Dispatches from Nagasaki No.2
(August 30, 2012) At most elementary and junior high schools in Japan, summer vacation begins on July 20 and ends on August 31. On the day of August ninth this year, however, approximately 32,000 elementary and junior high school students (with one specific group exempted) attended school. This was so they could study about the atomic bombing of 67 years ago and reflect on peace. Exempted were the 150 representatives who had been selected from some 20 schools for participation in the peace memorial ceremony organized by Nagasaki City. Along with 6,000 other attendees, some of whom were guests from foreign countries, these students listened to the appeals of atomic bombing survivors, the peace declaration by the mayor, and the pledge delivered by the prime minister.
According to the City Board of Education, it was in 1971 that the day of August ninth was first designated an official school day for all schools. Since then, at every public elementary and junior high school efforts have been made to hold peace assemblies or related functions in order to mourn the victims of the bombing and teach about the facts of the disaster. At present, most high schools in the city also conduct similar programs.
On this day a peace memorial ceremony was held at Shiroyama Municipal Elementary School, where over 1,400 students and staff members became victims of the atomic bombing. A sixth grade girl on the students’ peace committee said, “I realized once again just how many people lost their lives in the atomic bombing. I want to let other people know about the horror of nuclear weapons.” A similar ceremony was held at Yamazato Municipal Elementary School, which was approximately 700 meters away from the bombing hypocenter. Those in attendance joined their voices forcefully to issue the vow, “We pledge to keep on preserving the peace!” Over at Ebira Municipal Junior High School, students marched 1.2 kilometers from the school to the atomic bombing hypocenter in a “Peace Walk” designed to let them experience the atmosphere there on the memorial day of the bombing. A third-grade boy who took part said, “This was the first time I have walked around the hypocenter area on August ninth and I saw just how many people show up to campaign for peace.” (All quotes by students were taken from the August 10 edition of Nagasaki Shinbun.)
It is not only on August ninth that students in Nagasaki City learn about peace through studies focused on the atomic bombing.
When students at public elementary schools across the city enter fifth grade they are taken on field trips to the Atomic Bombing Museum. The expenses related to the trip are allocated from the budget of Nagasaki City. The fifth grade was selected after taking into consideration the age at which students would be mature enough to view the many horrific scenes depicted in the displays. In addition to this, each year a travelling photographic panel exhibition on the atomic bombing makes the rounds of all junior high schools. Nagasaki City also supports peace education through the distribution of a volume of peace-study materials called Heiwa Nagasaki (Peace in Nagasaki), the arranging of talks by atomic bombing survivors and the staging of public presentations on peace studies undertaken by school children themselves. These projects are carried out in accordance with the passage from The Nagasaki Citizens Peace Charter that reads, “We will strive to enhance peace education in order to convey to our children, on whose shoulders the future lies, the horrors of war and the experience of the atomic bombing.” This charter was enacted on March 27, 1989, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the inauguration of the municipal administration.
During the nine years they spend at elementary and junior high school, students in Nagasaki City are blessed with the opportunity to receive this valuable peace education, which quite possibly is not duplicated in any other city. The history behind the enacting of such a system, however, is one of the efforts and struggles of many fervent teachers. In 1978, when the City Board of Education released a proposal entitled Instructional Materials Related to Peace, the first of the Three Fundamental Principles on Peace Education included the stipulation that “The atomic bombing is not to be made the primary issue.” In December of 2000, this provision was at long last taken out and the first of the Three Principle was finalized to state, “The fundamental basis for education related to peace should be that which is stipulated in the Constitution of Japan, the Fundamental Law on Education and other documents that call for ‘minds desirous of peace’.”
The Global Forum on Disarmament and Non-proliferation Education, an event co-hosted by United Nations University and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was held at the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum over the two days of August 10 and 11. The themes of the forum were the cultivation of a new generation of disarmament specialists and the state of peace education, but at one point the efforts of Nagasaki City were showcased as progressive examples of peace education. An opinion was put forward that if this progressive model is to spread to other municipalities it will be necessary to not only have the involvement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but also active participation from the Ministry of Education.
In Nagasaki City, efforts put into peace studies are matched by those accorded to education for international understanding. This is because the ability to understand the perspective of others is something that is absolutely essential for international peace.
（2012年8月30日）日本の小中学校の夏期休暇は、概ね7月20日から8月31日までである。そんな中で8月9日、長崎市内の公立小中学校の約32,000人の生徒たちは、一部を除きすべてが登校した。67年前の原爆投下を学び、平和について考えるためである。この日登校しなかったのは約20校を代表する生徒たち150名。彼らは同日、長崎市が開催した平和祈念式典に参列した。そこで彼らは、世界から訪れたゲストを含む6000人の人々とともに、被爆者の訴えや市長の平和宣言、そして首相の誓いを聴いた。
市教育委員会によると、8月9日が全校登校日に設定されたのは1971年度からである。以来、すべての公立小中学校では、原爆犠牲者の慰霊と被爆の実相を学び継承していくため、平和集会などを実施している。現在は、ほとんどの市内の高等学校にもこれが波及しているという。
原爆で児童、教職員1,400人以上が犠牲となった市立城山小学校では、この日、平和祈念式が行われた。平和委員である6年生の女子生徒は「原爆で多くの人が亡くなったことを改めて実感した。核兵器の恐ろしさ伝えたい」と話した。また、爆心地から約700メートル離れた市立山里小学校でも平和祈念集会が開かれ、全員で「平和を守り続けることを誓います」と力強く宣誓。市立江平中学校では、原爆の日の被爆地の雰囲気を実感しようと、学校から爆心地までの約1.2キロメートルを歩く「ピースウォーク」が行われた。参加した3年生の男子生徒は「初めて8月9日に爆心地付近を歩き、たくさんの人が平和のために活動していると分かった」と話した。（生徒の発言の引用はすべて2012年8月10日『長崎新聞』による。）
長崎市の生徒たちが被爆を原点に平和について学ぶのは8月9日だけではない。
市内の公立小学生は5年生になると全て原爆資料館を見学することになっている。そのための費用は市の予算によって賄われる。５年生という学年は、悲惨な情景の展示が多いため、生徒の発達段階を考慮して選ばれたという。またすべての中学校で「原爆被爆パネル写真巡回展」が毎年行われる。その他、平和学習資料集「平和ナガサキ」の配布、被爆体験講話、平和学習発表会を実施するなど、長崎市は平和教育に力を注いでいる。それは、1989年3月27日、市政施行１００周年を記念して制定された「長崎市民平和憲章」の一節「私たちは、次代を担う子供たちに、戦争の恐ろしさを原爆被爆の体験とともに語り伝え、平和に関する教育の充実に努めます」のあらわれでもある。
小中学校に在学する９年間、長崎市の生徒たちは、このように、おそらく他市に類がないような貴重な平和教育を受ける機会に恵まれている。しかし、このような制度が定着するには熱心な教師たちの努力と闘いの歴史があった。1978年に「平和に関する指導資料（試案）」が市の教育委員会によって発表されたときには、そこに掲げられた「平和教育の基本三原則」の第一には「いわゆる『原爆を原点とする』ものではないこと」と但し書きが記されていた。2000年12月にやっと但し書きは削除され、「平和に関する教育の基本的なよりどころを日本国憲法、教育基本法などの法令に示された『平和希求の精神』に求めるものとすること」という基本三原則・第一が確定した。
8月10日、11日の2日間、国連大学と外務省が主催した「軍縮・不拡散教育グローバル・フォーラム」が長崎原爆資料館で開催された。次世代の軍縮専門家の育成と平和教育のあり方がテーマであったが、平和教育の先進例として長崎市の活動が紹介される場面があった。このような先進例が広く他の自治体に普及するためには、今回のようなフォーラムの開催に外務省だけではなく、文部科学省が積極的に関与することが必要であるという意見が述べられた。
長崎市では、平和教育と並んで国際理解教育にも力を注いでいる。相手の立場を理解することが国際平和には欠かせないからである。
