The Real First Day

The first full day of school, begins like all the rest. I arrived 20 minutes early so I can kill my sweat from the bike ride. The ride to school takes about 15 to 20 minutes. I have a slight incline over a small river. Other than that it really is flat in my part of town.

At 8:20, all of the teachers are at their desks in the teacher’s room, the bell rings; everyone stands and faces the principal’s office. As he enters, we all bow and say “Ohayo Gozaimasu.” (Good Morning) Then different staff members stand and begin the meeting for the day. When one has something to say they raise their hands and stand to speak. Toward the end of the meeting grade level meetings take place. The faculty room is arranged in thirds, by grade level. The last couple of minutes seem very chaotic, it seems that everyone speaks at once, but it is only three simultaneous meetings. The entire thing lasts only 5 to 10 minutes.

The morning meetings are necessary, as far as I can see. The schedule changes daily. Each subject is taught three times a week with specialty classes meeting once a week. Teachers roam. Students stay in their homerooms. Katsumoto, the shop teacher, had no prep time on Tuesday, but has several preps on Thursday. I don’t know how they balance the class loads.

Katano, a seventh grade English teacher, invited me to observe his class this morning. The classrooms are small and well worn. The building was built shortly after McArthur left Japan. Katano’s class was very similar to the class I went to on the opening day, noisy. I am comfortable with a significant level of sound in a class, but not when I am lecturing. His class consisted of establishing the Student Representatives for the semester. The class had 9 council positions to fill. The least three desirable were lunch duty, broadcast, and library

The lunch committee is responsible to pick the lunch up from the cafeteria and to serve it to the rest of the class in the classroom. I am not sure what the broadcast rep does. The library committee checks books in and out of the library.

After first period, Katano brought me back to the staff room and ditched me. I think my presence may have been too much. Katano, also, was without a prep on Tuesday. He actually looked better at the end of the day than in the middle of the battle. That was fine. The teachers were also scheduled to run through their safety procedures.

Third period was their safety drill. I stayed away from the classrooms to watch. At 10:50 the alarm went off. The kids moved slowly to the south ball field. They lined up in alternating rows of boys and girls by homeroom. The fire department put on a demonstration and lecture about fire and earthquake safety. A couple of teachers uncoiled a fire hose from the building and sprayed the field, four students spayed some older pressure extinguishers, one kid put out a small gas fire with a chemical extinguisher, they demonstrated CPR and how to use the AED machine. The demonstration lasted 40 minutes, but it was in the full sun. It was probably close to 95 degrees, the kids sat on the dirt field-no grass anywhere- wearing their uniforms, and listened. Aughtsuey! Very hot! By the time we made it back into the staff room, all of the teachers had completely soaked through their clothes with sweat.

Fourth period, I did my first drop in. I followed Katsumoto to his classroom. Oyama, another English teacher, translated for me. Katsumoto’s English is vastly better than my Japanese, but he doesn’t speak it. All he said when we asked if I could watch his class, was “I have nothing! Ok.” Katsumoto’s class was second grade junior high school (8th grade).

I liked his class immediately. He was animated while he spoke. The kids paid close attention to him. He engaged the kids, but he had nothing. Ten minutes into the class he stepped aside from his lectern and motioned for me to come up and take over. He said, “Talk about yourself.”

I did. I told them about being a kid in Alaska when I was in middle school, about rivers, which ran red with salmon and how a bad vegetarian would kick fish onto the shore just because he could. I told them bears that would come down to the river to feed and how it was killed and put into spaghetti as meatballs. I told them about how I played Hockey, about avalanches, about snow up to my armpits and about throwing our little dog Samson into snow drifts two feet deep and watching her hop her way back to the packed snow trails. With a little negotiation and pantomime they understood most of what I said. I learned some Japanese words as well. I finished just before the bell rang for lunch.

Lunch here is not like anything stateside. The lunch committee kids go to the kitchen and pick up buckets of food and haul it up to their classes. The other kids are not allowed back into the classroom until everything is ready. The lunch committee wears food service hats, masks, and aprons. When the students enter, they push their desks to face each other and remain in their assigned seats. They end up in tables of six or eight students, half boys, half girls. At the end of lunch, they clean up and go back to class.

My first class was scheduled for fifth period in grade one (7th grade). First grade in the junior high is the first graded exposure the Japanese students have with English. On my way to class, the man who runs all of the meetings and looks like a marine said. “Gombado.” It almost sounded like ‘combat.’ He knew where I was headed. I knew what he meant, but my interpretation was a little off. Mr. Okomoto told me that gombado has many meanings depending on the context. Essentially it means: ‘go get ‘em.’

I gave roughly the same introduction to this class as I had before. I simplified some words and showed pictures, which I had brought. Mr. Okomoto translated everything for me. At the end of class, students stood up and introduced themselves to me and said what they liked to do. Most of those little kids appeared shell shocked to hear me speak.

After fifth period, they had an extended break where the entire student body cleaned the school. Brooms came out of corners from everywhere and they swept the staircase, balconies and classes. I saw several kids hanging on the side of walls cleaning windows. Other groups picked up trash in the courtyards between buildings. This lasted fifteen minutes or so. Then they returned to class for the last few minutes of the day to get ready for Wednesday. Wednesday is standardized testing. The entire day, the kids will be tested.

The smallest class I have seen so far is 34 students, but there were some kids absent. The normal size class is 40 students. The classrooms are smaller than ours at Lincoln Middle School. The desks are smaller too. The classes don’t feel like they have that many kids. At times it feels like there are more.