A Typical Day at a Japanese Middle School

Let's talk about a regular day at a Japanese school!

These are public schools we're talking about here, and there are 8 middle schools in Choshi.  I only visit 2, and I go between them every day.  Three days a week I'm at 4chuu and twice a week I'm at 3chuu.

You may have noticed the odd spelling of the schools.  A school named 4chuu can't be a very interesting school.  But actually, all the middle schools in Choshi are numbered, not named.  And "chuu" is just the way to say "middle."  So, the name of the school is really its number in the city along with "middle."  1chuu is closest to the ocean, while 8chuu is further inland and approaches Asahi, the big big city nearby.

A typical day begins early.  When I pull into school at 7:45 AM, students are already outside, running around the school in laps, and I can only surmise it's the track team, or maybe that's just part of the daily school ritual.  Students are invariably at school when I get there, but class doesn't begin until a bit later, around 8:40.  There's homeroom until then, and then at 8:40, classes begin.  Most days contain 6 class periods, a lunch period, and some "extra stuff," like cleaning, homeroom, post-lunch break, or a combination of all of those things.  As for my daily schedule, please refer to the below figures:

In other words, I never teach all 6 periods.  I frequently team teach between 2 and 4, and 5 is considered a very busy day.  Note that this is "team teaching," meaning I assist with the lesson, and don't create any.  In my off periods, I frequently can be seen studying kanji in the teachers' room or wandering the halls aimlessly. With all the wandering I do in between classes, I frequently am brought to the attention of passing students.  It's normal for teachers to be greeted every time they walk by a student, or a mass of students.  No matter how many times during the day I walk by a group of kids, they will always stop and say hello to me.  Students definitely have a different concept of teacher respect here.  

Please refer below to how the between-classes greeting process works.

 As you can see, greetings and giggles/stares chuckles both invariably occur 100% of the time.  Many times, walking between classes, my mouth is constantly moving, shouting "Hello," "Hey," "How are you?" and, "Sup?" among other common English greetings.

Please refer to the below figure to see how most students respond to a greeting/greet me.

Another important distinction is that students don't move from classroom to classroom.  Instead, the smarter choice:  teachers only will move around the school, creating a lot less (theoretically) clutter in the hallways, but most students hang out in the halls between classes anyway.

Anyhow, after 4th period is lunchtime.  During lunchtime, the students will carry all the food to each classroom themselves, and also the office lady in the teachers' room serves all the teachers lunch.  Students and teachers both eat the same high calorie lunch, so it must a) be nutritious, b) be filling, and c) appeal to the masses.  Most of the time, it's rice (sometimes delicious sweet bread), soup, and some sort of meat, either fish or chicken or ham or a combo of all 3. I'm actually a huge fan of lunch (don't tell anyone) especially because it comes with a carton of milk and usually some sort of treat -- a cookie or jelly or something.

(Note that the meal pictured isn't the school lunch we get: the milk is a different brand, and there's usually a dessert included.  I just found this picture on google, but it works well enough to demonstrate.)

After lunch, it's back to classes for one or two more periods, depending on the day.  I'm not yet sure why some days only have 5 periods.  What do they do during 6th period's time?  Anyway, as I have no duties during that time I resume my studying/wandering process.

Once classes are officially over, cleaning begins.  Students clean the schools in japan; there is no janitor or cleaning crew that comes in.  Therefore, the incentive to keep the place clean is great, and the students get to socialize with other students and teachers alike, and just relax and be physically active for a little.  This is a lot of fun, especially walking around speaking in English (with occasional Japanese, shh) with students.  They laugh at me a lot.  See the above figures for more information.

After all that, school is over!  That still leaves club activities, which can go until 6 PM, and then after that, some students even go to cram school to learn MORE and, if they're 3rd years (eighth graders), they're preparing for the upcoming tests that determine which high school they can get into.  The high school entrance process is a lot like the college entrance process in America.  In fact, once you've gotten into a good high school in Japan, the hard work is over.  Many Japanese tell me college is just a nice easy ride, and high school kicks butt, contrary to the American system.

And that's pretty much it!  Note that the above information only reflects middle school, which I teach 3 out of 4 weeks a month.  At elementary schools, everything is much, much more simplified:

Let's Talk Typhoons!

Today's talk typhoons!  Well, one in particular, it's Typhoon Roke that's currently sweeping the nation.  Be careful everyone in Japan!  Stay inside -- you don't want to be caught in the rain.

Let me tell you 'bout a little place called Choshi...

In a video, of course!  

Here's the gist of the video for those who want a summary:

Choshi is a small city of 73,000 people lurking in the shadows of the great metropolis, Tokyo.  It stands surrounded by water on three sides, facing the Tonegawa river whose waters flow out towards the Pacific Ocean.  The city itself is relatively urban, with homes clustered about in tight spaces, though you don't often see too many people outside unless there's a big event.  This lends to the city a nice, quiet, rural feel, giving you the benefits of both city and country living at the same time.  If you're ever itching for some city action, Tokyo is just a 2 hour train ride away, so you'll need to make a day trip out of it--just like you probably would going into Philadelphia.

 Turns out the footage I took wasn't nearly long enough to capture all I wanted to say.  Here some pictures of the various cool sites around Choshi.  

*Note the restaurant in the second picture; it also made an appearance in the Choshi Primer music video, and will soon be getting its own dedicated blog post :-)

The morning after the previous post...

Seems this ride's gonna get worse before it gets better.

A short reflection on my first day as an Elementary School Teacher

Hide your children, because Eddie-sensei is loose in your public school system!

A trip to the grocery store (with no footage of shopping)

Here's a long, long video of me driving to the grocery store and talking to the camera.

-I complained way too much about the work days... for clarification, I get a few periods off every day, so I'm not working for 10 hours straight... they treat us decently, great even, it's just that my actual PERSONAL time is lacking.  After being "on display" for 10 hours a day though, it does seem you need more sleep...

- I forgot to zoom out again after I took pictures of cats... so enjoy watching my mouth and nose for the last few minutes.

-Takarajima means "Treasure Island" in English.

A note I wrote on the night of Thursday, Sept 1st.

"One day down, one more to go until the weekend.

Yesterday I spent nearly 10 hours at school after a frustrating morning where I was nearly late!  But everything was OK, and then after some chatting, we got started on the opening ceremony!

This involved everyone going to the gym, where all the students sat down on the floor and teachers gave short speeches.  Then it was my turn to go to the front of the room and deliver a short speech, half in English and half in Japanese.  It was dead silent in the room, but I didn’t mess up too much, even if my Japanese isn’t very good.  Soon after, we all left the gym and headed to the main building to clean and get ready for classes.  In Japan, the teachers and students clean the school instead of a janitor.  I think this provides a greater incentive for students not to mess up or trash the place since it’s on them and their peers to clean it. It’s a great time to bond as well, since you can have unconstructed conversation with the students and get to know the teachers better.  But, none of this happened, because I was soon whisked back to the teachers’ room to prepare for my first lesson.

My FIRST LESSON!  With no teaching experience under my belt, I was given access to 30 middle school students and 50 minutes to do whatever I wanted.  I certainly don’t any of the tricks or methods to get kids interested, or to go about creating a lesson plan, but the one I had wasn’t so bad.  I introduced them to America, and got them to repeat my name and city.  They had trouble saying “Pennsylvania” and “Philadelphia” but they were at least showing interest!  Overall it was a very energetic class.  They were happy to participate and ask questions.

The second period went much like the first one, since they were both second years (7^th graders). 

Then, there was school lunch, which wasn’t too bad.  In Japan, teachers and students eat the same school lunch, so it has to be filling enough for adults too, which in fact, was bad, because it was TOO MUCH food: an egg omelet, curry and rice, salad, apple jell-o, a carton of milk, not to mention all the candy that the teachers passed around the teachers’ room all day.  I studied some kanji on my Kindle at lunch since all the teachers seemed to be eating quietly at their own desks and not socializing too much.

After lunch came the 3^rd years, AKA eighth graders.  In Japan, eighth graders have the added pressure of studying hard to get into high school.  This results in a mostly apathetic class, although I think lunch and time of day also had something to do with it.  This is a trend that seems to be sweeping the nation, unfortunately, seeing as how the exams they study for basically determine the rest of their life… it’s definitely a lot of pressure.  After this class, there was some more free, then more speech contest stuff… the contest is on the 30^th, so the students are really pushing hard these next few weeks.  

The one thing I noticed with any sort of certainty was that it would easy for a teacher to dedicate his or her whole life to this job, even weekends.  Many teachers remained at work until 7, for no apparent reason other than to do paper work.  It’d be easy to stay at work until 8 or 9, go home and go to bed, then get up around 6 and do it all again.  So you essentially would have no real life other than work… which I guess is why people say that in Japan, you are your job.  It’s just hard to believe… and the 48 hours you get on the weekends are the only hours you can do what you like.  It’s an interesting system…"

Well, onto bigger and better things!  It was a very good start and the days after have been fun as well, but work really is a serious dedication of time.  But hey, what else would I be doing anyway? 

That's what I'm here for!!

A image and video-less post about the calm of the rural landscape

There's been a typhoon warning as bad weather spreads across Japan, starting with Shikoku in the Southewast.  Up here in Choshi, it was raining and blowing wind like the end of the world, and as I sit here typing at 11 AM on Saturday morning, it still looks rather gloomy out.  Nonetheless, perhaps the weather is giving everyone a sign that today is a good day to spend recuperating from a long, interesting week.

For many JETs, this past week marked the beginning of two terrible events:

• your self-introduction lesson.  Many JETs have never taught anyone anything beyond the ABCs, and myself included, stayed up late into the night wondering if they were really cut for teaching.  Between makeshift lesson plans, poorly constructed activities and untested, untried games and attention keepers, many JETs felt overwhelmed in the hustle and bustle of their first day or two.  Like me, other JETs were probably given only one line of information concerning their first day: "Please prepare a 50 minute self-introduction lesson."  You can imagine the horror on many of our faces, not just those without teaching experience, but surely every new ALT, at trying to figure out how to maintain the interest and attention of 20 or 30 young Japanese school students.  However, as it is now the weekend and many of this have survived relatively well the new onslaught, I want to give congratulations to all those involved, as well as countless thanks to the teachers for assisting us every step of the way. 

• The start of standard 8:00 - 3:45 PM work days, which, at this point in time, is really more of a guideline than a rule set in stone.  You see, our contracts stipulate these hours as working hours, with exactly one hour of break for lunch.  However, in practice, every situation really is different.  For example, I spent at least half of both of my first days teaching in the teachers' room, enjoying cool air-conditioning and studying kanji while I prepared for my next lesson.  So, nearly half the hours we spend "on the job" are really spent "at school, but doing whatever you want."  It's an interesting system, and I can't knock it at all, because things that need to get done actually seem to happen more efficiently when there's significant downtime for teachers.  Most strikingly, though, is that all this month, as students ramp up practice for the eventual speech contest (September 30), all ALTs are expected and graciously asked to remain after school for 2 hours every day to help with students.  For many of us, especially those who studied education in college, this is no problem.  For me as well, this presents itself as a great opportunity for further show of dedication to teachers as well as a great time to get to know students.  Couple this 2-hour-overtime rule with the fact that school "begins" at 8 AM, and you've got yourself quite a long day at school.  Some teachers arrive at 7:30 or earlier, and as I left the school last night at 6:35 PM, I realized I was one of the first to do so.  The rest were working diligently at their desks or engaging in work-related conversation.  I still can't say for sure what they all did after classes for over, but I couldn't help but remind myself of what would happen in a similar situation in an American school:  as soon as the bell rings at 3:45, all the teachers would probably funnel out of the school and welcome the weekend.  

In the end, the above blobs of text mean two things: 

1. one, first time teaching experience for ALTs, and 
2. two, going from 2 hour work days in August to 10 hours or beyond in September.  

I know that many of us have felt bored and are well settled in at this point, so I'm sure many welcome this great change in scheduling.  We are all eager to sink our teeth in to the education system by now.