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).
