2001-10-25 - 9:33 p.m.
Yesterday was one of those “am I getting paid for THIS?” kind of days. Remember how in elementary school if there was an assembly or a special visitor, it was the most fun thing ever and totally made your day? Yesterday, I WAS the assembly and special visitor. Having no idea what to expect (and having received no information except “show up”) I rolled up to the shogakko (elementary school) at 8:15 and was met by a cheerful teacher and the vice principal. Two 9 or 10 year-old boys were sitting outside the school and immediately started talking to me in English: “How are you? Good morning! Do you like cats?” When we got to the staff room, the teacher turned to a notebook in which she had written out several useful phrases for our day together. She pointed to the one that said, “Shall we make arrangements for our day?” She explained that during first period I would teach 4th graders, and then would spend the remainder of the day with her 3rd grade class -- doing calligraphy during second and third periods, origami during fourth period, and teaching American songs and games after lunch. Sweet! Then I inquired further about my 1st period duties -- what exactly would I be doing? After some back and forth in English and Japanese, I finally understood that the ENTIRE fourth grade (55 of them) would be in the gym, and I would be their teacher for 45 minutes. Starting in about 10 minutes. I tried to remember the advice of my fellow ALTs -- “Don’t worry about what you do, because whatever you do, they’ll love it.”
Before I knew it, I found myself standing in front of two squirmy but cute classes of 10 year-olds, with a couple of Japanese teachers standing by for crowd control. I launched into a simplified self-introduction, inviting students up to hold my USA map and flags, the picture of George W. Bush (which still makes me cringe every time), and postcards depicting a hamburger, a slice of pizza, and the big mystery food -- a bagel and cream cheese (“No, this is NOT a donut...”). My first game was something of a flop -- I brought an inflatable beach ball and the intention was for the kids to toss it to one another while saying the alphabet -- “A” tosses it to someone who says “B,” who tosses it to someone who says “C,” etc. The problem was that the kids knew the alphabet, but not when it was all broken up, and pretty soon they were fighting over the ball or running to the far side of the gym to avoid having to catch it. After we made it through the alphabet, I had the kids sit down again and did a Simon Says-type game, -- stand up, sit down, jump, clap, etc. -- using “please” as the magic word. After that I taught them “What’s your name? My name is ...” and lined them up into two teams. The kid at the front of each line had a flag and had to ask the kid behind him “What’s your name?” When they answered, the first kid passed the flag, and so on down the line. It actually worked really well. I was starting to teach “How old are you? I’m ten years old” when the bell rang. The kids said “Thank you very much Miss Sarah,” and bowed -- and the hardest part of my day was over.
For the next two periods I did calligraphy with a class of third graders. Shodo (calligraphy) is the main way that elementary school kids learn kanji (the 2000 Chinese characters used in written Japanese). The character of the day was “sora,” which means “sky.” The character was pretty simple, but getting the hang of the brush and controlling the effect of the ink on the paper was a bit tricky. Still, the kids all gathered around my desk and clapped their hands, exclaiming “sugoi!” (fantastic!) after every attempt. The kids dripped ink everywhere -- on their desks, on the floor, and all over their papers, but it didn’t seem to matter. After shodo practice, the teacher lead us in the folding of paper cranes. She had looked up the relevant words (fold, triangle, square, etc.) and so it was an English origami lesson. I walked around to help the kids but found myself even more confused than they were, and had to keep on summoning the teacher to help both of us. Three of the kids got so frustrated that they cried -- but then the teacher fixed their cranes and after a few minutes they were smiling again.
After lunch, the teacher brought me back to her classroom, and when I entered, the students started playing “Puff the Magic Dragon” on their recorders. It was too cute. At the teacher’s urging, I attempted to teach them the lyrics, but “...and frolicked in the Autumn mist” proved to be a little too difficult for them, so I suggested that I teach an easier English song. The kids all pushed their desks to the back of the room and sat on the floor in front of me while I taught them “Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes.” They LOVED it. They got the lyrics and the motions with no problem and by the time we got to the fast version, they were practically rolling on the ground with laughter. The teacher asked them if they had any questions for me, and proceeded to translate for them. One kid asked what I liked to eat. The kids gasped, oohed and ahhed as I told them various Japanese foods -- soba, tofu, edamame. Wow! A foreigner can eat Japanese foods. This seemed to be too strange to be true. One student stood up and said that I had a beautiful nose (Japanese kids are fascinated by the different appearances of foreigners -- especially noses. I’ve gotten this at my jr. high too). A girl asked me to teach them an American children’s game, so I taught them “Duck Duck Goose” which was also a hit. When the bell rang, the students followed me to the hallway, saying “thank you very much!” and “good-bye!” As I left the school, three 3rd graders ran along my bicycle for about 5 minutes. Eventually two of them dropped off, but one girl kept on following me. “Tsukareta?” “Tired?” I asked her, pedaling slowly. “Tsukaratanai!” “I’m not tired!” she shouted back. The local shop owners looked on with amusement. Eventually she had to turn off to go toward her home and me toward mine, so we waved and said good-bye.
