To begin with I shaved my head on Saturday, which startled some people when I came in this morning. I did the same thing shortly after coming here seven months ago, but since then I think the kids and my coworkers have grown accustomed to a reasonable amount of hair covering my dome. Frank appraisals of physical appearance are surprisingly common and acceptable in Japan, and the reactions have varied. They have included a girl screaming in terror and dropping her books when I came around a corner, a vague comment about the visibility of my skull shape from a teacher who never said a word to me before today, and random combinations of outright mocking and shouted compliments from the students. “Bald man! Beckham! Britney Spears!” At least 'bald' is pretty high level English vocabularly, I was impressed.
The change has also inspired some new camaraderie in a few of my students sporting the same “γΌγγ”(Buddhist monk) style, netting me some more conversation and an extra milk at lunch today. Every day at lunchtime a small ritual takes place- two students will enter the teacher's room and formally ask me to accompany them back to their classroom, an offer I have yet to refuse, then take my lunch tray and walk by my side through the school as I ask them about their weekend. Then I sit down among them, ostensibly to converse in English. Since this is usually impossible, we instead talk in extremely basic Japanese, about my height or relationship status, my pick for the most handsome boy and girl in the class, or which Smash Brothers character is our favorite (we both liked Captain Falcon).
Anyway, today is also special because it's the last day of official classes for the year. The third years will all graduate next Monday, several teachers will rotate to other schools, and we'll get a whole new third of the student body fresh out of elementary in a couple weeks. I was pleasantly surprised with two goodbye notes today, one collectively from a third year class and another one from a student who I helped prepare for the English recitation contest last fall. It makes all the blood sweat and tears I've poured out to these children worthwhile.
The final reason today stands out is that I realized my responsibilities as a teacher are gradually expanding. Reading words and sentences aloud and walking around correcting written assignments with a red pen are still the bread and butter of my job, but a few teachers are starting to ask for more. Japan is captivated by Barack Obama and his speeches, and many of my teachers are extremely interested in the history of civil rights in America. While often wary of foreigners, Japan has remained a homogeneous society for thousands of years and can't really relate to the concept of discrimination (though some might disagree). So in the last few weeks I've given a handful of Powerpoint presentations outlining the work and significance of MLK, Rosa Parks, Kennedy and Obama, and read King's “I Have a Dream” speech and Obama's “Yes We Can” victory speech many, many times. To try and engage the students I've taken to doing over-the-top dramatic readings of most everything, and I'm sure at least a few second years had their teenage hearts moved and souls stirred by King's powerful words as I raised my hands gloriously to the sky proclaiming a dream and made sweeping gestures to illustrate the red hills of Georgia where everyone will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
The topics vary. Last week at Goryou J.H. a teacher asked me to make a presentation on anything I thought might be interesting, and after soliciting some student input I taught them all about sports in America. It's not a bad job that leads you to reviewing sports highlights on Youtube well into the early morning hours on a Thursday night. And damned if they didn't finally listen. The nice thing about rotating between three different Junior Highs using the same textbook and a nearly identical teaching system is that everything has the potential to do triple duty, so tomorrow I'll be giving the same presentation, projecting Michael Jordan flying from the free throw line in '93 and Babe Ruth's legendary 60th home run set to "Final Countdown" and "We are the Champions" on the pull-down classroom screens at Kanan Junior High.
Beyond that kind of stuff, the time I spend outside the classroom is usually occupied by studying kanji and Japanese vocab at my desk in the teachers' lounge, and more rarely by correcting a recent quiz or typing out the bones of a blog entry.
In short, I'm really starting to enjoy the relative day to day diversity of teaching along with the room it provides for creativity and initiative, and things only get better as I gradually get to know my students and coworkers better. Being able to talk to them helps speed up the process, as do little things like playing basketball or music with the kids during lunch breaks and participating in teachers' soccer tournaments. Only music and sports can transcend otherwise insurmountable language and cultural barriers. And every day presents enough unique challenges to keep life interesting, like being given 30 seconds at the end of class to explain in the most basic possible English the progression from Martin Luther King's work in the fifties to Obama's presidency today, and what all this means in the hearts of the American people. I can't even remember what spilled out of my mouth, but I remember the teacher writing “Change” several times on the board so I think that was the theme I went with.
So, while I'm not planning on pursuing a lifelong career in middle-school education or anything like that, I'm having a good time with it right now.
1 comment:
i, too, think you are kind, quietly, and sometimes have a loud voice. your student seems wise beyond her years, my friend. my students, on the other hand, like to write me letters that say... "you are my mom." "you are smart." "earth." "happy chismas." "marta y ceiti" (that's my name, obvi)." i'm going to conclude that your kids are smarter than mine.
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