The first pillar is Christian Education.
Our education’s goal is to build up students’ character. Since we established our school we have tried to build character based on a Christian spirit. The goal is not for all students to become Christians, but for each student to realize the value of her existence, to respect others as humans, to grow up as a human who can work with and for others, and to become a member of society….
During students’ two years at OJ they can participate in various Christian programs and these programs will give students a chance to realize their purpose in life. Students’ experiences at OJC will surely feed their hearts in the future.
OJU/OJC’s Christian programs include: 1) Christianity Class, 2) Chapel Hour, 3) Special Programs such as religious retreat, special worship services in the spring and fall, candlelight service, graduation worship service, and 4) Club Activities like bible study and gospel choir.
The second pillar is Human Rights Education.
In Japan we have human rights education in junior high and senior high school so most people already know the importance to studying human rights. But in our college we want our students to learn how to communicate with people from various countries. To have real communication it is very important to understand the problems that people have with each other. And the most basic problem people have concerns human rights. If we ignore the human rights problems in the world, we can’t have real communication with people from other countries. Recently, Japan’s thinking about human rights is of concern to other countries. To meet with someone from another country in a meaningful way, we must address their concerns. One way that OJU/OJC is doing so is by holding human rights education. In 1973, the fifth year of our college, we had a workshop on Burakumin’s rights (Burakumin refers to people who slaughtered animals and were traditionally discriminated against in Japanese history). Since then we have added topics, and now we had a lot of subjects.
The third pillar is English Education.
Our goal of education is to build character and to build human beings. So learning English is not the only purpose of our education, it is only a part of our education. By studying English, a student can gain knowledge, learn about culture, realize who she is, realize what is of value to herself, and learn how to communicate with other people.
Communication needs both a sender and a receiver and what is to be communicated is not just information but the essence of herself; in other words, our aim is not to learn how to do daily conversation like in an English conversation school, but to have English education which can lead to a substantive dialogue. Accordingly, our goals are as follows:
- to challenge students to strive and continue to strive for an ever higher level of excellence in their studies.
- to encourage students to broaden and deepen their understanding of the world, learning to make autonomous decisions as they relate to it.
- to develop in each student a clear sense of her worth as a person–a unique individual of immeasurable worth in God’s creation.
One of characteristic of our English education is integrating the skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. We give the students the opportunity to work on these skills in an integrated manner. Another characteristic is students have to be active in their English education; if they are passive, it is not our style of education. Our education is not one where teachers give information to students in a one-way fashion from teachers to students. Instead, students must share their ideas with each other and their teachers in discussions, essays, research papers, and presentations.
We think OJU/OJC is the place where students can study many things in English not only study “English.” We are providing students with a two-year English curriculum that it is not only skill training. It is language education, which includes the expansion of knowledge and the building of thinking skills at the tertiary level.