On Monday, one of my English teachers told me that all of the teachers had to go to the gym during break time. She said that it was an assembly because the third graders had a track and field tournament on Wednesday. It was basically a Japanese pep rally. Except, instead of cheering and silly games like pie the teacher or cross-dressing, it was more formal. The teachers sat on the edge of the gym while the students sat in the middle of the gym. There was a lot of bowing, speech giving, and a slide show of past track and field tournaments to watch. At the end of the “pep rally”, we sang a song. The only word I knew in the song was “Yunomae.” After the assembly, I asked my English teacher what the song was, and she said it was a school song. She said that last year, Yunomae JHS won all of the track events but lost most of the field events. I asked her yesterday how they did, and she said that they won most of the track events and won third place overall. Not too bad, Yunomae JHS, not too bad!
Wednesdays are my elementary school days. I’ve said it before. I love/hate the elementary school. I hate going there because I have NO IDEA what I’m doing. I’ve tried to pick it up and get into the swing of things, but it seems like each week is something different. This week, there was a meeting that I’m not 100% completely sure I was supposed to attend. The vice principal told me to go to the library to study….at least, that’s what I thought he said. I took a couple of things to work on, but when I got upstairs, the library was locked. I waited for a little while before going back downstairs. I noticed all of the teachers heading into the teacher’s room, and that generally means something important. I rarely see all of the teachers in the teacher’s room, so for everyone to be in there, I knew it was something important. I followed them in, sat down at my desk, and proceeded to listen to a meeting conducted in Japanese for the next thirty minutes. It was boring. Reeeeeally boring.
However, I absolutely adore the kids! My favorite time of the day is lunch and recess. Even though we can’t really understand one another, they love me and are willing to put up with the crazy foreigner. I don’t really know what started it, but we began making silly faces at one another. They really thought it was funny that I could overlap each finger on both hands. They were also very interested with what I ate, how I ate it, and what I thought of it. They were also fascinated with my earrings. Earrings here are a little frowned upon. You’re not a complete degenerate if you have your ears pierced, but not a lot of Japanese women pierce their ears. In fact, pierced ears are banned for students in most schools. My elementary students were so impressed with how I could pull it out and put it back in. They wanted me to do it time and time and time again! I’m pasty pale white, and I know that. However, here that’s a good thing. It looks like I moved to the right place! J Some of the girls were comparing my arm to theirs and rubbing the underside of my forearm. They really enjoy the paleness of the foreigner. I posted a video the other day on facebook of me teaching the kids “bisquick.” For those of you that didn’t play it in elementary school, it’s a hand slap game. Some of the girls remembered it from Sunday when I taught it to them, and they wanted to play it. Most of the girls were too scared to play the crazy foreign slap game, but the girls that tried got very good at it! When they tried to play it by themselves, they failed terribly, lol. I’m sure I played it at least fifty times. I was even getting tired of it!
Elementary school kids are FAST. Whenever you play tag with elementary school kids in the States, I feel like you have to slow down your speed…..like “Oh no! You’re going to get me!” but running half the speed you normally would. Here, you have to run as fast as possible because Japanese kids are QUICK. When we play tag, it’s basically a game of tag and be tagged by the foreigner. I get tired very quickly because:
a) I have to run at top speed. The kids don’t cut me any slack.
b) If I’m not being chased, then I’m currently “it.”
They show no mercy on the out-of-shape foreigner. ;)
Another thing that is funny about Japanese students is that they are PERFECTIONISTS. If they make a mistake on their papers, instead of scratching it out, they erase it and start again. There really is no concept of scratching something out in Japan. If I correct a student on spelling that is off by one letter, they erase the entire word and start again. For example, today a kid had “does’t” on his paper instead of “doesn’t.” He had plenty of room to squeeze a little “n” in there, but instead he erased the whole word and started new. They all have pencil cases that are well equipped with an arsenal of perfecting tools….pencils, black, red, and blue pens, multi-color high lighters, projectors, rulers, etc. The other day we played bingo in class, and the kids had to divide their paper in a 4 X 4 bingo card. They were ridiculously meticulous about measuring each square, making straight lines, and creating the perfectly even 4 X 4 square.
Last night, I had my night class. The kids are elementary school students and have more energy than me. It’s very difficult to keep their attention at anything for long! If I have a sit-down game, it’s not going to work. Therefore, last night I had several active activities planned. We started off with animals flashcards and reviewing animal names. Once we had gone through the fat stack of flashcards I had, we moved on to gestures. That was fun! The kids really enjoyed acting out different animals. After that, we played a relay game in which the kids were divided into two teams. I had the flashcards spread across the floor in the front of the room. The kids lined up (kinda) in the back. Ian called out names of animals, and one person from each group raced to the front and grabbed the flash card. We had a little break after that. Ian basically became a human jungle gym for the boys. They were climbing on his back, pulling on his arms, etc. Ian had the “cool” foreigner factor. J After we regrouped, we played duck, duck, goose….except we didn’t have flashcards of a duck or goose. Instead we played kangaroo, kangaroo, bee, later switching it to tiger, tiger, dog, and finally grasshopper, grasshopper, panda. Lol. It was fun. Since it was a running game, we had to bring our A game. There were a few times when the kids lapped me, and I had to be the “goose” more than once. There were a few times when the kids slipped or stumbled on the tatami mats, but they were having too much fun to cry about it. Last night’s class = success. Next week’s class…..who knows!
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