Rice

Today I was at Shimokawa elementary school (下川小学校). During a free period before lunch the principal asked me if I wanted to join the 5th grade students harvesting rice. Every year the kids get the opportunity to plant a field of rice and then help harvest it.

I was delighted to get the opportunity to try it out!


A kamada or sickle (鎌田).


A small inekariki (稲刈り機) or rice combine harvester.


We stacked the rice at the edge of the field.


I spoke to a little old Japanese woman who was working there. She explained the entire rice reaping process to me. But unfortunately about 98% of what she said to me went right over my head. One thing I did pick up on though was that the field we were working in would have a yield of about 240 kilograms; about a years supply of rice for 7 or 8 people.

Speech Contest 2009

Every year there is a speech contest for all the junior high schools in my area. 2 students from each school take part in the contest. One student does a recitation and the other writes their own speech. The ALTs usually coach the students with pronunciation, intonation and body language etc.

We always start practicing with the students about a month before the contest, and it's usually an enjoyable experience as we get given more responsibility than usual from the JTEs. But it also gets kindof hectic during the last two weeks.


This year one of my kids came in second place (the tall guy). And out of the 4 students I worked with he was by far the laziest. He usually didn't even show up for practice, and twice he told the teacher that he wasn't going to take part in the competition!

Teachers

In Japan the school year is from April to March. There is only a 2 week spring holiday for the students, though most will continue to come to school for club activities. For the teachers there is only a break from teaching classes, but they must still come to school as normal.

A major difference between the school system in Japan and at home is that every couple of years a teacher will be moved to a different school. Usually a teacher will be at one school for a period of around 3 to 5 years, though more is possible; two of my teachers worked at my school for 8 years. The main Board of Education decides which teachers must move, and which schools they must go to.

This system is good and bad. It's good because a school doesn't get stuck with the same bad teachers for 30 or 40 years like back home. But of course the reverse is also true; a school doesn't get to keep the great teachers for more than a few years.

On the last day of the school year (at least that's when it happens in my school), the principal get word, and then calls the teachers, one by one, into his office and tells them if they have to move or not. The teachers then emerge from his office expressionless and sit back down at their desks and continue working as if nothing had just happened. Even though the previous day all the teachers were saying how nervous they were about it!

Of course it's normal to hope that certain teachers stay, and that others leave. So I sat at my desk staring at the teachers' expressions to see if I could spot who is happy or sad glint in their eye, and connect that with my knowledge of which teachers I knew wanted to leave and which wanted to stay. But my body language reading skills are not finely tuned enough to read any of their non-expressions.

A while later, my favourite teacher, Matsuhashi sensei, the music teacher who sorted me out with shamisen lessons a few weeks after I arrived in Japan, came to get a coffee near my desk and told us that she was leaving. We all expected, like we had last year that she would be leaving as she had been at the school for an exceptional 8 years! Then other teachers also admitted whether or not they were leaving.

I was very interested to find out if Aiba sensei, one of the two English teachers at that school, would be leaving or not. I knew he wanted to leave, and I have to admit I was really hoping the same. He has a very abrupt attitude that I struggled to accommodate for. My predecessor also struggled with him, much more than I have, in fact the teacher didn't allow my predecessor into the classroom with him!

Recently in my other junior high school the English teacher took maternity, and the replacement teacher happened to be the wife of Aiba sensei, also known as Aiba sensei. And although it was easy to remember her name I saw many similarities between her and her husband. Luckily for me, she was only a temporary replacement and is now finished!

So as I was anxiously waited to see if he was leaving or not, he didn't partake in sharing with the other teachers if he would be going or staying. So as he got up to leave for club activities I asked him and his reply was "I don't say yet."

For spring holiday I work at my local BoE, and on Monday they hadn't heard yet from the main BoE which teachers were changing. But the caretaker from my school came to the office on Tuesday and my supervisor asked him, my ears perked up as I listened to him listing the names of the teachers. He listed all the names I already knew were leaving, and stopped. Then he said "oh and Aiba sensei."

Euphoria!

Nuts

Last Thursday just before we left the staff room to go for lunch, the teachers gathered for a chat as they often do. I was trying to understand what they were saying because I kept hearing the word missile.

At lunch I asked the teacher I always sit with, Takahashi sensei, what they had been talking about. He told me that North Korea has announced that they are launching a satellite early next month, but the Japanese don't believe this to be the truth. Apparently North Korea is actually planning to test-fire missiles over Japan, more specifically over Aomori and Akita! It is planned for between April 4th and 8th.

The Japanese are planning on shooting down these missiles before pass over Japan. I asked how good the Japanese are at doing that, and was told that they haven't done it before, and that they are quite likely to miss!

I was wondering how concerned people actually were about this, so I asked him if he would go on a holiday away from Akita for the days that the missiles would be tested. He answered in Japanese and but said something the equivalent of "You can bet your right nut I am!"

Dewa Graduation

On March 8th I woke up no feeling the may west! But it was 7am and I had to get up for graduation day #2, Dewa junior high school, my main school.

I was assigned my seat in the teacher section in the gym, and was not too excited when I saw where it was. Sitting beside the brass band was good because I was surly not going to fall asleep for too long but sitting beside the horn player as not what any person with a hangover should have to endure! This picture was taken from my seat, and I had to lean back to take it!!


The ceremony was very similar to Ouchi's graduation; this was just bigger as there are more students. We had 53 graduating students, and one of the students I saw for the very first time! I asked my teacher about it though I didn't understand her answer. Apparently that student and 3 others that I had never met also graduated!



The weather was much better so the picture session outside was much more pleasant. Although I think there were far more criers today than yesterday. I took plenty of photos today.


I will miss many of these students. Two in particular, the ones who did the speech contest with me last September, both students actually really like English and were always happy to talk with me. Most students get excited when they see the ALT but all they usually ever say is "Hello".

Ouchi Graduation

On Saturday 7th March the 3rd grade students graduated from Ouchi junior high school. We all had to go to school as normal. The students and teachers had final preparations to make that morning, I had time to check my emails. Each student was presented with a picture book of all the teachers, students and various different events that happened throughout their time at the school. Some of the students came to me to get me to write a message in it. The ceremony started at 10am sharp and was held in the school gym. All students and most parents attended. The students had been rehearsing for this event for the past week or two.


The ceremony started with the brass band playing music as the 40 graduating students entered the room. Everyone applauded constantly as all the students entered the room. Once seated, everyone (bar me) sung the national anthem, the school song and one other song. The students had all trained to stand and sit down at exactly the same time, and it was quite impressive to see how in sync they all were.

A few speeches from a few random people I had never seen before were given. Then each student took turns going up onto the stage to get presented with their graduation certificate/book from the principal. Then the principal gave a speech at which point a few of the students were getting emotional. The class president then went up to make a speech. The sad music was turned on in the background as she delivered a 5 minute long speech. As she gave her speech I looked around at the students and saw many of them trying to contain the tears. Then I looked at the students who were not graduating, they were also crying. Then I looked at the parents of the graduating students and they seemed to be shedding as many tears as the rest!

The students here have a love for their school that can't be compared with the schools in Ireland, at very least not the school I attended. When I graduated everyone was delighted to be leaving the school. These students were deeply disappointed. Although their age is somewhat different, junior high school is the same as junior certificate level at home. They will go to another school for senior certificate level. We didn't have a graduation after junior certificate as we were not changing school.


After we applauded the last student back out of the gym, we had time to go to the staff room for a hot cup of green tea. The weather on Saturday was particularly bad; very windy, bitterly cold and it was starting to snow again.


Next up the students were departing the school for the last time. We put on our jackets and headed outside to see a short outdoor ceremony. The children were all taking photos of each other and giving each other gifts. I took some photos with my favourite students.


Later we went to a party for the parents in Hotel Iris. That kicked off at 5pm and there was a dinner and an all-you-can-drink for two and a half hours. It started off slow but as people started to get drunk I had many people coming to talk with me. Last year I had a parent get insulted with me because I didn't know her child by name, so this year I came prepared with a sheet with all the students faces and names so that I'd know who was who!

After that part finished we moved on to the second party at Blue Shuttle, a karaoke bar with another 2 hour all-you-can-drink. I was speaking with the parents of the class president and my other favourite student for a long time. One of them wanted me to sing a traditional Irish song on the karaoke. I told him if there was one there I would, as long as he did too. Of course I knew here wasn't going to be a traditional Irish song, but he sang the national anthem anyway! After that party ended they tried to get me to go to a third party, yet another all-you-can-drink bar, but it was close to midnight and I knew I had to be up bright and early the next day for the graduation at Dewa junior high school, my other school.

Maths

While studying Japanese last week I came across the word for multiplication table, 九九 (kuku) which translates into nine nine. I thought it a little strange at the time but didn't think too much about it.

Yesterday I was asked to join the 3rd grade maths class as my JTE was absent because her sick was child. My role was to go to the class and read out equations the teacher wrote on the board such as 2x + 4x = 6x and (a + b)² = a² + 2ab + b². The students were unfamiliar with how to read such equations. The goal was just to expose them to words like: multiplied by, divided by, squared, cubed, equals etc.

It was my first time attending a full class other than English since I started teaching here. An interesting thing came up. In Japan students learn the multiplication tables only up to 9 x 9, (hence the name) as opposed to 12 x 12 in Ireland and most western countries. The math teacher told me that in India the students learn up to 17 x 17!

At the end of class the teacher the asked the students to give Mr. Owen a 'challenge' question. So one smart-ass kid stands up after flicking through his maths book to find the most difficult equation he could find and reads out this:

√40 + 5√2 / √5 = ?
Read: the square root of 40 plus the 5th root of 2 divided by the square root of 5 equals ...

Yeah, you win this round kid!