Kurosaki Ichigo From Bleach & Learning

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I love Japanese Anime. I love watching them with friends and talking about them every week when a new episode came out. I was introduced to Bleach when I was in college and came to love every bit of it. The protagonist , the main character of Bleach is Kurosaki Ichigo. The anime revolves around how he was given powers by a soul reaper and managed to develop his own powers. As he was not permitted to have this powers in the first place, he was hunted by other Soul Reapers and in the midst of it all, discovers a conspiracy that was brewing among the Soul Reapers' world.

The summary I gave is but a fraction of what went on throughout the 366 episodes with a manga that spans an even longer storyline. Its well worth a watch and I prefer Bleach over Naruto. As I was following the story, I find that there is something about Kurosaki Ichigo's tenacity that spoke to me. As an educator, I find that there were many valuable lessons that can be learnt from him.

You Are Not Defined By Your Surroundings

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In Bleach, the Soul reapers are divided into 13 squads, each squad having a captain, a vice captain and many other Soul Reapers under the captain's command. Many of these captains are thousands of years old and some are descended from noble families. This means that they either have a longer time to train their powers or they naturally were born with an affinity towards wielding their powers.

Kurosaki Ichigo did not have any of that but strove to be better, despite knowing what the odds were, he continued his fight. This is something admirable, choosing to fight on despite knowing that the odds were completely against him. I believe that he chose not to be defined by his upbringing and ability, but choose to be defined by his sheer will. I think the same can be applied in learning.

When I was in college, I was told of the Matthew effect. That the rich would become richer, the poor would become poorer. The same goes for educational opportunities. Many students know this unfortunately. The sad thing is many, choose to be defined by their surroundings. They claim that since they were not born with the same opportunities as their richer peers, therefore, it is useless for them to strive as they would fall short.

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I believe that as long as one is willing to try and push on, they would find success. Besides, the best option is to try and push on, in the hopes of succeeding. This is a much better compared to option 2, which is giving up. That's because while you may fail if you try, you will definitely fail if you don't.

Working Well With Others

In true Anime fashion, you will see Kurosaki Ichigo running towards the enemy or into the enemy's territory without thinking. He however does this fairly often with his team of friends. I find that there are many who have been brought up to think learning as a solo experience. Home work is normally assigned to each student and exam results are graded according to each individual's effort. There is nothing wrong with that.

However, I find that it is best to allow students to learn from each other. My coach used to say, iron sharpens iron and with enough competition and collaboration, the students would likely find much meaning in learning as compared to 'shadow-boxing' an invisible opponent in the form of exams.

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Furthermore, collaborative learning does take a way a lot of stress. Research says that a person learns best by teaching others or by experiencing something. Thus, if a teacher were to give every student in the class 5 different worksheets to complete and five students decide to come together to share the workload, working together and teaching each in order to complete the task given by the teacher. Who do you think would've learnt more effectively? The students who worked together or the one who decided to complete the task on his own?

Conclusion

Bleach is a great story and while the manga has ended, I still hope to see the final arc of the anime in 2018 or even next year. What's more important however is the lessons that can be learnt from Kurosaki Ichigo in Bleach. What is the lesson that you have learnt from Bleach? Did you like the anime or are you more of a Naruto fan? Do let me know in the comments below.

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