A Scenario for a Demonstration Class

1.   INTRODUCTION

    Hello, every one.  Welcome to this English class.  How are you today?  I’m sure every one of you is quite fine.  Are you ready?  OK.  Let’s get started.

    In this class, we are going to use English almost all the time.  But don’t worry.  You’ll find it not so difficult.

    To begin with, I will give you three riddles.  Do you know what a riddle is like?  Let me give you an example.  What do you call a thing which has three colored eyes with a long leg?  (To draw a picture.)  Can you answer this riddle?  What is it?  (S1: A traffic light.)  That’s right.  The answer of this riddle is “a traffic light.”  Do you understand what a riddle is like?  In this case, the language doesn’t matter if it is either English or Japanese.  But the next three riddles, the language must be English.  You will soon understand it.

    Then, let’s go on to the first riddle.  Why is a river so rich?  Can you guess?  In other words, why does a river have lots and lots of money?  Guess again.

    The answer is: Because it – I mean a river—has two banks.  The word “bank” has two meanings.  One is “the side of a river.”  (To draw a picture.)  The other is “money bank,” in which people save or borrow money.

    The second riddle is: What is the name of a flower which likes kisses?  The answer is: Tulip, because it has two lips.  The upper lip and the lower lip.

    The third riddle is: What is the longest word in English?  You don’t have to think of a very long word.  It’s a riddle.  The answer is: Smiles, because there is “a mile” between the first and the last letters.

    As for the third riddle, do you know the true answer?  I mean – Do you know the truly longest word in English?  I will give you the answer later.

    Now I will tell you one of the longest words in English from a Disney film called Mary Poppins.  Have you watched this film?  If so, please raise your hand.  OK.

    One of the longest words which is used in this film is:

Supercalifragiristicexperidocious

    How many words do you think there are in this word?  Let’s count up to make sure how many words there are in this word.  Before that, what do you when you are told to count down?  S2, count down, please.  “(S2) Five, four, three, two, one, zero.”  Good, well-done.  Let’s count up the number of letters in this word.  All together now.

    One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…  There are 33 letters in a word!

It is not so difficult to pronounce and memorize this word as you might think.  We can pronounce and memorize this word to music.  Let’s listen to this song on You-Tube.  I’m sure you can enjoy the song very much.  Pay your attention only to this word.  You don’t have to care about other English.  Here we go!

Supercalifragiristicexperidocious

(from Mary Poppins)

     Great!  You all did quite well.  In fact, there is a much longer word in English.  The longest word in English is:

Pneumono-ultra-microscopic- silico-volcano-coni-osis

    This is the longest word in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).

    Let’s count up again to know how many letters there are in this word.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…  There are 45 letters in a word!  Although there are so many words in a word, this time again, it is not so difficult as you think.  The word consists of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, 7 meanings or chunks.  According to George Miller’s study on human memory, we can memorize things which consist of 7 plus minus 2 meanings or chunks. Miller’s article is “The Magical Number 7±2” in Psychological Review published in 1952.

 

1.    MAIN POINT (The Commencement Address Delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO=Chief Executive Officer of Apple Computer, on June 1, 2005.)

    Now let’s go on to the next step.  We are going to watch and listen to the speech of Steve Jobs.  Do you know Steve Jobs?  If so, please raise your hand.

OK.  Steve Jobs is the founder and president of Apple Computer Company.  But unfortunately, he died of cancer last year, 2011.  When you drop in at bookstores nearby, you will find some books written by himself or books about him.  Before watching and listening to his speech, please look at the worksheet of part 1.  I wrote down the beginning of his speech.  I will explain some words and phrases.

    The first one is “commencement.”  “Commencement” and “graduation” are the same, 「卒業」 in Japanese.  On your sheet, you see a sentence “I never graduated from college.”  This is important.  Steve Jobs did not graduate from college.  He “dropped out.” 

    Now look at the underlined part, “one of the finest universities in the world.”  Stanford University is one of the finest or the most wonderful universities in the world.  Can you name some of the finest universities in the world?  In England, there are two of the finest universities in the world.  Can you name them?  These are the two:「牛津」 and 「剣橋」.

Oxford and Cambridge.

They are sometimes called “Oxbridge” in combination.

  How about in America?  (Showing a photo of Michael Sandel) Who is this person?  Do you know him?  His name is Michael Sandel.  He is giving lectures on political philosophy at one of the finest universities in the world.  Stanford University lies on the West Coast near San Francisco or Silicon Valley, California.  This university at which Professor Sandel is giving lectures lies on the East Coast near Boston, Massachusetts.  Can you name this university?  Yes.  Harvard.  Harvard University is one of the finest universities in the world.

     By the way, “by the way” means to let us put aside from the mainstream.  Or what I am going to tell is not important or the main point.  By the way, do you know the Japanese Prime Minister who has got Ph.D. in Engineering not politics or law but Engineering at Stanford University?  “Prime Minister” is the top of the cabinet or the top of the Japanese Government.  The present Prime Minister is Noda Yoshihiko.  Among the recent prime ministers, there is a person who has got Ph.D. in Engineering at Stanford University.  The answer is Hatoyama Yukio.  Before he became a politician, he was a professor of engineering at Chuo University.

     Now let’s go back to the speech of Steve Jobs.  Look at the worksheet of part 2.  There are several words and phrases used in the speech of Steve Jobs with Japanese translation.  Have a look at them for a minute or so.  And guess what will be told in the speech.  Reed College is one of the colleges at Stanford University.  A university is a collected organization of colleges.  It is so difficult to explain the difference between a university and a college that I will explain it some time when we have time.

    OK.  Let’s watch and listen to the speech of Steve Jobs without subtitles.

    Now let me ask you some questions of this part.

#1  Did you catch the phrase “dropped out”?  OK.  Steve dropped out soon after the first 6 months.  Why did he drop out?

#2  Did you catch the phrase “connecting the dots”?  What and what did he connect?

#3  Did you catch the phrases “biological mother” and “adopted or adoption”?

Steve was not brought up by his real parents but by his adoptive parents.

     Then, let’s watch and listen to the closing remarks of his speech.

OK.  Did you catch “Stay Hungry.  Stay Foolish.”?  This is what Steve wanted to give Stanford graduates as the final message.  Translate “Stay Hungry.  Stay Foolish” into Japanese.  Into impressive Japanese.

My Japanese is:

                  Stay Hungry. =「貪欲であれ。」

Stay Foolish. =「愚直であれ。」

2.    SUMMARY

    At the end of the speech, Steve Jobs said, “Stay Hungry.  Stay Foolish.”  In English, the word “foolish” or the noun form “fool” does not always mean “bad.”  For example, have you watched Kurosawa Akira’s one of the best movies, 『七人の侍』?  If so, please raise your hand.  Do you remember that among 7 samurais, there appeared Kikuchiyo, acted by Mifune Toshiro?  When I watched this film, I didn’t understand why Kikuchiyo spoke or acted in such foolish ways.  But when I learned Shakespeare’s dramas at college, I realized that Kikuchiyo played a role of “a fool” in Shakespeare’s dramas.  In them, “a fool” is not foolish.  “A fool” looks foolish, but says things to be true.  The more I have realized the important role of a fool, the better I have realized Kikuchiyo’s role in Kurosawa’s 『七人の侍』.

    Another example that “a fool” is not always foolish is a Beatles’ song called “The Fool on the Hill.”  Have you ever listened to the song?  If so, please raise your hand.  OK.  Do you know the fact that there is a model of the fool in this song?  Who claimed or insisted that although the sun looks going up in the east and going down in the west, in fact or in reality, the earth itself is spinning round?  It is true that Copernicus, a Polish scholar, a scholar in Poland, claimed or insisted this theory, but he is not the model of this song.   Who is the Italian scholar who claimed or insisted this theory?  I mean that although the sun looks going up in the east and going down in the west, actually, the earth itself is spinning round.  Can you guess?  Yes!  The model of this song called “The Fool on the Hill” is Galileo Galilei, an Italian scholar who lived around 1600.

     By the way, what happened here in Japan in the year 1600?  Yes!  That’s it!  The Battle of Sekigahara was fought between Tokugawa and Toyotomi.  The year 1600, I think, is the turning point in both World and Japanese history.  I will take up this topic later when we have time.

    Now let’s go back to the song “The Fool on the Hill.”  Look at this sheet of paper.  Here are words or lyrics of the song on it.  Look at the underlined parts.  You can find the words like this: “But the fool on the hill sees the sun going down.  And the eyes in his head see the world spinning round.”  I’m sure you can understand that the model of the song is Galileo Galilei.  Let’s listen to the song of the Beatles called “The Fool on the Hill.”

     That’s all for today.  Thank you very much.

 

THE WORKSHEET OF THE CLASS

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Answer of the Example:

Answer of Riddle 1:

Answer of Riddle 2:

Answer of Riddle 3:

One of the longest word from Mary Poppins:

There are (                ) letters in the word.

THE longest word in OED:

There are (                ) letters in the word.

[Part 1]  The Beginning of the Speech by Steve Jobs

    I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world.  I never graduated from college.  Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation.  Today I want to tell you three stories from my life.  That’s it.  No big deal.  Just three.

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The Finest Universities in the World:
「首相」「総理大臣」＝
「工学博士」＝

[Part 2]  The First Story of the Speech

Connecting the dots =「点と点をつなぐこと」

Dropped out =「学校を辞める・中退する」

Biological mother =「生みの母」

Adoption =「養子に出すこと」、Be adopted =「養子にもらわれる」

My mother had never graduated from college.

=「私の母は大学を卒業していなかった。」

My father had never graduated from high school.

=「私の父は高校を卒業していなかった。」

My parents promised that I would someday go to college.

=「私の両親は私がいつの日か大学に進学することを約束した。」

I did go to college. =「私は本当に大学に進学した。」

I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford.

=「私は何も知らずにスタンフォード大学のような学費の高い大学を選んだ。」

After 6 months, I couldn’t see the value in it.

=「6カ月後には、私は大学に価値を見いだせなくなった。」

Here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.

=「ここで私は両親が生涯をかけて貯金した金を全部使ってしまった。」

So I decided to drop out. =「だから私は大学を辞めた。」

Looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

=「振り返ってみると、大学を辞めたことは私の最善の決断の1つだった。」

Much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.

=「私の好奇心と直感で偶然見つけたものの大部分は、後になってみると、お金に換えられない貴重なものとなっているのが分かった。」

Calligraphy =「習字法・装飾書法(日本では書道・習字)」

It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

=「それ(calligraphy)は、美しく、歴史的で、科学でとらえることが出来ないほど芸術的に繊細だった。そして私はそれ(calligraphy)に夢中になった。」

Macintosh / Mac =「マキントッシュ・マックコンピュータ」

Fonts =「フォント・文字の書式や大きさ」、Windows =「ウィンドウズ」

 If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.

=「もし私が大学を辞めていなければ、calligraphyのクラスにふらりと立ち寄ることもなかっただろうし、パソコンも現在持っているようなすばらしい印刷の体裁を持つことはなかっただろう。」

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them (dots) looking backwards.

=「繰り返しますが、前もって点と点をつなぐことはできません。振り返ってみて初めて点と点がつながるのです。」

[Part 3]  The Closing Remarks of the Speech

 The Whole Earth Catalog =「全地球カタログ」

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Stay Hungry.
Stay Foolish.

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