Hello faithful readers! After successfully beating both jetlag and what I assume to have been minor depression in leaving Japan I am ready to continue the journey. I apologize that you have had to wait but I can promise that the trip just gets better and better, so it will have been worth it. Today I'm going to continue with my journey to Sawara Junior High and Sawara Senior High, and my goal is to post every day until the trip is done. After my whole trip has been blogged, I'll put up an errors and omissions page along with my final impressions of Japan. During the first week of school, a more polished verion of this travel blog will appear on my classroom website at http://www.ralphadelphia.com/.
June 19
Today we were able to visit Sawara Junior High School. Our first experience with students from Sawara Junior High was while we visited the Inoh Tadataka museum during our first couple of days in Katori. They were working on an art project, drawing the view across the canal. As you may expect of middle schoolers from the US, about half of them were taking the project seriously, while the others were just enjoying the sunny day, taking plenty of time to goof around. Today we had the opportunity to spend time with them at their school. As we got there, there was the customary meeting of our group and their administration, complete with speeches, introductions and the like. Shortly thereafter, we were given a tour of the school by one of their vice-principals. As we walked into the music classroom, we were met by the beautiful voices of the first period chorus class. They sang a beautiful song to us called “Don’t Give Up Your Dream.” I noticed that only about half of the boys were singing, while the other half were looking not very pleased to be there, seeming to mumble the song instead of singing. I always tell my students before any type of performance that they should do their best and keep signing and make sure to face the audience. I let them know that if they’re shy or embarrassed and don’t want to be seen, the best thing to do is to blend in with the people who are actually enjoying themselves on stage. I always notice the kids in a performance who don’t want to be there more than those who are just singing for the joy of it, because I’m always wondering what their problem is. I don’t know… some kids just don’t get it. Aside from those few sour faces, the chorus did a wonderful job, and started the visit off well.
After the visit to the music class, we had free run of the school. Junior High School in Japan runs from sixth to ninth grade. The teachers actually switch classrooms, so the students basically stay in their classrooms the whole day with the exception of art, music, PE, or trips to the science labs. I did have the opportunity to visit one of the labs today with a second grade class, and the science teacher had written a question up on the board. I asked him what it said and the question was “If a plant doesn’t have seeds or flowers, how does it reproduce?” The kids all came very close to the teacher for the explanation. He had a fern, and was explaining all about the spores on the underside of the leaves. He sent the students on their way, and they were all business, getting microscopes and tools and getting started on their work. I spoke to him briefly, and he indicated that they love science in this school. I can see why: he was a very dynamic and interactive teacher!
After each class, there was a ten minute break. Some of the kids took the time to try to practice their English on us during this time. There was one kid who would only ever say “I’m lovin’ it!” That’s pretty sad that the only impression that guy had of our country is McDonald’s current slugline. I must have crossed paths with the “I’m lovin it kid” ten times during the day. I finally had to take his picture, I hope he loved that too.
During lunch, we went and ate with students in classrooms again. Today’s meal was handrolled sushi. The students showed me how to take the seaweed paper, put rice on it, add the squid, roll it, and bite. It was awesome! On the side there was a bowl of soup that had these tiny little hard boiled eggs. I have no idea what kind of soup it was. Again, the meal was very healthy and very tasty. I loved it! I noticed that there was a world map on one of the walls of the room. Japan was in the very center of the map, and there was a big paper arrow pointing to Florida.
After everyone was done and trays had been collected, I walked out on the balcony of the classroom to watch some of the kids blowing off steam. Four girls from the class came out and wanted to practice their English, so I had a nice conversation with them about music and Florida. I showed them my iPod and let them listen to some of the music on there. They were surprised to see that I had the Blue Hearts. After lunch, I was able to go into a ninth grade English class to review a test. It was pretty cool to play teacher for a while.
I also found an art class in session today. Inside, the students were working on painting a scene from a picture provided by their teacher. I stayed for a couple of periods and enjoyed watching the kids produce some really great stuff. Of course, the level of achievement was varied, but everyone was working hard and seemed very into what they were producing. The displayed work was really amazing. There were pieces that explored grayscale, some color theory explorations, and some excellent portraits that had been drawn by an eighth grade student. After this we attended a music assembly where the students sang several songs, including John Denver’s “Country Roads.” Little did Karen from West Virgina know that this moment would earn her the moniker of Mountain Momma for the rest of the trip! It was a wonderful tribute. Students did all of the conducting and accompaniment, and basically ran the program. There was also one funny part: the school had only one wireless microphone, and this poor kid had to run all over the gym to take it to all of the different people who were to speak during the presentation. He was so fast (and exhausted), and a lot of people were laughing. He seemed good natured about it though.
During the last period of the day, we spent some time discussing issues with the teachers. I shared that I’d watched the Space Shuttle Discovery blast off in late May as it transported the Japanese Kibo lab to the International Space Station. I asked how they had approached the subject of space education in the school and what types of special activities they had done as a school to commemorate the launch of such an important part of Japanese history. The administrators looked at each other, and a couple looked embarrassed, and the answer that I got was that there was nothing done to commemorate the activities, that the students did experiments related to the national curriculum and visited science museums to maintain interests in science. That made me think about Rick Ellenberg (2008 Florida Teacher of the Year) talking about the fact that the Shuttle Program will cease in 2010 with no US space activity for five years. He lamented about the group of elementary kids that will grow up from K-5 without the wonder that the NASA space program brings. That’s already happening in Japan, even during the most important moments in the history of their space program.
After school was out, we spent some time checking out the different clubs. I visited the track and field team because I wanted to see the throwers train. There were only two, one boy and one girl. I think the girl was third in Japan last year… she was awesome! The team honored LJ from Nebraska when they found out that he coached track at his high school. One of the sprinters even came over to seek some coaching, which I thought was really cool.
For dinner a few people and I went out and had some sushi at a place called Sushi Gaiken or something like that. The sign had some joker who was frowning, so we were all a little nervous. You want to see happy restaurant mascots, right? All of the sushi was on conveyor belts, and you’d just take the piece that you wanted and they would make a new one and replace it.
I had about three or four pieces plus a lot of tea and a bowl of miso soup. Some of the sushi I recognized, some I didn’t some I wouldn’t have touched with a ten foot pole like the raw horse meat. RAW HORSE MEAT, people! Jean from Texas tried it and said it was good. Everything I had was good, and none of it included Mr. Ed! After dinner it was off to Satay-Wan (the Japanese pronunciation of Thirty One, their name for Baskin-Robbins) to have some bean flavored ice cream… and then to bed. Good night!
June 20
The visit to Sawara Senior High School was upon us, and I was determined to seek out some serious art. I didn’t have to look far, as all over the hallways was displayed the best that Sawara had to offer.
The work produced by the students of this school was amazing. After the customary meet and greet, I stopped into the Art class and observed the students working on sculptures of ducks that they recently fired in the kiln. They were in the process of sanding the sculpture and many were on the way to being finished with painting it. They were working from a design sheet where they had already completed a drawing of the finished duck. The next step, by the looks of the work from other classes, was to glaze and finish the sculpture. Many of the designs were very creative.
Tom from Minnesota and I stopped into a biology class where the students were slicing bean sprouts and staining slides to look at cell structures. Tom got to do a little teaching to a few of the groups. At fourth period we were to visit a classroom and do an activity with them. I visited class 2-D, a group of juniors, who for their homeroom teacher had Mr. Yoshida, one of the school’s English teachers. Mr. Yoshida was very interesting, and shared with me his travels across the US by Greyhound bus in an attempt to improve his English. In my experience, half the time that you talk to someone on the Greyhound, they are either completely incoherent thanks to a chemical substance or will look at you as though they are about to kill you. (To be fair, the other half of the time they’re just normal folks who’ll be happy to carry on a conversation with you.) I could only imagine what his trips must have been like.
The class was a lot of fun. I had a quiz provided by the school that I was to give to the students, so I read them questions like “Who was the first president of the United States?” and “What famous American said ‘I have a dream?’” They seemed to enjoy the game, and would get really excited when they got an answer correct. It was amazing how much they knew about America. I asked their teacher what kind of study program that they use and he said they use nothing, the kids study the US on their own. No group had a score of less than 60%. Amazing.
After the quiz, the class gave me a present. It was a card that had a class picture, a paper geisha doll and a bunch of origami.
It was awesome! A group of boys called me over to have lunch with them. We talked about American and Japanese music and they tried to convince me that one poor kid was a famous Japanese singer. I told him, “let’s hear something, then.” They all broke up laughing.
One guy asked me if I knew who Hergi was I said “Hergi?” “Hergi, you know, Black Eye Pea?” “Oh Fergie!” I said, finally understanding. “Yes. She’s beautiful. She’s hot, hot hot, HOT! I want to touch!” I figured I should change the subject, so I brought up the Barack Obama poster that I saw in the hallway.
***By the way, it’s 1:10 pm on Monday June 23 as I type this and I’m feeling the building swaying a little and hearing creaks from the walls. I guess this is the earthquake they promised! Not really that scary, to be honest.***
They knew exactly who and what I was talking about. They told me they liked Obama because he would “talk to other countries,” and that they saw George Bush as “scary.” I was hoping to explore this line of thinking for a little longer but the most I got out of them was “too much war” before the bell for the next period rang. As I was leaving, a bunch of girls pulled back into the classroom through the back door and wanted to take some small group photos, and I obliged them.
Shortly after the lunchtime visit, it was off to the question and answer session. This was a much lighter experience that the one at the middle school yesterday, and I posed a question about families paying tuition at the high school level. I’d read about this practice in Confucius Lives Next Door. Before posing the question to the faculty, Mikiko-san asked me if we pay tuition for public school in the U.S. and she was surprised to hear that we don’t. The faculty was equally surprised, and shared that a family’s typical contribution to public education would be about $200 per month per child. I thought about how much more students in the U.S. would appreciate and put forth effort in their education if they had to make a financial commitment to their learning. The teachers also shared that additional school funding wasn’t doled out through test score results, as it is in Florida, but instead is based on how many kids got accepted to good colleges, how many sports teams won championships, how many clubs won their respective competitions, things like that. Financial incentive based on long term goal achievement instead of a few days of testing… imagine that!
We had one more period to spend with the students before going to observe club activities. I chose to go up to an English class with the third graders (US equivalent = 12th grade). I was walking down the hall talking to Wendy when a door slid open and a teacher’s head popped out. At first, I thought that we were talking too loudly, but the teacher practically pulled us into his classroom. When I saw that the question “What will you do in five years” was written across the blackboard, I knew we were in the right place.
The teacher asked us to go around the room and ask some of the students that very questions. I went up toward the front of the room where I saw some poor kid wishing he could crawl into a nearby light socket for fear of being questioned. I tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around, and I posed the question. Everyone got really quiet on that side of the room, awaiting the answer. He thought for a few seconds and then opted for an easy “I don’t know.” I told him that in five years he would be “the King of English Language” and he and all of the kids around him broke up. I found another shy individual in the first row and I asked him about his future plans, of which he told me he’d be studying. “I see,” I said, and turned to the girl next to him. He seemed to release too great a sigh of relief so I immediately turned back and asked him what he’d be studying in five years. He got really shy again, but managed to spit out that he’d be studying to become a teacher. I told him that was good, that teaching was a great career. I turned back to the girl and asked her, and in spite of her shyness she seemed to find the words to answer the question fairly easily, but couldn’t quite put her finger on the word to describe her future career, so she turned to an electronic dictionary and showed me the answer: “pharmacy.” I told her that was a great career choice.
The future teacher, Ralph-Sensei, the future pharmacist, and the King of English.Shortly afterward, we were able to visit some clubs. I really wanted to experience a tea ceremony while in Japan, so I hustled over to the Tea Ceremony Club. While the Tea Ceremony Club was preparing for the large number of guests they were going to have that afternoon, we sat in the room where the Dance Club practiced. Only one kid showed up, but she danced for us! That took guts. She did her hula routine and her hip-hop routine, and then invited some of us to come up and try the hula. I went up there and man was it challenging!! I had to seriously flex some fat just to get things moving.
When the Tea Ceremony Club was ready, we were invited into a special room that existed just for this club. It was obvious that the school had spent some serious cash on making this place perfect. The ceremony was awesome, and the students made a few of mistakes, but the club advisor gently corrected them (and us). I was really happy that I was able to experience the Japanese Tea Ceremony in this fashion because as a teacher I love to see the process by which people learn. I could tell that this ceremony was so important to these young women because there was no goofing around, and respect for the process was present at every stage of the ceremony. People who had been to a tea ceremony at a restaurant in Tokyo shared how beautiful and natural it was, but I think if they missed out on seeing it in its formative state, then they missed something really special.
As I left the Tea Ceremony Room, I noticed that there was a minor commotion with some of the girls. It turned out to be over the size of my slippers, which were a size 14. They asked the Vice Principal to ask how big my shoes were, and I told them about 35 centimeters. They had never seen shoes so big. It was hilarious and the chattering grew significantly greater!
That evening, I went to a big-box store that was very similar to Super Target that was next door to the hotel. I think the store’s name was Beisia or something like that. I was able to get The Baby a Hello Kitty bento lunch set and a cool pair of shoes. I ran into Jean and Artis and we had dinner at McDonald’s – I just couldn’t eat another raw fish at that moment. I wanted to try something new, so I got the MegaMac. This sandwich is a Big Mac but with four hamburger patties instead of two. That thing was tall and steaming. It hurt me!
