Didn’t you think that you would have had more freedom in your childhood? If you have thought so even once, go through the living gate of Tomoe Elementary School. Tomoe Elementary School is described in “TOTTO-CHAN The Little Girl at the Window”, which was written by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi in 1981. It’s an autobiography essay, the school existed in Jiyugaoka 70 years ago and she really had commuted there. It’s well-known that it was written by a star, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, that it has been sold about 7500000 copies, and that it’s the best seller after the war.
Totto-chan, the author's name as a child, was an active girl in the first grade. She is dismissed from an elementary school at the age of 6 at the beginning of the story. The reason why she is expelled is that she interrupted classes by calling Chindon’ya in classes. She didn’t call Chindon’ya on the purpose of interfering but just meant to make classes fan. Because as often as she call Chindon’ya, the classes are stopped due to the noise, her teacher had got in trouble and took Totto-chan out of school. Totto-chan, who left school at the age of only 6, goes through Tomoe’s living gate, which is made of living trees. Though she gets into troubles in Tomoe, she freely grows surrounded by Kobayashi principal, who has a progressive way of thinking about education, and generous parents. “TOTTO-CHAN The Little Girl at the Window” is the story that describes her remarkable development.
Totto-chan often causes some incidents even after she entered Tomoe. I’ll show you three episodes of many of them. The first one is called “a toilet and a wallet”. She drops her favorite wallet into a toilet at school in the morning due to this habit; she is in the habit of looking into a toilet after doing her business. In those days, a toilet is not flushing type but privy, so her wallet has gone to the dark, but she doesn’t give up. She starts to ladle a large amount of stool out of the mouth of collecting night soil. She doesn’t quit this work even after the class starts. At noon Kobayashi principal come by, ”Have you found it?”. She answers “No”, sweating profusely, surrounded by mountains. He comes closer and says in a friendly tone, “You'll put it back when you've finished, won't you?”. And then he goes off again. After all her efforts, she fails to find her wallet, but she is very satisfied that she had done all she could and Kobayashi principal didn’t get angry and accepted her doing. She never looks down at the toilets after that. The second one and following third one are called “falling into a toilet” and “sinking in plaster”. Some call them together “Don’t dive!” She sees a newspaper on the ground and jumps onto it at school. However, for cleaning, the janitor had the newspaper cover the cesspool hole that Totto-chan opened in order to look for her wallet, so she sinks like a stone. After that, many things are heavy, but fortunately she manages to return to a clean kid. Several days later, she jumps into a pile of gray wall plaster and has sunk in plaster, so she has to stand there until her mother comes and finds her. When Totto-chan is scolded by her mother, Totto-chan says “I’ll never dive into either a newspaper or plaster”. That means that she may dive something except a newspaper or plaster. What made her cause these incidents? That is surely her curiosity. I think that her curiosity which causes her habits, looking into a toilet and diving into something interesting, made her present sense of humor. Because she had paid attention to anything, she became an interesting star, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, who appears in “Tetsuko’s room”, I think.
I must tell you about another key person, Kobayashi principal, who is an educational pioneer. His way of thinking about education is innovative even in the present day. He is a heretic in the education institute during the war. Now I’ll show you how he was a wonderful educator, giving three stories. First, Tomoe doesn’t have formal lessons. In the morning the teacher gives the students some studies that they need to do, but they can do them in any order during the day, asking the teacher when they meet difficulties. The students’ independent actions let the teacher discover their personalities. Second, Kobayashi principal may have arranged the sporting events for Sports Day so as to favor the challenged children. These events are formed as the challenged children can defeat the non-handicapped children in order to encourage the challenged children to have confidence before they get an inferiority because of their handicap. Third, he always says "You're really a good kid, you know." to Totto-chan and other students because he believed that everyone is really good at heart. Especially Totto-chan causes many incidents, so she is told this word many times. “Many adults think you as a bad kid but I know real you” he must have wanted to tell Totto-chan. I think that no one understands and considers children better than Kobayashi principal and certainly he is one of the best teacher and educator. I feel his effusive kindness through reading this book.
Why has this book been the best seller after the war and has it sold for a long time? I think that there are three reasons. First, Totto-chan’s interesting episodes fascinates many readers. Totto-chan’s free actions make readers exciting. Not only are the episodes above interesting but also the author’s way of writing takes readers into the world of the story. The readers can feel as if they messed with Totto-chan. Second, the illustrations drawn by Chihiro Iwasaki are so pretty and sweet that these match the image of stories of this book. Though these illustrations aren’t drawn for this book, I thought at first these illustrations are drawn by a person who read this book deeply. These illustrations encourage readers to image the world view of this book more. Third, this book has an educational side as well as is an autobiography essay. Everywhere you read this book, you can find Kobayashi principal’s way of thinking about education. “Don’t fit children into teacher’s plan. Let children do they want. Children’s dreams are much larger than teacher’s plan.” This way of thinking doesn’t make this book temporary and gets new readers who sympathize with it every year. For these reason, “TOTTO-CHAN The Little Girl at the Window” has been sold about 7500000 copies and still been breaking the record of the number of sale, differing from books which other personalities wrote.
At first Kodansha didn’t think that “TOTTO-CHAN The Little Girl at the Window” would been sold so many and it was said that this book was difficult to begin to read because of the cuteness of the illustrations for men. However, once this book is opened, its attraction is released at a burst. And then all readers say “You are really a good kid” to this book.
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