学校について -- About school

Welcome back! 

As my last post was rather lengthy and mixed in topic, I thought I should continue dedicate a post to my experiences, impressions and overall observations about school. (Caution: this, too, will prove lengthy.)

For ALTs, it's quite normal to go to multiple schools (some friends go to 5 or 7 schools, I've heard of someone going to 14). In that respect, I'm lucky to have two, and only two: one elementary and one middle (junior high) school. I'm at the ES Monday through Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at the JHS. So I get to see students on a regular basis and, little by little, I try to memorize faces and names. However, because I'm teaching about 500 students (3rd through 6th grades, 2 classes of each with one class averaging about 25 students, and all of the JHS, 6 classes total averaging about 30 students), names are rather difficult to retain, especially when a lot of them overlap. Seriously, I can't tell you how many Miku, Riku or Haruna I have, but just look:

• みく、りく、はるな、はるか、みう、みゆ、しゅうと、ゆと…
• Miku, Riku, Haruna, Haruka, Miu, Miyu, Shuuto, Yuto, etc. 

Minute differences, but if I made a mistake, the kids would not let me forget it, for a while ever. However, now I understand why "troublemakers" or otherwise entertaining students' names stick in a teacher's head. (They just do, seriously.)

Attire

Let me talk about attire briefly, as I had a rather shocking discovery a couple of weeks ago. Since coming, I've been trying to look "nice" and somewhat professional. By that I mean avoiding jeans, sweaters and T-shirts. My wardrobe being what it is, that mostly meant skirts (with tights once it got colder) or the few slacks that I brought with me with reasonable tops' assortment. Now, it had been more than a month and a half since I'd been going to the schools, and students and teachers alike would compliment me and say I'm either かわいい (kawaii), cute, or お洒落 (oshare), fashionable. I considered myself well-dressed (for work). 

One day, coming back from eating lunch with students (a topic I shall address later on), I was putting my tray back when someone commented that I was dressed cutely. This started the topic of "Well it's because I can't wear jeans at school, I only have skirts..." To which I got this answer: "What? Jeans in school are totally okay!" I was flabbergasted, my mind was nearly blown, but I guess if I'd been paying closer attention, I would've noticed the people wearing (dark) jeans. I knew people were obviously okay for more movable clothes like tracksuits (being what the majority of teachers wear), but still, that went against all that I was told beforehand. And the next day when I came wearing jeans (it was cold, and I had to bike), it was commented upon (once).

School rules

I have to be at school at 8:05, but preferring to arrive earlier than punctual, I fell in the habit of leaving around 7:35 (which really only started because the first time I was afraid of getting lost or being too slow). Anyway, that became my regular departure time, getting me to school 10 or 15 minutes later. Because the town is rather large area wise, a lot of kids walk to school from around my area (a 30 min walk) or bike to school, so inevitably naturally I see them every morning.

I always wondered why the ES kids who biked to school were giving me weird looks when I greeted them with a cheerful "Good morning" past the school entrance. It wasn't until I was going home rather late one day, after the school band practice let out, and got onto my bike that a student told me "Hey, you're not supposed to ride on school grounds." (I assume that's what he said, I don't remember understanding very much.) Then added (I picture him shrugging) "Eh, I guess it's alright, you're not a student." And my mind was blown, again. Obliterated. How many times had teachers seen me bike all the way up to school and said nothing, a student had to tell me! I was nearly speechless. That explained the weird looks. Since then, when I bike (read: when the weather is favorable), I make sure to walk once I get past the entrance or until the entrance when I leave.

(My favorite) Food

This discovery was also rather-- shocking. Perhaps because I usually eat breakfast around 7a.m., but I surprisingly get hungry rather quickly. So, I got in the habit of bringing snacks to last me until lunch time, where I get to eat 給食 (kyuushoku), the school lunch, which is quite delicious and well balanced. I have no pictures to show (yet), but usually there's some sort of salad, some kind of protein (meat, fish), some carbs (rice or noodles) and either soup, curry or something with vegetables to complement along with a carton of milk.

Now, at the JHS, I was told to hide my snack in between classes because students come to the teachers' room and they're forbidden to bring any kind of food at school. No snacks, no nothing! (They can't buy anything either, only starting in high schools that vending machines are available.) That made sense as I recalled before coming on the JET Programme that people said candy can't be used as rewards or even during Halloween. But... isn't that too harsh?

What about the kids who don't eat breakfast? They have to wait almost 5 hours before eating! How can they concentrate on their studies? When I'm hungry, I can't think for a long period of time, it's distracting and tiring. I understand it might be better than selling grease like American schools do, but can't they allow fruits or-- something? Just another one of those cultural differences I suppose. It seems there's a rule for everything at school, or maybe just in Japan.

Recycling

A quick note about the milk carton and recycling system here (probably this prefecture), is that plastics (separate from PET [plastic] bottles) and paper/cardboard get recycled, but you have to flatten every carton, cardboard or box. So here are pictures of the process of flattening a milk carton (because, like most things in Japan, there's a way to do it).

First, you open up the top.

Then you rinse the inside, find the side that's connected and rip that open to the bottom.

Then you unfold all the bottom until it's flat. But, if any corners are folded, you must unfold them so it's completely like the last picture.

Classes and teaching

As for actually teaching, well, at the ES I don't do much for the lesson planning except think of games if they ask me in advance. But homeroom teachers are known to be "always busy" and I can attest to that. We might get 15 minutes max. to talk about a lesson; sometimes right before it, sometimes before the morning meeting, but usually after. But since the ES curriculum is mostly to make children feel more comfortable communicating using English, they don't really worry about spelling and the alphabet, and the games we play revolve around speaking and vocabulary.

Because of that, it can be a lot of fun! Of course, no two are alike, so even if it's both 3rd graders, the classes will be similar but in no way identical. Sometimes that's great, sometimes not as much, but I try to enjoy both. Also, the 6th graders are the most difficult to grasp, and it dawned on me after asking some students their age. 11 and 12, at that age, I was already in middle school (in France)! No wonder they give off another aura... But, slowly, I'm getting there. Next year (April), I'll see them in JHS, so we'll see what happens to them then.

I would say I'm mostly used to teaching in JHS, although some aspects are slowly beginning to change. Ku-sensei, for the 3rd years, keeps asking me if I have anything I want to teach, and recently it's been Halloween. I'll probably make another post about Halloween, so I'll keep that for next time. But if there's nothing, then she has ideas for how to fill the lesson and asks for my input. Ka-sensei, for the 1st years, usually gives me the outline of the lesson before class, recently it's been almost five minutes before class (a bit unnerving), and asks if it's okay, which it is because I'm not very creative as a teacher yet. As for S-sensei, well, he sometimes talks to me, but never really about what we'll do in class, because he teaches based on intuition. Most of the time (if not always), students will be writing down vocab, answering a test they just took, answer, then rewrite it again. A bit old school I suppose, but even in that environment I'm slowly becoming more familiar with what I can do and begin to have a little bit of fun with them!

Lunch time

I mentioned eating lunch with students, and at the ES I'm now eating every day with one class during my 3-day week. I just talked about the 6th graders' being different, and I'm still not entirely sure how to interact with them, and with the shy class, lunch can be awkward, and very quiet. I know I'm supposed to initiate the conversation, but sometimes it doesn't work out well. I'm so glad when it does though!

Besides the communicative aspect, for those who don't know, the lunch preparation in Japanese schools is, as most things, a class responsibility. People are assigned to either serve food, hand out the plates, collect the dishes and put everything back, then clean the classroom before 昼休み (hiru yasumi), the "afternoon break," it's just another recess. In ES, cleaning time follows recess (in JHS it's after classes), and again, every single student will go to their assigned spot and either wipe the floor with rags, collect dust from miscellaneous places, take out the trash or clean the toilet. After that is a five minute "meeting," I'm not quite sure what the term is, where each person says what they did to the teacher assigned to that area. The part I find most impressive? Despite the fact that the school gets cleaned at least 5 days a week, there are still dust balls the size of a ping pong ball floating around.

Evacuation drill (?)

And for closing, I'll mention one more experience. It was a day where I had no classes, for a reason I can't remember. Since I had gotten a ride from H-sensei, he noticed my shoes (flats) and commented that I couldn't run in those, not that I ever have a need to run in the school, besides the fact that it's against the rules. After classes started, teachers in the office kept looking outside, as if waiting for someone to come. One of them came to my desk and said that it wasn't really "safe" to stay there, by the window. I was really confused, even though earlier someone mentioned some incident that happened some years ago, where someone entered a school with a knife and, well, killed too many people. That incident (Osaka school massacre) was the start of this drill.

It wasn't until then that I understood a 不審者 (fushinsha), "suspicious" person, was going to enter the school, so I hovered with the other teachers. I did see him walk in, with his black jacket and black baseball cap (cliche much?). The vice-principal made an announcement, though I don't remember exactly what he said but it was completely unrelated, like "Principal, you have a guest in your office" or something similar while another teacher "called" the police (who was already outside). While following the teachers down the hallway, I saw the 5th and 6th graders (who are on the 3rd floor) walking down, and realized all the students had been evacuating since the announcement, but completely calm and silent. It was rather amazing to see.

Once outside, the students were sitting like they usually do for assemblies, in columns of two, and waiting patiently. At last, the "suspicious" person appeared outside the school and ran against a wall, waving around a box opener. Three teachers, each holding a さすまた (sasumata), (see picture), ran after him and pinned him to the wall as a police officer caught up and knocked the box opener out of his hand. It was rather interesting, and followed by a brief explanation, then short demonstrations of what the children should do if a stranger accosts them in the street (car, bike or walking).

The さすまた

The dictionary translates this to "two-pronged weapon for catching a criminal; man-catcher war fork." That's epic, seriously. Man-catcher war fork!

It was even more interesting for me because, earlier this year, I attended a presentation on my campus for work (I worked security) and they showed/taught us what to do in case of an active shooter. I remember hearing the gunshot they fired to get us to evacuate the hall as quickly as possible, which we managed in 6 seconds, and the adrenaline rush that lasted quite a while. The phrase "Reload, run!" is somewhat branded in my mind now, I hope I'll never have to use it.

Obviously, since guns are prohibited in Japan, the experience was nothing alike. The weapons they can use here are, I want to say, for the most part short-ranged, which enables people other than the police to act prior to their arrival. In the U.S., if you don't have a gun, you better run, hide or play dead, but you sure aren't going to catch a gunman. So, that was my interesting first drill at school. Maybe next time it'll be something "milder," like for earthquakes or typhoons (but I hope I won't have to use that either).

And on that exciting note, I will conclude this post about school. If you feel like I left something out, let me know, otherwise, stay tuned for the next update! :)