Teaching with Tim

Meito High School as seen from my apartment balcony

     I guess I haven’t written much about my day-to-day teaching life yet.  Initially, I found it hard to characterize because it feels so fragmented compared to last year.  I see 12 different groups of students over the course of each week.  8 of those groups I see only once.  These are “general majors”—high school students whose focus is not English.  They are designated by letters (1A, 1B, 1C, etc.), so previous American teachers have referred to them as “the alphabet soup classes.”  Because I see them so seldom, it is hard to learn their names or keep track of where each class left off.  There is one group of students who, because of class cancellations and infrequent meetings, I have still only seen four times—though I have been teaching for nearly two months.  The three groups of “English Majors” I see twice per week (one group per grade—high school in Japan being three years long, starting at the equivalent of the U.S. sophomore year).  And I also have a group of four students in my public speaking elective, which meets three times per week. 

     It’s tough to talk about my experience as a teacher here generally—I work with some students who know a lot of English, and some students who know almost none.  There are some groups I know well because I see them often, and other groups who still feel unfamiliar when they walk through the door.  Some are extremely studious and motivated—particularly first-year students—while others seem distracted.  My third-year (high school senior) students are completely consumed by their upcoming college exam, and they seem to have little patience with homework for other classes.  They are good kids, but mentally a few of them have already checked out of high school. 

My class sizes are small (no more than 22 students), and unlike many other teachers at Meito, I am always teaching in the same room.  In Japanese schools, generally speaking, teachers move from room to room, while students stay in the same room.   But, perhaps because Meito wanted to accommodate its visiting American teachers, Ron and I have classes that come to us.   Also, almost half of our teaching day is planning periods— this is fairly standard for Japanese high school teachers, and I must say that I like it.

     That’s the general shape of things, but I guess it still doesn’t give you a picture of the day-to-day reality.  So, though it may be way more detail than anyone really wants to know, here’s a snapshot of what I did yesterday:

7:30: Walked from apartment to Meito (5 minutes).  Took off shoes at the door and switched to slippers.  Deposited street shoes in my personal cubby (#40) in the massive shoe storage area at the door.  I ordered my “bento” (school box lunch) in the office—410 yen.  Greeted students (many of whom are already at school studying) and colleagues with Ohayo Gozaimasu (good morning).  When a male speaker says this phrase, it often shortened to something that sounds more like “zay-massss.” 

7:45-8:40: Finished planning the day in the teacher office.  At Meito, all the teachers spend their off-periods working in a big communal office, complete with green-tea dispensing water cooler. 

8:45-9:35: A musical bell sounds across the campus and lets everyone know that school has begun.  I taught my speech elective.  We did a warm up where the students had to give a short speech in English to their teacher about why they forgot their homework, then went to the computer lab and worked on outlining and researching the persuasive speeches they’re working on.

9:45-10:35: Taught my third-year English majors.  We started out by talking about gerunds and doing some exercises from the textbook, then did some conversation exercises where they had to interview one another about their zodiac signs.  We spent the last twenty minutes talking about Halloween—I showed them some pictures from Halloween in the U.S. and a short national geographic video clip on the history of Halloween, and then we played a game that involved practicing imperative phrases and eating candy.  Homework was to write about whether they believed in ghosts in their English journals. 

10:45-11:35: Planning period.  Graded journals and made copies of worksheets.

11:45-12:35: Had lunch with another teacher in the office and practiced my Japanese while she practiced her English.  (My Japanese is much, much worse than her English.)  Mostly we stuck to simple topics—food, what we did on the weekend, holidays.  One teacher, fluent in both Japanese and English, noticed this and jokingly suggested “The American and Japanese health insurance systems” as our next topic.  We took him up on it—I didn’t pick up many specifics, but I learned enough about the Japanese system to know that it’s probably better than ours.    

12:35-1:10: Met with a third-year student and gave her a mock-college entrance interview.  Many students have to complete college interviews in English, so they’re eager for practice.

1:15-2:05: Team-taught an English essay class.  I don’t have to actually plan for this class—I’m just the token native English speaker who grades all the essays. 

2:15-3:05:  Taught one of my “alphabet soup” classes.   We went over the homework, then played some games where the kids had to practice the different forms of “can” in English (could, couldn’t, can’t).  One of them involved collecting signatures from classmates in a timed race, and they seemed to like it. 

3:15-4:30: Hosted my English / German “language club”.  Every teacher at Meito is strongly encouraged to run at least one “club,” and this is mine—we practiced a few German phrases, then watched a kids’ movie (Holes) in English and talked about it. 

4:40: Left school and walked to the dentist for a check up on the wisdom tooth I had pulled yesterday.  The total cost of the extraction was the equivalent of US $21.  The same procedure in Seattle would have probably been over $300. 

Evening: Went for a run, made dinner, studied some Japanese. 

A standard work day, I guess—though the schedule changes, and every day brings a new twist.  It still feels like everything is in flux here, and my teaching life still hasn’t really taken on a consistent shape.  But I’m enjoying it—good kids, helpful colleagues, and lots of opportunities to learn and grow.  Loneliness and homesickness still lurk around the edges of things, creeping in during quiet moments, but nothing I can’t handle so far.     

Nagoya from the “Sky Tower”

Nagoya is starting to feel like home–sort of.  People can get used to anything.  Already, things that used to seem new, exotic, and unfamiliar have begun the fade to beige—they’re part of the routine now.  A few examples:

• Hitting my head on low doorways. 
• Sorting all my garbage into different bins for burnables, non-burnables, and two types of recyclables.
• Not being able to read menus in restaurants.
• Trying foods I can’t identify.
• Saying itadakimasu (literally “I’m ready to receive”) before beginning to eat.   
• Always cleaning my hands with a hot towel before eating. 
• Eating with chopsticks.
• Never having paper towels in public restrooms.  
• Keeping a personal towel on hand at all times.
• Taking the bus and subway everywhere.
• Knowing that the bus and the subway will arrive on time.
• Bringing an umbrella when its raining or even looks like rain.
• Being one of the only people I know who uses a rain jacket.    
• Being lost all the time. 
• Taking my shoes off in my apartment, at school, in traditional Japanese restaurants, and just about everywhere.
• Bowing (or at least dipping my head) in a wide variety of social contexts.
• Being stared at by small children.
• Leaving my laptop, projector, and other valuables unsecured at school, confident that no one will take them. 
• Avoiding bicycles on the sidewalk.
• Looking to the left first when crossing the street.   
• Carrying coins in a coin purse. 
• Being welcomed and greeted and offered help constantly. 

All of this now seems normal to a certain extent.  More subtle differences—like the contrasts between Western and Eastern social norms—will take longer to master.  Referring to myself in the third person in conversation and calling colleagues the equivalent of “Mr. Schlosser” (“Sato-san, Suzuki-san,” etc.) even when we’re at a party still feels weird. But I already feel pretty comfortable with Japanese life.  There’s a safety and civility to the culture that I appreciate.  The food is delicious, the people are courteous, and the country is beautiful—there have been a few times when I’ve felt that Japan is only a few short steps away from paradise.  I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to call it home in the true sense of that word, and I guess it’s possible that there will come a time when everything fades to beige—when the excitement is gone and I just miss friends, family, and familiar things.  Already, especially when I’m alone in my apartment, I often have those feelings.  But the excitement of working with the students at Meito and exploring Nagoya still has the power to put that on the backburner most of the time.   Here are a few recent shots:   

Students give a presentation on Japanese pop star Kaera Kimura

Moving the god's carriage--part of last weekend's Nagoya festival

The paradisal world of Meiji-Mura, a full-scale recreation of Meiji-era Japan