There are a multitude of things that are different here in the schools in Kofu compared to all the schools I’ve been to in Iowa and Illinois.  At the same time, some things educationally are exactly the same, for better or worse.

Technologywise, it is non existent here.  I must admit I assumed every student was going to be equipped with their own virtual reality helmet and have their lunch teleported to them but this is not so.  There are NO computers in any classroom.  No digital projectors, no ELMOs, no TVs, not even a simple overhead projector.  Everything is chalk and blackboard.  This would absolutely cripple me if I was trying to teach history here as I ended up using technology in some form every day in Des Moines.

The teacher workroom is huge, there is one computer, albiet old, for each teacher and this is where all the teachers are during their plan.  This is kind of nice because it sure seems like there is a lot of work being done and people appear to be pretty helpful to one another.  If there is a teacher being grumpy about some teachers joking in a corner I wouldn’t know it because I can’t understand them.  Also, it’s the only room with AC, so I’m in there a lot. Continue reading →

So I started my first few days at Minami Chuggako.  Chuggako means middle school and I found out that Minami is just Japanese for south, so it’s not unlike where I worked in Des Moines, North High School.  Thursday was my first day, and it was the official first day of the second semester (they do schooling year round), and so a ceremony was in order.  Everyone piled into the gym.

The assemblies I have seen in my life, whether it was a pep rally, an honors assembly or something else, did little to prepare me for this well oiled machine of a ceremony.  There are no seats or gym bleachers, every student is sitting on the floor.  Divided by gender and grade.  Because this is a uniform school, it all looks even more organized.  The back of the gym is males and the front females, then they are split by grade, which is easy to tell because their uniforms are color coded; red, blue, green or white.  All students were silent when the first teacher took the stage.  Dead silent.

After several teachers spoke, next up was my speech,  I proceeded to talk for about two minutes, of which I’m sure they understood very little and then Sano sensei translated for me.  Then it was off to homeroom.  During homeroom it was explained that there was going to be an earthquake drill.  Every student has a seat cushion that they keep in the room (the students don’t change rooms, the teachers do), and the seat cushion opens up and doubles as a pillow hat.  Every student was instructed to put their pillow hats on their head and we marched down to the exit.  Teachers get helmets, students get pillow hats.  On our way out of the building, every student has to change into their outdoor shoes.  I pray they don’t do this in the event of an actual earthquake.  After the drill came lunch time.  I’ll get to interactions with the students after I talk about gender roles here. Continue reading →