A message to/from guests who came to see the final presentations

　9月2日の最終プレゼンテーションの発表会には、手塚先生の旧友のデイヴィッド・ライオンさんとジョアン・タルバートさんがゲストとしてお越しくださいました。

ライオンさんはランド・コーポレーションなどのシンクタンクにて日米関係の仕事に80年代に深く携わっておられ、奥様のジョアンさんは教育社会学をスタンフォードで長年教え、45年間同大学のキャンパス敷地内に住んでおられる方です。

発表会終了後の、手塚先生とお二人のゲストとのメッセージのやりとりを掲載します。

Dear David and Joan,

Many many thanks for coming over to the final session in Stanford!

I hope you enjoyed the students’ theater work. Please let me know your feedback! I would appreciate it very much.

After you left, the time for sharing reflections on the whole program turned out to be the most moving and touching because many students shared both the painful experiences in the past and the liberating, empowering experience that they had through this program. Many talked about the innermost feelings and thoughts which they had not shared with anybody until today. They seem to have learned a lot about themselves, found power and energy within themselves, and gained broader perspectives.

A sense of trust and connection among themselves which has been built throughout the program appears to have made this community to be a safe place.

So after all, the last session of our program went well and I am glad that I have participated in this program.

Then, at Harmony House, we had Sushi party and had fun! The sounds of crickets tells me that Autumn is coming here.

Thank you again for taking your time to come over to our final session!

I hope to keep in touch with you and let us stay healthy and well!

Arigatou and Sayonara

Chizuko

----

Good Morning, Chizuko. We truly enjoyed the performances yesterday and were most impressed with the openness of the speakers, the professor included. The students obviously benefitted greatly from the week and all the hard work that went into it.

We had scheduled from 2 to 4 and had to leave when we did to get ready for events this weekend. Perhaps your student self-assessments were even better without “nonparticipants” in the room!

It was such a great experience to reconnect with you after all these years. The intensity of all those days of building bridges between the US and Japan in the 1980s has certainly paid off. I can’t imagine a similar sharing of thoughts and ideas about personal intercultural challenges happening in the 1980s. It was a different time of different understandings and tensions. I would say that thanks to you, and others in the profession of psychology, much progress has been made.

The students demonstrated the progress with their performances. Removing societal masks, addressing the barriers to understanding, and confronting crude behavior in a constructive personal manner puts us all on a very different level of personal emotional health and maturity. The Keio-Stanford Program has certainly made that progress possible. Congratulations to everyone.

Be well and enjoy the rest of your adventure in the US.

David and Joan.