Suzuki/Starr Videos - On Educating Children

During this interview, Dr. Suzuki discusses the ways in which the Mother Tongue Method can be applied to all subjects. He specifically refers to a successful 4 year experiment done in a school where Suzuki applied the Talent Education Method in teaching math, reading, and other subjects under the direction of Mr. Tanaka. Dr. Suzuki additionally discusses his experience with teaching Kindergarten and training the children’s memory through the use of haiku.

Dr. Suzuki Gives the Spiritual Basis of His Movement (unpublished interview)

Ruth Miura, transcript and editing

Editor’s note: This transcript contains occasional added phrases in parentheses based on how Dr. Suzuki used to explain his method in Japanese. Sometimes the words were the direct translation of the video interview, and at other times they are an extended explanation of his sentences. I have also edited his speech to make it clearer for non-English speakers listening to the interview.

Start time is indicated by a title around 8:00 before the end of the 38- minute interview.

-08:14 Starr: So, you believe you could do this with all children.

Suzuki: Yes. I can teach (if I receive) any child, because I have respect for children’s living soul. Living soul to living soul – it is the same person.

Starr: Living soul to living soul.

-8:20 Suzuki: Yes. Children can sense (feel) my feelings, and then (they can) change, change, change. No one respects the living soul. (We are all at) the same level – living soul to living soul. With children, this is possible. I must change children.

Starr: So, you believe then that the teacher expects respect for the living soul of the student, and the student catches that feeling, and then wants to –

Suzuki: Yes, children catch this (feeling).

Starr: So if I went out on the street, and just brought some children in here, you could teach them.

07:40 Suzuki: Yes – I can teach any child because I respect them and I believe.

Starr: So, you believe in the very high ability of all children.

Suzuki: Yes. It means I know how wonderful are children’s possibilities.

Starr: That’s a wonderful message to send to all people around the world, because I think that we can forget that that child has living soul and has high potential, high ability.

Suzuki: (nods and agrees)

Starr: So this is your main goal in teaching then, isn’t it?

Suzuki: Yes.

Starr: .. to teach teachers to feel that way.

-06:51 Suzuki: This is so important. Everybody is the same (ist so, in German) The living soul (gesticulates) is GIVING. (It is the living soul which has given us life).

Sometimes I tell the mothers (this story). About 25 years ago, I was a little ill (Dr. Suzuki had severe stomach atony, due to malnutrition during the war). I took medicine - and went to the doctor, but from this, I understood something – I didn’t ask as a baby (to be born) - but (the wonders of) Nature gave me this wonderful living soul. Due to (the workings of) the living soul, my body grew.

-05:52 I must work and live for what the living soul wants – and this is what I understood. If I die, the living soul does not die. When (only) bones - I didn’t ask for this myself.

-05:18 When I die, it is not me who dies. I am not anxious about dying. If I die and they burn my body, that is only here (gestures to his physical body) – the living soul never burns. (is never extinguished).

-5:08 Starr: So, you believe strongly (much) in the power of the living soul.

Suzuki: I am not worried about dying. (This realization) changed my body – (since then) I haven’t been ill for over 25 years. (never illness). I’m not anxious about dying. I must live (according to what) my living soul wants. I must work. That is my life.

Starr: That’s your life. (Suzuki nods and agrees) So that was 25 years ago.

Suzuki: Yes, about.

Starr: This was a change in your life, then.

Suzuki: I have never been ill since then. I only work seven days in the week.

Starr: (laughing) Only seven days.

-04:17 Suzuki: I enjoy, and I work for children of the whole world. We must change the world!

I will try during the time I am alive - I must work. In America, some newspaper interviewers (members of the press) asked me, “You say that you are not working for yourself.” I don’t do this for myself – only the desire to change the world and for all children to be educated.

(They said) “But you are a human being – you must want something for yourself, don’t you?” I have nothing (there isn’t anything I want for myself). “You must want something, though”. Finally, I showed them my Camel cigarettes. (pulls a pack out of his suit pocket). Maybe, only Camel. (the only thing I want is) The next day in the newspaper, the headline (of the interview) was, “I only want Camel (cigarettes)!”

Laughter

-2.45 Every mother must think about her child. Mothers must have respect for their own children. (close-up of Dr. Suzuki holding his Camel cigarette pack). (They think), ‘This is my baby’ - No – it was the wonderful living soul who gave them life. Respect the same living soul to living soul. They must believe (know) that children must be educated (gestures with hand) – how nice a human being they can become. Every child can be educated – it is the mother’s duty.

-02:14 Starr: Yes – so the mother doesn’t (shouldn’t) think, ‘That’s my child’ , but ‘This is another living soul’ (Suzuki nods and agrees) – same respect.

When you teach a small child, you don’t know. When a strange child comes in, then you immediately think, ‘Respect for the (another) living soul’.

Suzuki: Yes.

Starr: and you think that child catches that feeling from you.

-01:43 Suzuki: Yes. Every child (has intellect) here (gestures to the head), but the living soul feels everything.

(pauses to think)

-01:37 That is my desire- it takes a long time, nicht? I have already worked in this movement for 50 years, but it’s very difficult here in Japan. But in America, some leaders have (already) understood something. (camera moves back)

-0:11 We must change the world.

Starr: Change the world through (by our) education.

Suzuki: Yes.

Ruth Miura, edits and written transcript
Barcelona, 10.10.2024

 

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