School Life

In this post, I want to talk a little bit about my experiences at school. I teach at seven different schools (2 junior high schools and 5 elementary schools) and each one is a little bit different in terms of students, teachers, rules, and atmosphere. There’s a lot to talk about but I’ll try to keep it brief and non-boring.

First, here’s what my weekly schedule looks like. I normally work from about 8:15 to 4:30. At elementary school, I normally only teach 5^th and 6^th graders as they are the only grades where English is a required subject. But occasionally I visit the younger grades as well. I typically teach 3-5 classes a day at both elementary school and jr. high. It depends on the school and the day, but it’s most often 4 classes. 

Monday

Elementary school #1 in the morning, and I visit the Board of Education office in the afternoon. This is my biggest elementary school and there are 2 classes each of 5^th and 6^th graders. Since I only go to this school in the morning, I teach my 4 classes back-to-back, then have lunch, recess, and cleaning, before leaving for the BOE. It’s a bit tiring not only because of the lack of a break, but also because the classes here are big for elementary school, about 25 kids per class. The four teachers are all nice and friendly, although their classes vary a bit. I have a couple great classes, one OK class, and one class that is very rowdy. The kids can be pretty rude, it’s hard to get anything done, and it quickly gets frustrating. I try not to blame the kids as I’m sure they must have some personal problems or maybe a bad home life, but they make me want to pull my hair out! Other than that one class though, I like this school a lot. 

Tuesday

 Elementary #2 in the morning, #3 in the afternoon. Elementary #2 is my smallest school, probably around 50 students total. The 5^th grade class is 6 kids, and the 6^th grade class is 12. I really like this school because the small size makes it easier to remember the kid’s names and talk to them. I get along really well with the 5^th grade teacher… her small class size makes it much easier to do activities and games and it’s really fun for the kids. After 4^th period at this school, I drive to Elementary #3 for lunch. This school is unique because instead of eating lunch in their respective classrooms, the kids all eat lunch together with the teachers in a cafeteria. After lunch, there’s recess and cleaning and then I teach 5^th and 6^th period. There are about 15 5^th graders and 20 6^th graders. There are some really nice teachers at this school who talk to me quite a bit in the staff room. Unfortunately I have another rowdy class at this school, but lately the principal has been sitting in on class. As he intimidates the kids quite a bit, it’s much easier to have class now.

Wednesday

Elementary #4 and #5 are on Wednesday, but which one I go to in the morning and which in the afternoon rotates every other week. So one week, I go to Elementary #4 in the morning and Elementary #5 in the afternoon, and the next week, it flips. Elementary #4 is very small as well, just over 50 kids total. For English class, they combine the 5^th and 6^th graders for a total of 17 kids. This is the only school I teach at that’s like this, and the way they teach English is interesting. One year, they teach the 5^th grade textbook and the next year they teach the 6^th grade textbook. So one of the grades learns the textbooks in sequence, and the other grade is learning it in reverse. This year, we are studying the 5^th grade text book, which means the 6^th graders learned the 6^th grade textbook last year when they were only 5^th graders. The class is pretty casual and we play a lot of games so I think the kids enjoy English. They’re all very good kids too, which makes class easy and a lot of fun.

At Elementary #5, there are around 15 5^th graders and 15 6^th graders. The two classes could not be any more different; the 5^th graders are full of energy all the time, but the 6^th graders are quite shy and quiet. Both classes have good teachers though, so they’re fun and the kids seem to like it, most of the time. Also at this school, there are a couple of 4^th grade special needs kids that I get to have class with every other week. Their teacher is a very nice lady who speaks really good English and she always organizes fun activities when I join their class. Usually we speak in Japanese, but I try to teach the kids a couple simple English words here and there. Sometimes we take “field trips” and walk to places near the school. Once we went to a beautiful shrine on a small mountain, and another time we visited a small fabric weaving and dying store. Once we even did Zumba (a kind of aerobics work out that incorporates Latin dance moves) together, which I hadn’t done since college. I always look forward to that class.  Finally, the school does something called “Run-Run Time” during the mid-morning break here, where all of the students and teachers (including the principal and vice-principal in their suits) run around the school field for about 10 minutes. It’s always fun because the younger students love to run next to me, and it’s a good exercise. For those of you who know Japanese music, we run to “Happiness” by Arashi. 走りだぜ！

Both of my Wednesday schools have a good teacher-student dynamic and friendly students overall. The small class sizes let the kids play games easily so English is more fun for them, I think. One more thing about these schools- they’re both out in the country a little ways. One sits right in the middle of about 2 km square of fields, and one is right next to some small mountains. At that school, the kids have bells on their backpacks to ward off bears (!!!) that live in the surrounding mountains as they walk home from school. Things like that really make it seem like a country school!

*Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays are my elementary school days and at elementary school, all of the students and teachers eat school lunch, called kyuushoku. I love kyuushoku! Usually it consists of rice (either plain or mixed with vegetables and meat) or white bread, some kind of protein (usually a small piece of fish or meat), a vegetable medley or salad of some kind, soup (always delicious, with lots of vegetables), and milk. It’s pretty healthy (except for the white rice) and usually chock full of vegetables. It’s also much more delicious than anything I can make, and for about 250 yen a lunch, it’s a really good deal! Once in a while they have meals that the kids absolutely love and go nuts about. One is curry and rice, which I also love :D Another is age-pan, which is a large roll of white bread that’s been deep fried and then rolled in chocolate-sugar. I’m not a huge fan because it’s basically just dessert, but it’s easy to see why the kids love it.

I eat in the classroom with the kids, rotating each week between classes. At one school, all the students eat together in a cafeteria. Lunch is always a fun time to talk to the kids and to listen to their conversations with each other. I try to pick up on their Japanese but it’s hard because they’re usually talking a mile a minute and using a lot of slang.

Here are some pictures of typical school lunch.

 

Thursday

On Thursday I go to Junior High #1, which has almost 500 students and is the largest junior high school in Yasugi. Junior high here is 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th grade here just like it is in America, but here they call them 1^st grade, 2^nd grade, and 3^rd grade (of junior high school). It was a little confusing at first when the teachers there kept referring to the 1^st graders, and I thought they meant elementary 1^st graders. Each grade at this school has 4 classes and each class has between 35-40 students. It’s impossible for me to see all the students every week so I only see one grade at a time and I teach all four classes of that grade. I’ll teach all the 1^st graders one week, all the 2^nd graders the next week, and all the 3^rd graders the next week. I teach 4 classes usually, but sometimes I am asked to help out during my two free periods in another grade or with a special needs student.

English in jr. high is completely different from English in elementary school. Now the kids are learning English much more intensely, often every day or most days of the week, as opposed to just once a week in elementary school. They learn a lot of grammar and sentence structure so I think English quickly becomes boring for a lot of kids.

I work with five English teachers at this school, all of whom are very nice. I get along with a couple of the female teachers particularly well. One of the nice things about jr. high teachers is that they speak English very well, usually much better than elementary school teachers. Elementary schools just started incorporating English for 5^th and 6^th graders a couple of years ago, and it only happens once a week when I visit, so the teachers are just getting used to teaching it. It’s much easier to communicate with my jr. high teachers, but elementary is not too difficult either.

When I first started this year, I didn’t like Junior High #1 as much as #2 because of how huge it was. I didn’t feel like I could really get to know any of the students or remember their names to save my life. Now, I like it much more. I still can’t remember hardly any of the student’s names, but there are some who I’ve gotten to know a little bit. Plus the teachers are good teachers and many of the students are pretty good at English. I’ve come to terms a bit with the huge size of this school and enjoy it a lot more now. 

Friday

I go to Junior High #2 on Friday, which is much smaller than #1 with only 120 students. I’ve been able to get to know the students a lot easier at this school, and can remember most of their names at this point. Unlike Jr. High #1, I usually see all the students every week at this school. They’re mostly good kids, although some of them clearly don’t like English very much. The two teachers at this school are both young women so I get along with them really well. They try to make class as fun as they can while still following the textbook. With the 3^rd grade class (so 9^th graders), we usually have song time at the beginning of class where I play them a popular American song while they look at the lyrics. So far, Lady Gaga has been a big hit.

Since this school is much smaller, the kids seem much tighter than at my other jr. high. Also because this is more of a “country” school, the kids act a little bit different. It’s hard to put my finger on what it is exactly, but the atmosphere at the two junior highs are definitely very different.

At both jr. highs, I’ve noticed certain differences between the three grades. The 3^rd graders are at the top of the food chain as you would expect, but are also given a lot of responsibility by their teachers. It’s the same with the 6^th graders at elementary school. Since they’re the oldest, they’re expected to set examples for the younger kids, and have a lot of expectations put on them. For example, for school’s sports festival and culture festival, the third graders are put in charge of a lot of planning and have to lead the younger students. As a result, by the time they reach 3^rd grade, most of the kids are pretty mature and don’t usually cause a lot of trouble. They also are trying to decide on their future and what kind of career they would like to pursue. Unlike in America where you usually don’t start thinking about that until the end of high school, the kids here choose a high school with their future career in mind. They apply to attend different high schools, much like we apply for different colleges, and have to take entrance exams. It’s a very stressful and busy time for the kids and really makes them grow up fast I think.

The 1^st graders, by contrast, have just come up from elementary school and don’t really know how jr. high works yet. They are also usually well behaved for this reason, and have still carried over some of their excitement about English from elementary school. They’re also still getting to know each other as they usually come from 3 or 4 different elementary schools.

That leaves the 2^nd graders in the middle. 2^nd graders are definitely the most like typical teenagers from what I’ve noticed. Being 13-14 years old, they’re full of hormones and angst and some of them have a strong dislike of school, especially English. It’s such an obvious difference when I walk into a 2^nd grade class as opposed to a 1^st or 3^rd grade class… most of the kids are either asleep or look like they’d rather stab an icepick in their eye than be at school. One other thing about 2^nd grade is that they all go on a school trip to a famous place during this year. They usually go to Kyoto, Osaka, or Nara (or all 3!) in a period of 2 or 3 days. 

WOW, this was a long post. Is anyone still reading? Overall, I really like my schools and the variety that they bring every day. Things definitely don’t get boring! Hope you enjoyed the rundown of my schools!