By Yumi Kurobe and Seiya Fujime
 As every student knows, Kiyofumi Sugiura is one of the best teachers in Chukyo University. He teaches post-colonial studies for BACS students. To be honest, his class contents are very difficult and complicated. However, his marvelous teaching skills never bore his students. The unique and detailed explanations of this model teacher should be acknowledged.
Most students must be curious about Mr. Sugiura’s background. What kind of life did he have until now? When he was in primary and secondary school, he was just a normal child, but he became aware of British punk-rock music when he was in high school, he became addicted to music, and that affected badly his academic record. Eventually, he managed to enter the university one year later after he had graduated from high school. He majored in British literature at university, but most classes were extremely boring for him. After all, he decided not to attend classes as much as possible. But how did he get the grade? Instead of attending classes, he prepared for exams by just reading textbooks by himself. What a genius he was! Successfully, he graduated university.
Professor Sugiura lectures on post-colonial studies in his seminar class.
After that he started to make a living as a musician. He had spent 3 years without public recognition, so he was beginning to feel the stirrings of desperation. Then he decided to go to graduate school. In graduate school, he majored in the post-colonial literature. He got a master’s degree from a university in Japan. After that, he entered University of Leeds in the U.K. to study the post-colonial literature deeply. He got a master’s degree in Britain as well. Surprisingly, he got doctoral degree in Japan and started to teach as a university teacher.
Mr. Sugiura’s personality is liked by a lot of students. Especially, his way of teaching is brilliant. Many teachers tend to just give a lecture or explain only what is written in textbooks. However, he always reads between the lines and tells viewpoints that students can understand by using interesting and clear examples. That makes it easy for students to understand and think about the contents of his lecture seriously.
Instead of attending classes, he prepared for exams by just reading textbooks by himself. What a genius he was!
He speaks Kansai dialects and uses jokes in an effective way, so students never get bored in his lectures. It is absolutely true that his lectures are very creative and easy to understand even if contents are difficult. This is one of the reasons he is very popular among his students.
Mr. Sugiura shared a lot of precious messages with us during our interview. He would like students to be “Hinekuremono (in a positive way)â€. He said students are too honest and plagued by ideology. They should doubt common sense. The reason why he said like this is that he knows students can find something new if they think something from different perspectives or have their own opinions. Moreover, he said that students should read more books because they might gain knowledge, and it would help to widen their viewpoints.
Mr. Sugiura is truly a hard worker because he always keeps challenging himself with new things even if he is in a difficult situation. Also, he always has different perspectives and tries to understand students. He is extremely a positive person. It is obvious from the interview that he has tons of attractive points.