The Hiroshima City Board of Education has decided to discontinue using the manga Barefoot Gen in educational materials for the "Peace Education Program" in elementary, junior high, and high schools.
"Barefoot Gen" is well-known as a work that conveys the inhumanity of the atomic bomb, and there are various opinions for and against it.
The "Peace Education Program" has been held since nine years ago at all elementary, junior high and high schools in Hiroshima as a class to convey the inhumanity of the atomic bomb and the preciousness of peace. "Hiroshima Peace Note" is used.
For the past four years, the City Board of Education has been reviewing the content of the program by holding meetings with education experts and school officials.
As a result, we decided to stop posting "Barefoot Gen" from the teaching materials for the third grade of elementary school and change the teaching materials for the new year to different contents.
The current teaching materials include scenes from Barefoot Gen, such as a scene in which the main character, a boy, earns money by singing rokyoku on the roadside, and a scene in which he steals a pond koi to feed his sick mother. I'm here.
With regard to this, some teachers, etc. in the field said that it was necessary to explain the flow before and after the story and the historical background to the children, and that it was difficult to convey the reality of the atomic bombing within class time. The city board of education explains.
The teaching materials for the new fiscal year will include family photos taken on the day before the atomic bombing, and the contents of interviews conducted by the city of Hiroshima on women who lost their families to the atomic bombing.
Regarding this decision, the Hiroshima City Board of Education Guidance Section 1 commented, ``This is the result of considering better learning content for the purpose of learning about peace, which is inheritance and dissemination.''
"Barefoot Gen" is a work by the late Keiji Nakazawa, a cartoonist from Hiroshima City, who depicts a boy who lost his family in the atomic bombing and who himself was exposed to the atomic bombing.
It has been translated into 24 languages around the world, and because of its high profile as a work that conveys the inhumanity of the atomic bomb, the Hiroshima City Board of Education's decision has generated a wide range of opinions on the Internet.