My modem was delivered last night, so I FINALLY have Internet at my apartment! I'm so glad to be out of the Dark Ages. I mean really, what did people do before Internet?
Anyway, I've been teaching for almost a couple of weeks now. I've been to four of my schools (the fifth one doesn't have classes until next month). I have lots of variation, too. My smallest class has fewer than 10 students, and my biggest has nearly 40; some days I'll only have one class, and other days I'll have five; I have three special-needs kids (a boy with a hearing disability, a girl with a learning disability and a boy who has some kind of UV ray sensitivity and has to be completely covered head to toe in order to go outside, including wearing a spacesuit-looking thing on his head — they each have a separate teacher who sits with them and helps them out in class).
I love the first graders — they're just so adorable and excited about everything — but I have a sixth grade class that's probably my favorite. Maybe it's because the class is so small (seven students) and they can't get away with goofing off like most kids can, but they just seem vastly more mature than any of my other classes with kids the same age. Plus, homeroom teacher got jokes!
By now I've gotten used to strange reactions to my presence... stares, whispering (yeah, it's pretty easy to tell when someone is talking about you, even if you don't speak the same language), pointing, even gawking... but I was not prepared for being ambushed by several children after every class! Fourth, fifth and sixth graders all want to touch my hair, third graders want my autograph, and first and second graders just want to play me in rock-paper-scissors.
English classes are run by me and the students' regular homeroom teacher. Most JETs get to plan their own lessons, but for some reason the Aki City Board of Education writes all the lesson plans for us, so it's kind of like reading a script. It took me a few days to get the hang of the routine, and half the time the homeroom teachers are just as clueless as I am. I had a class yesterday where the homeroom teacher was completely unprepared. He didn't know what lesson we were on, he didn't have the lesson plan, and he gave the students the wrong instructions for one of the activities. Most of the time the teachers are on their game, but I guess everyone has those days.
Teachers in Japan do not discipline kids the way I'm used to seeing it. If a kid is acting up, the most I've seen teachers do is tell the kid once or twice to cut it out, but usually they just ignore it. I've had stuff go down in class that kids would get in serious trouble for in the U.S., like hitting each other and getting the teacher's attention not by the raising of the hand, but instead by banging a fist on the desk and whining, "Sensei, sensei!" I had one particularly obnoxious fourth-grade boy who was disruptive throughout the entire class, and at one point he just started yelling, "RAMEN! RAMEN! RAMEN!" I looked at the homeroom teacher, and he didn't say a word, and I don't have the authority to tell a kid to stuff it, so I just tried to talk over the shouting.
Also, whereas in the U.S. the troublemakers usually sit in the back of the class, I've noticed that my most disruptive students here sit in the front. The better to hassle, I suppose.
So far I've had a couple of dinners with other JETs who live on the east side of the prefecture. It might end up being a weekly thing. One of the east side JETs, Dave, lives in Toyo, a beach town on the northeast side of Kochi. Dave hosted a beach party last weekend. Hey, I'm from SoCal — say the word "beach" and I'm there!
Shirahama Beach:
(I just started using Blogger's new post editor, which lets you choose the size of your pictures. I'm giving medium a try.)
(David, who lives in Yasuda. Not Dave, who lives in Toyo and hosted the beach party.)
(This is Dave, the beach party host, attempting slacklining.)
Kym:
George helping out Lisa:
I think George is the only one who knows how to do this properly:
Huw and Naomi hurling (the Irish kind, not the vomit kind):
The campsite:
(The JETs in Tokushima Prefecture had a beach party at Shirahama that same night, so we mingled with them as well.)
(Kym hiding behind her boyfriend Louis. Apparently she doesn't like having her picture taken.)
(Matt, the grill master.)
Kym, Louis and David, the group I came with, left that night. I was planning to leave with them, but I was having a really good time, so I decided to stay since Michelle had extra room in her tent and Dave let me borrow his sleeping bag. I'm glad I stayed. There was food, fun, swimming, and even a late-night singalong, since a couple of people ended up bringing guitars.
The next day, I woke up really early, covered in mosquito bites. I saw that a couple of the perpetrators had infiltrated our tent, and I couldn't go back to sleep knowing they were hovering around, so I went swimming with a couple of the Tokushima guys who hadn't gone to sleep at all. Then I came back to the campsite, helped clean up and take the tent down, and spent the rest of the morning wandering with my camera.
(I'm so jealous of Dave — if I lived here I'd never leave the beach!)
Lunch and ice cream with Michelle, Dave, Annie and Leeako:
After lunch, we said goodbye to Dave and headed back down through the mountains in Michelle's car, stopping for pics by this gorgeous river!
(Attempting the self-timer.)
Driving across the bridge:
We stopped at an onsen in Kitagawa Village:
I'm not quite sure how to describe an onsen. It's kind of a bathhouse, but not really — you have to shower and be completely clean before you get in the water. Onsens are a big part of Japanese life and culture, but I was planning on avoiding them. The whole group nudity thing is way awkward for me (and that's gender-separated... I could never go to a co-ed onsen). Even so, I did leave feeling really relaxed.
That's about it. I'm going on a tour of Nahari town tomorrow, so stay tuned for more east-side adventures!
Random thought for the day: There's a polite way to express curiosity about a foreigner, and there's an incredibly rude way to do so. See if you can guess which is which.
Guy who delivered my modem: "What country are you from?"
Creeper on a bike, after doing a triple-take and swerving in front of me so that I was forced to stop: "Nani jin, nani jin?" ("What are you? What are you?")
Oh, Japan.
Peace,
Britt
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