University of San Diego: EDUC 500 Research Design & Methodology Global Study: Saturday, June 16: Day 1 of the Cross Cultural Workshop at Daito Bunka University

Our first full day in Japan consisted of figuring out where the Japan Rail (JR) Line was from the hotel, how to actually use our SUICA card to get on the rail line, and our first journey on transferring rail lines to get to Daito Bunka University. Tokyo is such a big city with so many sights, so we soaked in every minute of our experience.

While at Daito Bunka, we began our day with a tour of the campus by two Japanese students and our translator (Mrs. Inoue). Now, I think we are all wishing for a new Japanese restaurant on campus at USD, because the food was delicious!

We continued our workshop day by discussing what it means to get a job and enter a profession in this time of an economic depression. I felt like this activity was such a great way to interact with the Daito Bunka students as well as understand the cultural differences in our particular fields. What really stood out to me within our discussion was the topic on layoffs. We, USD students talked about the current situation we as teachers will face during the beginning of our careers with pink-slips and the uncertainty of our jobs for the next school year. The Daito Bunka students mentioned that in the situation of a lay-off, companies will lay-off the older employees because they feel that the younger employees have the energy to learn and that their culture is to help young people grow. It's such a different mind-set, but I feel that somehow our society needs to incorporate and take into consideration different countries ways of thinking in order to grow and better ourselves as a nation. This goes with the classroom aspect as well. In order for us to become a better nation in the education aspect, we need to see how other countries are succeeding and incorporate a piece of that into our system.

After a full day of rich discussion and presentations, we ended our day with our welcome party and again enjoyed great food, drinks, and conversation with the Daito Bunka students.