Masatsugu Goto
MASATSUGU GOTO
Manager, Clean Education Division | Second cohort, joined 2024 | First year, Faculty of Letters, Chuo University
7 min read
Gum under the desks, and bread blocking the toilets, seen while studying in New Zealand. Why, then, is Japan relatively clean? Out of that question came our cleanup education. We asked him about the two years between a single proposal document and a real classroom.
On joining
First, a brief introduction, if you would.
I'm Masatsugu Goto. I joined in the second cohort and now manage the Clean Education Division. I'm a first-year student in the Faculty of Letters at Chuo University.
Where did you first hear about TEIGEN JP?
A close friend from high school was running the forerunner, TEIGEN at Fifteen. I learned about the work by watching him win award after award and take the stage to be honored, and through our ordinary conversations.
So he brought you in.
Yes. He asked me — and beyond that, I had a feeling that here I might meet a version of myself I didn't know yet, and get the chance to change.
I wanted to reread cleaning as education, not as a chore.
On where cleanup education began
Where did cleaning as a subject come from?
Something I saw while studying in New Zealand. Gum stuck under the chairs and desks, and bread stuffed into the school toilets.
Not a common sight in a Japanese school.
No. So I was startled — why is it this dirty? — and at the same time started wondering the other way around: why is Japan relatively clean?
And where did you think the difference came from?
In Japan the children clean the school themselves; abroad it is usually left to staff. I thought that whether or not you have ever cleaned the place you use might affect how you treat public space generally.
Though Japan isn't clean everywhere either.
No. There are parts of Shibuya and other busy districts where the litter is obvious. If the sense that cleaning is your business keeps fading, the streets here will get dirtier too. That is why I wanted to reread cleaning not as a chore but as education — as something that builds a way of treating shared space.
On building from zero
Plenty of people notice something like that; not many turn it into a program.
Because I felt that nothing changes while you wait for someone else to act. If nobody did anything, the clean streets I love here might be lost bit by bit. So I decided to go first.
So what was the very first thing you did?
I wrote the proposal.
So you didn't start from what the class would contain.
No. First we went deep with the others on why we were doing this at all. We worked through how things stand around cleaning and what is underneath that, and sorted out what the program was for.
With no precedent, don't you lose the thread partway?
I did. There were times I had no idea what to do next. When that happened I made myself stop being caught up in the task in front of me and go back to what the program was for — then reason backward from the state I ultimately wanted, and work out what was needed now.
Conveying enthusiasm is not enough to make someone comfortable working with you.
You're a student going to companies and schools to ask a favor. What was hardest?
Being extremely careful with every message that went outside. I had barely used Gmail before and had never been taught business manners, so I learned the wording and the mechanics of sending an email one piece at a time, by feel.
So enthusiasm alone doesn't get through.
Exactly — I decided that conveying what we felt and how much we cared was not enough to make anyone comfortable working with us. I went over and over what, from their side, would actually be acceptable. Not just what it would mean for them, but whether the thing could be done, whether it was safe, and what its educational value was.
Be honest — you must have messed something up.
Yes (laughs). Hitting reply instead of forward, using wording that wasn't right —
On the hardest stretch
In those two years, when was the worst of it?
When university entrance exams, school tests and preparing to deliver the class all landed at once.
None of which can wait.
It really was. I was permanently behind. The stress wrecked my skin, and there were moments of why am I this busy, and maybe I can't do this. Honestly, there were times I wanted to quit.
That sounds like a serious stretch. What kept you going?
Being responsible as manager, and more than that, the sheer enjoyment of building the thing. I had always cared about education, and every time I faced something hard I could feel myself growing a little. That feeling was the reason to keep going a bit longer.
Handing work to someone is not letting go of responsibility.
Did you change how you worked?
I went to our director, Horii. Talking it through, I saw that I had to hand work to the others instead of carrying all of it myself. I also put exam study first and moved the work forward in the gaps — on the train to school, and so on.
Until then you couldn't hand it over.
Exactly. It was my first time being a manager, and relying on people wasn't really an idea I had. And because the program started from something that bothered me, I think I felt strongly that I had to carry it to the end myself.
How do you read that now?
Leaning on people did not come naturally at first. But in the thick of it I saw that unless I handed work to the members, the program itself would not move. Handing work over is not letting go of responsibility — it is part of a manager's job, done so the whole team can carry the program. These days, instead of trying to push everything forward myself, I make sure each member holds a role, and I turn to the people around me when I am stuck.
On the first class
From that first class, what stayed with you most?
The third class of the day.
Why that one?
The children talked a lot and it was hard to hold together, but working from the running order and the division of roles we had prepared, we finished on time with only our own members — the teacher never had to step in. Knowing that the class we had built actually held up in a real school was a huge thing.
And honestly, some parts did not go well.
The introductions got so lively they ran over (laughs). And when we demonstrated how to use a cloth, I was standing badly, so some children couldn't see what I was doing.
Was there a moment that saved you?
The teacher warmly praised the children who raised their hands, and that created an atmosphere where the others found it easier to speak. Next time I want to vary the pacing to fit each class, and decide in advance how many children to call on, who calls on them, and where the presenter stands.
On what changed
Compared with before you joined, what changed most?
That I can get an idea into action. When I joined I was looking for something that would change me; through starting the cleanup program I got to take one thing that bothered me, turn it into a proposal and a class, and bring companies, schools and other members along with it.
You couldn't move like that from the start, though.
Of course not — I could not act with confidence from the beginning. There were times I lost track of what to do, times I bottled the work up alone, times I fumbled a message to an outside partner. But each time, I went back to the purpose and the goal, and moved forward while asking the people around me. Through all of that, I think I have come to trust my own thinking more than I used to, and to act without fearing failure.
On what comes next
Where do you want to take the cleanup program?
I want it to run every year, not to be a class that happened once.
Last question. What is TEIGEN JP, to you?
The place where something that bothered me stopped being a thought and became a form that reached society. The cleanup program began as one small question of mine. Through arguing it out with the others and working with companies and schools, it arrived in front of children as an actual class. It gave me the ability to turn a thought into action, and the confidence to see it through.
Masatsugu Goto. Second cohort, joined 2024. As manager of the Clean Education Division, oversees the planning and running of Osouji-tai: Protect Your Neighborhood, the outreach class for elementary schools. First year, Faculty of Letters, Chuo University.