Figure 1.--Here we see one of the young Japanese women teachers sent to the Philippines to teach Japanese. She seems like a competent teachers, but Japanese is a very difficult langiage to learn. Click on the image to see the her students.

A major effort the Japnese made was to replace the English language. This was primarily conducted in the schools. This was very complicated as virtually no Filipino teachers spoke Japanese. The Japanese brought in teachers from the Hime islands. Mny were enthusiatic young women. There were also some Japanese priests and soldiers stationed in the Philippines. The Japanese could hardly replace all the Filipino teachers. many were excellent teachers, but some apparently demanded a level of discipline and concentration to which the students were unaccostomed. The Japanese teachers were almost all used in Japanese language classes. Prohibiting English was more difficult. We believe this was done by teaching in Tagalog. Not all Filipinos, however spoke Tagalog. So other Filipino languages were probably used. Textbooks were a real problem for the Japanese. Filipino schools used mmostly textbooks published in the United States. They were written in English and contained a lot of references to American figures and culture. Given the cost and wartime conditions, we are not sure how this went. The Japanese also promoted the use of Tagalog, but it would have been difficult to do books in all the languages needed. And it would have been difficult to print all new books. What the Japanese did was to have the teachers and students blot out or paste paper over offending passages, tear out whole pages, or in some cases paste pages together. We do not think large numbers of new school books were published because of the cost and economic conditions. Japanese economic policies caused a serious n economic contraction and food shortages.

Created: 10:50 AM 6/4/2024
Last updated: 6:51 PM 6/5/2024