Teaching

After my first few months of teaching in a Japanese school I have accumulated a rather large collection of humorous stories and observations. Here are just a few of them. I’m going to try and keep this post short, but I already know that I will fail.

1. Lets start with something sweet… Students LOVE their teachers. In Japan there is a teacher assigned to every class called their homeroom teacher. Being a homeroom teacher is a huge responsibility. These teachers stay with the same students all the way through high school and are like a 3^rd parent. A homeroom teacher visits every student’s home 2-3 times a year to meet with the parents and give updates on student progress and discuss the future of the child. Often, if there is a problem with a student outside of school the homeroom teacher is called to come and discipline the student rather than their parents. In response, students become very close to their homeroom teachers. For example, When the blue team won sports day they were cheering and yelling and then an entire class of boys ran over to their homeroom teacher and picked him up and starting throwing him in the air and catching him repeatedly. It was like a rock concert or the ending to Rudy x3 intense points. Probably one of the sweetest things I have seen.

2. High school in Japan is not obligatory. If you choose, you can finish junior high school and get a professional job at the age of 15. This is quite unusual but it does happen. Therefore, high school students are treated more like university students. Discipline is completely different. If a student feels like getting up and walking out of class, they can do so. If a student feels like talking or sleeping through a lecture, no one will stop them. Luckily, I am at an academic high school which means most of my students are preparing to enter university, so they take studying seriously. But, I still have issues with behavior. Adjusting my expectations to the Japanese expectations of behavior in a classroom has been a real challenge.

3. Japanese schools take physical education seriously. In addition to sports day, last week my students walked up a mountain and all the way back to the high school. It was a total of 26 km and the whole day of school was given up so the students could have a good dose of healthy exercise.

4. Teachers work hard together. Teachers also play together. “Choir practices” in American schools have nothing on Japanese enkais. An enkai is literally a work drinking party. The first 3 weeks working at my school, I had 3 enkais in a row. The first one was only for the English department and it was their welcome enkai for me. The English teachers were great and it was the first time I really got to see the teachers that I work with daily relax and be themselves. They were all eager to tell me something about the teacher sitting next to them and across from them. I learned that the English department nicknamed  one of the other teachers “god” because he reads English better than most native English speakers, that my supervisor claims to be shy but isn’t, and that the tiniest English teacher at my school is so scary to students that sometimes she makes them poop their pants. My second enkai was a part for only the young teachers. A young teacher is a teacher under the age of 35. There are 16 of them at my school, 17 including me. That is ridiculous amount for a high school. Needless to say this enkai was far and away the craziest. One teacher proclaimed himself a break-dancer. I responded with, “prove it.” After pushing chairs and tables out of the way he did, and he was pretty dang good for being drunk. There was karaoke afterwards and a drunken good singing time was had by all. The third enkai was a whole school enkai where I sat next to Kyoto-sensei and Kocho-sensei (seats of honor) and was required to give a speech in Japanese to everyone. Luckily, I was a little late so by the time I gave my speech everyone was drunk enough that my crappy Japanese didn't make a difference. The teachers were unbelievably kind to me and also more willing to speak to me than while at school.

5. Students love to touch my hair.

Have you visited Ono, Japan?

Last weekend I went to Ono City! It's about an hour from my place in Awara and was a nice break from the routine of my little town. The JETs there are a wonderfully welcoming and fun bunch. I might just have to return sometime soon.

Highlights:

• 1. Swimming in the coldest water I have ever felt.
• 2. An early morning adventure walk in a completely foreign city.
• 3. Telephone pictionary into early hours of the morning
• 4. Skyping my sister with Nicole at 4am to watch her try on wedding dresses.
• 5. Rainy day ramen.
• 6. And... the friendly people living in Ono. of course.

Hideaki and Christine's drawings of Kyle. impressive.

I was drawing some random portrait of a girl and then we decided to turn it into Brett in a tiara.

Secretly,  Brett LOVES that this rock is in the shape of Texas. Texas in Japan y'all.

...and a video for your enjoyment.

Sports Day

Imagine field day for high school kids. In Japan it is called tai iku sai. 

“Sports Day” is probably one of the most impressive events I have been to since moving to Japan. There were four teams and each team had a team captain. The captain coordinates everything and is usually a 3^rd year boy student. Each team also has a giant sculpture mascot and a 5 minute long choreographed dance/cheer in costumes handmade by the students themselves. The events the students competed in would be considered dangerous in American schools. They never would have been allowed. Many of them just involved the students being in pain. Please look at these photos.

pain

more pain.

This year was also unusually hot and humid, even for Japan. There were many kids passing out from heat stroke. The first few kids who passed out were terrifying to me. The teachers ran over with a stretcher loaded up the large high school student and carried him off to air conditioning. The student sat inside and drank water for about a half an hour and then hobbled back onto the field like nothing happened. Over 30 kids passed out from heat stroke sometime during the day. After the first 5 I wasn't too concerned anymore. In fact, I actually found the way that the students and teachers handled the matter kinda funny. In a Texas high school there would have been EMT’s and ambulances, but in Japan after 30 minutes you send them back out into the heat. Practical.

At the closing ceremony there was a choreographed folk dance all the students, and some teachers, participated in. It was adorable. There was also a large sculpture.

Here is a bunch of the video that I took of the day! enjoy!

https://vimeo.com/50464069

JANKEN

Janken is the equivalent to rock paper scissors in the United States.

In Japan, janken is everything and everywhere. I wouldn't be surprised if students made life and death decisions based on the outcome of janken. It is serious business. You never dispute or argue the results of janken. Here is series of pictures of 2 of my third year students competing in janken to settle a tie on sports day. These might be my favorite pictures that I have taken in Japan so far.

Gold.

I will write more about sports day in the next post.

Kanazawa

Before leaving for Japan I spent a few days hanging out with the some of the other new JETS departing from Houston. I have grown to love my fellow Texomians, Texas/Oklahoma and plan to visit many of them in their various placements around Japan. One of them was conveniently placed for visiting, Carolyn. She lives only a few train stops away from Kanazawa.

Kanazawa is the capital city of Ishikawa prefecture directly north of Fukui. Because Awara is on the northern border of Fukui, I am conveniently located almost directly between the two largest cities in the area, Fukui City and Kanazawa. Kanazawa is significantly larger than Fukui City. For Example in all of Fukui prefecture there are 1 and half starbucks but there are at least 3 in Kanazawa alone. (Yes, I measure the size of the city by how many foreign food items are available).

Before school started and schedules became busy, Carolyn and I made a plan to meet up in the Kanazawa and hang out for a few days. We had a blast. There are some amazingly beautiful gardens in Kanazawa, a castle, fantastic art museums, and some great shopping.

Here are some pictures from the trip into the city.

Below is a tea ceremony where we had two random people snap candid photo’s of us on their phones. Awkward…

Hopefully when school settles down into more of a routine we can meet up again. We talked about traveling to Kyoto, Nagano, going back to Kanazawa, and even chilling in Fukui. Either way, it’s nice to have a Houstonian friend nearby.

Uzbekistan

Have you ever been confused for a native of Uzbekistan? I have. Only in Japan ya’ll.

Check out what it says under nationality.

U-Zu-Be-Ki-Su-Ta-N

I was supposed to get this card the day I landed in Japan at the airport. One month later, it comes in the mail… and I am from Uzbekistan. Oh goodness.