Room 10

I finally have met with all of the students in the school. I believe room 10 was the last room I had to hit. I have taught in all of the classes now. I have been in front of all 700 students. Usually I try to have all of my students’ names memorized by the end of the first week. Back in the states I usually only have 150 students with American names. Here, with their names written in Kanji, which I am learning slowly, it is difficult to get their names down. I am a visual learner. I have to have the image, or name in front of me to cement it in my mind. I do know a few kids by name, but with names I have never heard before it is difficult to remember them all. Also, back in the states I have the students introduce themselves to me in their writing about themselves. Here the limits of my Japanese abilities restrict me to learning about kids primarily through what I observe in the class.

I do remember many of the kids by face. One girl in room 10 is a severe down syndrome kid. I may have mentioned her before. She will stop me whenever she sees me to say, “Hello.”

She waits for me to say, “Hello, how are you?”

Then she responds. “Fine, Thank you, and you?”

All of the kids are taught this standard greeting and response. Typically, any student who makes eye contact with me must go through at least that basic conversation. There are several kids who are reaching beyond this level. Many of the kids are trying and will try to expand their ability to converse.

I am amazed with the kids in room 10, though. When I originally thought about writing about them, my question was, ‘why am I in this room?’ There are five kids in room 10. All of them have severe mental handicaps. They will never live independent lives. While I was in the class, that question, ‘why was I in this room’ kept going through my mind. What were these kids learning? What did they expect the kids to know? What did they expect me to teach? Fortunately, I did not have to teach, Oyama did. The lesson plan was very simple. The students had the script written in front of them, the ‘hello how are you’ script. It was written in both English and Hiragana, one of three alphabets that the Japanese use. The next things they covered were two songs, “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” and “Bingo.” It was a very simple lesson plan. I was just in there to assist Oyama. She ran the show while another teacher video taped the session. Oyama worked the class like a star. I don’t quite know how Special Education teachers do it. Teaching takes a lot of energy. Teaching special education takes that much more energy.

Back in the states, kids are mainstreamed for as much of the day as possible. If a student has a disability, they are in the classroom for as much of the day as they can handle. Here in Japan, they are just beginning to mainstream kids. They have recently disbanded schools for the disabled. Many of the kids are still pulled out for basic instruction like the English class in room 10. The goal in the states in addition to giving students a basic education is to familiarize normal kids with the disabled and vice versa. In Japan, I think their primary goal is still to educate the students in the subject matter. I don’t think they are primarily interested in bringing the disabled into the mainstream, quite yet. I could be wrong, though.

For the past four weeks, my professional life has been deeply immersed in Japanese culture and language. In the faculty meetings, teachers rattle on about programs, schedules and students. Of the thousands of Japanese words I have listened to, I have recognized only a handful. Sometimes I can get the context, most of the time I just let the sounds wash over and around me.

I eat my lunches in Katsumoto’s room. Teachers eat their lunches with their homerooms. Katsumoto usually has an extra chair and his kids are very inviting. His room is very comfortable for me, even though I am the only English speaker in the room. If I want to exert the energy, I will ask kids questions. “What is that?” and point at their food. The kids laugh, ask their friends what I said and try to answer. It works.

The other day, I was tired. I didn’t try to talk. I just listened to the chatter. One of the tables that usually has room invited me to sit with them. At that table there are three ‘boy crazy’ girls. Last week they showed me a picture of a Japanese boy band, Fen Johnny Eights. They asked me which boy was the cutest. Being the father of two girls, it was an easy question to answer. I looked for the boy with the pout and pointed to him. They were amazed. Yesterday, though, I didn’t have the energy to talk. I just sat. They were gracious and didn’t bother me. During lunch, they played a Johnny Eights song on the school intercom. The girl across from me got misty eyed and turned a little away from me as she listened to the song.

I didn’t try to ask her any questions until at the end of the song, when I confirmed with her that it was the Johnnies singing. It was. How that took me back. I remembered taking four 14-year-old girls to an O-Town concert on Silver Mountain. Whittney had organized us and all five of us had on Pink t-shirts with a boy band member’s name on it. Girls are all the same.

The chatter kept going. At lunch, I picked up a handful of words from the thousands that were said. I understood the little girl’s fascination with the Johnnies. I understood when another girl asked the teacher to turn up the speaker. I didn’t understand the words; I just understood what she said through their actions and the context of the situation.

Understanding anything makes me think about the kids in room 10. In the middle of the night last night something woke me, as I lay awake I thought about room 10. I was amazed! Here five kids severely disabled were learning parts of a second language. I am amazed that they learned a first language. Think of the complexities of communication. Think about how infants pick up communication without any context to fit it into.

Listen to a completely foreign tongue for a month. Don’t try to translate, don't look in a dictionary, just listen. What do you understand? These kids in spite of their disabilities have already learned one language, a complex one at that. They have learned the basics of reading. They learned a language just by being exposed to it. The mind is amazing. The kids in room 10 are amazing.

I don’t know if I still question why those kids in room 10 are learning English. I am pretty sure that they will never use it. I am glad that I have had a chance to work with them. They have already taught me a bit. Perhaps, the process of teaching and learning anything is the important thing for both the teacher and the student. I look forward to working with them again.