importance.