First Visit to Elementary School

Today, I made my first trip to one of the four different elementary schools I'll be teaching at. Incidentally it happened to be the farthest one away as well, taking over an hour by bus to reach. On the plus side, because it's so far out there the first bus to the school doesn't run until 9:25. This means I get to sleep a whole hour and a half compared to my normal schedule. It was quite nice I must say.

When I made it to the school the students were in the middle of a practice for their sports festival. There's only 17 students between the six grades so the teams are quite small, but nevertheless the had an impressive routine of some complex formations with the older kids supporting the littler ones. After watching this for a few minutes the vice principal led me into the principal's office where the three of us had a bit of a chat about the school, Canada, and some Japanese history.

The kids had a recess after this before some more sports day practice. During the recess all the kids came up to the window at the principal's office to get a good look of the new foreigner. One of the first grader's took a particular interest in me and she ran off screaming "He looks like him! He looks like him!" Although I never found out who this "him" was. She's absolutely adorable by the way. Super cute, very talkative and friendly. Throughout the rest of the day she would hang off me, hold my hand, or grab my leg, or climb all over me any chance she could.

Anyway, after the second sports day practice there was a class before lunch and the vice principal invited me up to the computer room for his science class with the 6th graders. The plan was to watch this internet video from NHK (Japan's BBC) about growing rice, but only the sound would play so the students just ended up playing games on the NHK website, all educational of course.

After this my little first grade admirer came to the teacher's office and led me down to the lunch room. After lunch was dodgeball in the gym. I think these kids must play everyday cause they're pretty decent. Obviously the bigger kids we ganging up on me to see who could take out the new English teacher and a few of them actually tagged me pretty good as I tried to dodge the onslaught.

Following recess all the kids gathered in the gym for my English lesson. At first all the kids introduced themselves one by one. Then, they got to ask me some questions about myself. Next, I introduced them to a variety of body parts via the oh so classic "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" song. We learned a few animal names as well, and the remainder of the time was spent with each of the classes trying to see if they could keep pace with the pre-recorded "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" which kept getting faster and faster. All in all it appeared like a good time was had by all.

With my first and only class for the day done I had about an hour and a half to wait until the bus back home. This school is out there, really out there. 3 buses come by the whole day so if you miss one and you had some important place to go you're gonna be SOL. Pretty much everyone has cars though. It's basically a necessity living way up in the mountains like that. In this hour and a half I spent some more time in the teacher's office as the kids had their last class and got things ready to go. The first graders didn't have a last class so once they were all done getting there things together to go home, my adorable friend popped her head into the teacher's office saying in her sweetest voice (translated from the Japanese, of course) "Excuse me, Mr. Tyler. Can you play?"

Adorable. And yes, of course I could. All of the first graders and I played a tag like game in the gym for a while. Then my little friend wanted to show me Kamishibai story she had made about a family of birds going for a picnic. We all gathered around to listen as she told her story. Again, also adorable. It was almost time for me to go, so we headed outside to wait for the bus, and to pass the time played another classic game "Red light, Green light." I'm not quite sure of the Japanese title though. All of the students had made their way outside just before the bus came and we said our good-byes as the kids shouted "See you next month!"

As a final note to this trip, the bus ride, while long, is definitely the most scenic bus ride I've ever taken. My predecessor had recommended to take a book for the long ride, but I don't know why as I was more than entertained looking out the window trying to take it all in. Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera with me, but next month I definitely will.