TEDxICU is a student non-profit organization that aims to provide a TED-like experience for people to express their ideas, be inspired, and find a motivation to step out of their comfort zones. Keiji Fujimoto will appear at the TEDxICU event scheduled to be held on January 30th from 1-5 pm. The event will be held online with YouTube Premiere and Zoom. Please visit TEDxICU’s official website and Instagram for more information!
Y: Yuno Yamamoto (Senior Editor HCICU)
F: Keiji Fujimoto (TedxICU Speaker)
Kenji Fujimoto is a high school English teacher in Kobe. He was blind from 16 and passed the teacher recruitment test through the Braille exam. He also teaches English debating and speech out of class and has led students to win competitions time after time.
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Y: Could you tell me briefly about the content you’re going to talk about at the TEDxICU event?
F: My story starts from the point where I lost eyesight. I have thought of it as a disadvantage for me, and when people wouldn’t take my dream of becoming a teacher seriously because of my blindness, it took me to the point where I was self-abandoning myself. But that changed after having several opportunities to meet people that inspired me; one of them was my blind school teacher. He told me that I could use my blindness to teach speech because he always closed his eyes when trying to express his feelings during speech. This made me think of my blindness as one of my unique characteristics and an advantage. Teaching speech led me to meet great students, sharing the excitement of winning in speech competitions.
My message here is that I would like the world to be a place where peoples’ disabilities can be a strength. But for that to happen, we need to be open to understanding other people and notice that we all live under constant cooperation. I like to say this as a “collaborative relationship (コラボ関係)”.
Y: Why did you choose to give a speech at the TEDxICU event?
F: A former student of mine, who is currently a student at ICU, asked me if I would like to talk at this event. She was one of the students that I taught speech.
Y: What is the most exciting thing about your job teaching speech, and what is the most challenging part?
F: The most exciting part is that I get to see students getting better at speech. I know if the students put emotions in their words when listening to them. Speech competitions show the effort they have put in, and when students are excited about their results, that makes me happy too.
The challenging part is the building-up part of the speech. One of the important parts of speech is to make people feel something from it. Thinking of how the speech draft will be better is always the difficult part.
Y: How can we get better at speech?
F: When constructing your speech, being logical is one of the necessary parts. When performing your speech, expressing your emotion becomes extremely important. You need to picture each scene of what you are talking about in your heart. The more you can imagine it, the easier it gets to put feelings in words. Speech is two-way communication, so we always need to think about how we want to communicate with our audience. It is a performance.
Y: Do you feel that speech is difficult online?
F: Yes, I do. As I said before, speech is two-way communication. If there is no audience actually in front of you, it is harder to make them feel your emotions.
Y: Do you have any advice for students who feel apathetic during this current situation of not being able to live freely as before the pandemic?
F: It might be stressful that you cannot do things like the way before. But I want to emphasize that we are being “kept alive(生かされている)”, and be thankful for that. We might get the virus even if we are being cautious. It is not our choice that we are living, but it involves luck.
I feel this a lot because, being blind, I need to touch many things in my daily life. For example, when riding a train, I need to touch the station staff when getting help walking through the station, and inside the train, holding straps and bars to balance myself. Even having all the risks, I am still alive, and it is a miracle for me. Being blind, even being able to live, is a miracle.
I recall a time when I did a speech similar to what I am going to talk about in the upcoming TED talk. One of my students who listened to me speak wrote me a comment that he realized that not being blind is a miracle. I want people to notice that life, being able to live, involves a lot of miracles and not what you get for granted.
Y: Do you have any other things you would like to say before ending the interview?
As one individual who lives with a disability, even just a short conversation with others helps. It is really important to have communication with others. That is how I changed from being negative about my blindness into thinking of it as my strength. It has brought me discoveries and amazing opportunities that I wouldn’t have if I weren’t blind. I can now proudly say that a life not being able to see, was a good life for me.
I want to tell people that what you thought was a disadvantage will turn out to be not so bad (ダメだと思っていたことがそうでもないよ).
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After interviewing Mr. Fujimoto, I noticed that I, somewhere in the path of growing up, forgot that I am being able to live with the support of others. Being conscious that we live in a constant “collaborative relationship(コラボ関係)” will be both healthy for ourselves and others. Mr. Fujimoto will talk deeper about this topic, including some other important points in his TED talk.
Please come and listen to him on January 30th!