too cool to be cool

It's getting really hot and muggy now, but the kids at school still won't take off their jumpers!! I finally found out why today - if they don't wear it they have to tuck in their T-shirt, which is apparently worse than BOILING in a jumper in 30+ degree heat!

too kool for skool

About 15 minutes into a grade 9 class today, the school bad boy walked in. Later on, the other teacher told me that this was the second time he's come to English class. What, this week? No, this semester.

There's a Japanese style room at school (tatami mat floors), and apparently he just sleeps there all day. So, I guess he gets brownie points for coming to school though??! As I have previously blogged, kids here don't have to do anything to pass junior high, so this bad boy will be a junior high school graduate next April.

He strolls in and out of the staff room (in between naps I guess) but instead of being disciplined, I feel like all the teachers suck up to him. It's like they're trying to get through to him by being "cool" and understanding, but it just comes across as weak to me. He's just getting all the attention he craves, rather than the discipline (and education!) he needs.

loooong weekend

I had a four-day weekend! I was sick on Friday (cough cough), and Monday was a holiday in lieu of Saturday's sports day. Unfortunately I couldn't go to the matinee performance of The Sports Day by Daini Junior High School, because I was in Tokyo. Leah took a GRE exam on Saturday so I went with her for moral support. We stayed in Roppongi Friday night, but sorry, no wild Roppongi nightlife stories - we just hung out at the hotel! I went down earlier on Friday for some shopping in Shibuya, then met Leah and her friends Yuko and Misato for dinner.

Sweets Forest

Leah and I went to Sweets Forest in Jiyugaoka on Saturday after her test. There are lots of yummy sweets shops under the one... canopy...

The mysterious pink Sweets Forest...

...where kids can run between candy shops faster than a camera flash.

Peace out. 

there's more than one way to eat a watermelon

You could cut it in slices with a knife, or you could blindfold your children and let them bash it with a pole. And that's just what happened at my friend's BBQ on Sunday!

The Basic Bash

The Lunge and Tap

Kids 1 - Watermelon 0

lost joke ain't lost on me!

'Lost' has become my new favourite TV show ever since I had to say goodbye to Sex and the City (but thanks to MC Solaar for keeping the dream alive on my mp3 player!). I don't want to give any of the story away in case you haven't seen it yet, but I do want to point out what I believe to be a reference to another TV show in one episode. In season 1 episode 15, we are taken back to Charlie's pre-plane crash life in England where his friend makes a reference to someone who is "buying some paper company in Slough." Hello?!! The Office?!! Another one of my favourite TV shows. I love noticing small details like this. And I love when two of my favourite shows come together to entertain me as one!

P.S. How do you like the cheesy title I came up with for this blog?!! A lot of anti-thought went into this one...

P.P.S. Grammar quiz. Hyphen use. Pre plane crash.

sports day today!

Oh wait, the sports day's not till Saturday. Today was just a FULL DRESS REHEARSAL. That's right, I'm not talking about students individually training for their events, I mean the entire school runs through the whole program, races and all, to make sure it all goes smoothly. Apparently the sports day is the principal's time to shine in front of all the parents, so the school devotes a lot of time preparing for the big day. For the past two weeks alone the school has been running on a special shortened schedule to ensure maximum training time after school. Students have also been practicing before school and in their lunch breaks.

It makes me wonder why they even bother having the real sports day now - they already know what's going to happen! I just think it's the slow kids who suffer. They get to practice coming last.

Toy soldiers.

The students form ranks for the opening ceremony. A few words from the principal, followed by something along the lines of, "I now declare the (full dress rehearsal of the) sports day open!"

Bendy.

Students and teachers all warm up to the same freaky stretching music I hear at the beginning of every P.E. lesson. I swear if you played it backwards there'd be some hidden message.

The troops receive their orders. 

Fall out!

The troops disperse. 

Heil Principal!

Represenative students swear an oath to the principal to be the best sports day participants they can be.

Jumpin' Jumpin'

One of the main events is an interclass jumprope competition. The highest number of consecutive jumps wins you the title of Lord of the Jump.

What are all these bamboo poles doing lying in the middle of the oval? I dunno, but let's get 'em!

That's my stripey red bamboo pole, bitch!!

Whoever gets the most poles across their line wins.

Charge! 

Obstacle course.

After the students shimmy under the net, they have to win a round of janken (rock-paper-scissors) with the students waiting on the other side before they can proceed to the pommel horse. From then there's nothing between them and the finish line but a balancing act with a ping pong on a piece of paper.

Human shortcut protector.

Students spaced at about 10m intervals around the track put their shins on the line to ensure no racers stray over the boundary.

They're having fun after all. 

when is a swastika not a swastika?

When it's anticlockwise.

Today in class I noticed a student was drawing a symbol on his desk. After class I went and had a closer look - he had repeatedly drawn the Nazi swatsika. I gave him the benefit of the doubt because there is a Japanese symbol used to mark temples on maps etc. that looks like a swastika but with the arms directed anticlockwise. It predates any Hitler action. I asked him what it was. Was it 'temple'? No, he said, it's the swastika. Hmmm, I asked him if he knew the meaning of that symbol, but only got a vague answer implying that he either didn't know or didn't really care. I was getting a bit exasperated now! The English teacher was still there, so I told her that I wanted him to stop drawing it!! I used as many simple English words as I could to explain 'BAD BAD BAD'! But I got the impression that he really didn't understand the true meaning and impact of the symbol. And given the tendency of Japanese history textbooks to gloss over / omit significant events (What? You mean Japanese people did bad things in the war??) it was no surprise to me.

A totally unrelated teacher later confirmed my suspicions. He came up to me out of the blue and said, Miss Anna, I must apologise to you, because we don't teach the meaning of the swastika to students and they don't know what it is.

I remember seeing a Japanese guy wearing a jumper with a huge 'temple' sign on it once. I think he would get beat up wearing that outside Japan. Would you recognise that the arms were heading in the opposite direction to a swastika? I don't think most people would, and even now that I know about the temple symbol I still feel shocked when I see it.

keep it simple stupid

A while ago I had to write a short message in Japanese to go in the school album at the end of the school year (April in Japan). I got one of the English teachers to check it because it was important to me and I wanted it to be just right.

That was a few weeks ago. Today a teacher came up to me with a rough copy of the album and told me that my Japanese message was 'too difficult' and they would have to change it. He said, were you just trying to say that you had a great experience here that you couldn't have had in Australia?? NOOooo! I was so disappointed, and a little hurt for some reason. Disappointed that this message I so carefully wrote and had checked was misunderstood, and I guess hurt that they just seemed so eager to cull my message without caring about what I had wanted to say. I showed it to my Japanese teacher this afternoon and she said it could be made clearer by basically just deleting half of it. She did tell me how to express what I wanted to say but by then I was too fed up to care. It's time for me to go eat some worms, but really, noone could care less for my message at this school.

"For all of you, there have been ALTs before me and there will be new ALTs to follow, so I am just one of many to you and my time here has been nothing exceptional in your lives. But for me, these two years in Japan have been a wonderful, rare experience that stand out from my daily life in Australia, and I will never forget it."

became:

"These two years have been a great experience for me. I will never forget it. Thank you all for everything."

Pah. More like, keep it stupidly simple.

mistifications part I1/2

More exam results today. One girl in grade 8 went behind the curtain to check her score.

today's lunch

My one trip outside today was a short walk to a chocolate shop near my house, called Chocolat. My house is right on the cusp between civilisation and good ol' fashioned farming, which makes for a charming walk to a chocolate shop on a Sunday afternoon! I even saw a tractor.

So I started with the dinosaur and worked my way round clockwise. In case you're wondering, the green one is maccha, a Japanese green tea.

mistifications part I

Sometimes my experiences in Japan come without the "pessi" and are just plain "mistifying"! The students had mid-term tests yesterday and got their results back today. Watching the students take back their test papers is one of the funnier things I have seen here! They will go to huge and humorous lengths to make sure noone else sees their score in the bottom right-hand corner of the paper.

Usually, the teacher takes a seat behind the desk at the front of the class and puts all the papers inside the desk. Then each student is called individually, usually in alphabetical or (student-) numerical order. The teacher folds the paper in half and hands it to the student once they come near the desk, and most students then dog-ear the bottom corner of the paper to cover the score, then race back to their desk where they hunch over and take a peak. Today some students even went up the back of the class for extra privacy! The whole time students are squealing and screaming and swearing - it's so great! My robotic little English-haters came to life!

One of the classes was extra amusing today, because students brought folders or textbooks up to the teacher's desk to snap the paper out of her hands and conceal it! Another girl was really funny because she thought she had been underscored so I was helping her add up her points, and when we found that one question hadn't been marked and she deserved an extra couple of points we both yelled out in joy and she gave me a double high-five!! It was 'cute'.

I caused a sensation a few weeks ago after a smaller test when some students claimed I was flashing their scores when I gave their papers back! They were yelling out, "Ahhh!! You're showing the scores! People can see them!!"

I remember when I was in high school, our scores and class ranking for maths were posted on the wall!

on second thought...

I think feeling frustrated in Japan is more like a Chinese burn than a punch in the guts.

pessimistifications part I

Overall I think my Japan experience has been great and I'm a better person for it. But there are moments of extreme frustration that are just like a punch in the guts right when I'm starting to feel optimistic about Japan in general. I call these "pessimistifications*". They make me wanna kick Japan in the face, or in the balls, seeing as it seems to be such a man's land [but that's an entirely separate blog;) ].

There is a boy in grade 8 who has has severe learning disabilities. He does not participate in any class activities, and can't even do simple tasks such as filling in blanks on a worksheet. He has near zero communication skills, even when the JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) speaks to him in Japanese. Apparently it's not just in English class either; he can't function in any subject. I don't understand how someone who is in such obvious need of special education could stay in mainstream schooling. I asked the JTE what's going on and she told me that in the Japanese public education system the school is powerless in such a situation. The teachers can recommend to the parents that their child receives special education, but it is up to the parents whether or not to act on this recommendation. I asked the JTE why the parents wouldn't seek special schooling, and I thought perhaps it's because it's expensive. But she said, no, it's a question of social status - giving their child special education would be shameful.

Here's something else - in Japan every student can graduate from junior high school (equivalent to Australian grade 7 -9) regardless of academic performance. In fact, students don't even need to come to school, let alone submit work or take exams, to pass. So this student will graduate from junior high school next year. What will happen to him then??

I've often thought that there seem to be more 'problem students' in Japan than I noticed at school in Australia. There seem to be more students with learning disabilities, ADD, anti-social behaviour, etc. I just thought maybe I never noticed these things back home as a student, and that it's more obvious now from a teacher's perspective. But now I'm beginning to see that it's because parents are forcing their special needs children through mainstream schooling for the sake of "saving face". I guess I should be more tolerant when students are pissing me off, because it's not their fault that they haven't been given the proper education they need.

*It's my blog and I'll make up words if I want to!