Lessons from a Japanese Classroom

Hello everyone it's been a while! My life has really shifted from 0 to 60 in the last week so I have had precious little time and energy to update the ol' blog. Without further ado, here is what I have been up to since my last post.

Starting last week, my job teaching English truly began as all of the students returned to school from summer vacation. As mentioned before, I am currently teaching at  3 elementary schools and 3 junior highs. As the area I live in is rural and sparsely populated, the class sizes are consequently little with some grades being as small as 8 kids. As an assistant language teacher (ALT) my job entitles coordinating English classes with local Japanese English teachers. 

The reality of the situation, however, is that every school I visit operates very differently both in terms of what the school expects of me and in the behavior of the students. At some schools, it seems that the teachers don`t really know what to do with me and I am mostly regulated to being a human tape recorder regurgitating vocabulary words. At other schools, however, I have lot more opportunity to add my own input into the lesson and work a lot more closely with the teachers. In particular, this tends to happen more at the elementary school level where the teachers' English abilities are often not as good. Interestingly, one elementary school even has me helping out with Japanese lessons! There are two western kids (Canadians I think) whose parents are local missionaries so sometimes I help their Japanese tutor translate basic Japanese phrases and vocab into English and vice-versa. 

In terms of student behavior, again, there seems to be a great amount of variance between each school. On the whole, there is a noticeable disconnect between elementary and junior high students. The best way to describe my elementary school students would be enthusiastic and chaotic. Almost all of them seem very very very excited to have me in the class and went absolutely crazy when I did my self-introduction lesson. In particular, they loved seeing pictures of Minnesota animals and I almost started a riot in some classes when I said that I liked Totoro (a famous Japanese cartoon). Indeed, teaching at elementary school even caused me to become injured as I sprained my toe while jumping around for one of the classes (they wanted to see how high I could jump since I am a giant here). I daresay I did not expect to get injured while teaching here haha. Regardless, teaching at elementary schools is definitely a lot of fun and something I really enjoy doing. 

Junior High, on the other hand, is a completely different ball game. Although almost all of the students smile, wave, and seem very excited to see me outside of class. However, the moment the bell rings, it is like an invisible soul-sucking vampire has leeched all of that enthusiasm out of them. Most of the junior high students I teach are INCREDIBLY quiet in class and just getting one of them to even say "hello my name is blank", is like pulling teeth. More often than not, I will get either a blank stare or the student in question will have their eyes towards the floor and mutter so quietly I can't even hear them. I hope that this will pass in time as I get to know them more, but it is still a very strange phenomenon to me nevertheless. 

Here are some miscellaneous things I`ve noticed about the Japanese education, some good, some bad and some things that are just different.

Good: The school lunches! Japanese school lunches kick the crap out of American ones as the food is not only edible, but quite tasty as well. Plus I get to eat with the kids, which creates a more relaxed atmosphere. (The teachers eat with them as well).

Bad: The lack of participation and disinterested atmosphere of most junior high classes.

Good: The friendliness of junior high students outside the classroom.

Different: It is acceptable and quite common to see members of the same sex holding hands (in a platonic way).

Good: The elementary school kids are adorable and a lot of fun to teach.

Bad: Things can get out of hand quick with them if the teacher or I don`t calm them down.

Good: Japanese students are given more responsibility for their school. This means that they are in charge of cleaning. This creates a good atmosphere of collective responsibility that make for very clean schools free of vandalism.  

Different: Japanese kids are given homework over summer vacation I guess it’s good that they aren't like American kids who forget everything over break, but I can`t imagine they`re too thrilled about it haha.

Bad: Lesson plans seem a little disorganized for English classes at the elementary school level so I often don`t know what I'll be teaching until I get there. I guess it`s not too bad though as long as I have a generic game that can be applied to many lessons (ex. Simon says)

Keeping my eye out for: Bullying. Apparently it can be a huge problem in Japanese schools and as almost all of it is done by electronic devices (phones and facebook) and it is increasingly difficult for teachers to catch it.

Funny: Some of the questions I get from Japanese students some of which are over the top personal. Top ones thus far are: What is your blood type? Do you have a girlfriend? How much do you weigh? How much money do you make? Will you marry the the teacher you are working with? I mostly just laugh it off or make up a lie like I have 10 girlfriends (that usually gets them giggling).

After a very exhausting week, one of my schools invited me to an enkai, or office party, last Friday. This presented a wonderful chance to immerse myself in Japanese customs and to get to know my co-workers better so, of course, I accepted. The enkai took place at a nearby izakaya (kind of like a bar that serves a variety of drinks and grilled food) and was a very fascinating experience. The first thing that I noticed about the enkai was that although it presented a rare opportunity for the teachers to be at ease, it nevertheless had certain rituals that had to be followed before the revelry began. Each person had a designated seating arrangement based on seniority, and it was absolutely important, I was told, to not start drinking or eating until the principal gave the official kanpai! (cheers). After this ritual was finished, however, the environment underwent a drastic change. Gone where all the rigidity and social hierarchy and in came a much more egalitarian and relaxed atmosphere. Indeed, by the end of the night I was surrounded by some very inebriated colleagues, which is totally acceptable and, indeed, almost expected here.

The food served at the enkai was also a very fascinating experience. For every four of us sitting at a table, we were provided with raw ingredients, a small grill, and a cup of sesame sauce in which to dip these ingredients once they had been cooked. The ingredients consisted of basic raw veggies such as cabbages, onions, and peppers. The meat was more exotic consisting of various cow parts such as tongue, stomach, and intestines. Although many of my American readers probable revile the thought of eating such bizarre foods, I must say that they really were quite delicious (For those of you who watch Andrew Zimmer, know that he also praises the flavors of intestine and tongue). Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so I didn't document the affair. Oh well. 

I also experienced my first pang of homesickness last week. I guess it came when I saw all the facebook statuses about going back to Gustavus from all of my friends. It hurts even more knowing it will be at least another two years before I can attend my fraternity's (Sigma Alpha Epsilon) initiation ceremony as an alumni. Still, I am enjoying life here a lot and find that even the little things can go a long way to combat homesickness. For example, I recently discovered that the bakery by my house has really good deals on delicious baguettes (the guy who runs the place is an Aussie so he knows his stuff) so I can now get my bread fix, which helps a lot.

Flatt's Bakery

 I also recently bought a bicycle and there are some really spectacular mountain and seaside trails I can ride around here, which I find very therapeutic. 

The trail I take

Also, as some of you have requested, here is a picture of my car. It is a Toyota and it is called a "Starlet" (yeah I know they give cars realllly weird names over here). Thus, I have christened it with the name Starlet Johansson.  

Starlet Johansson