School’s Out

My second day at Okuganaya Elementary just finished, and I am beat. Playing with those kids should be an Olympic event. Anyone who says, “You just ran around with the kids for a while and you’re exhausted? What a wuss”, has obviously never dealt with children for eight hours before. I’m sore in places I didn’t know I had.

It’s kind of nice to work with the younger kids for a change. A lot of the junior high students seem to have already started with the “gaijin stare”, where they look at you like some kind of rare but unpleasant animal. Not all of them, or even most of them, but it’s certainly enough that you feel a little uncomfortable sometimes.

Not the elementary kids. They’re just glad to have someone around they can play with. I spent several hours this afternoon playing onigokko (hide and seek, basically), and giving piggyback and helicopter rides to the kids. And arm-wrestling a few times, which was kind of odd. Then there was gym class, where I helped them practice their cheering, and then we played tag and hoolahoops for an hour. We had lunch with the kids too; and they already set aside a special place for me at the second and third graders’ table. I’m getting along pretty well with all of them.

Actually, the boys seem to be pretty indifferent to me, but the girls can’t get enough. I guess it’s because of one little seven year old ringleader (who shall remain nameless on the interwebs) who keeps calling me Harry Potter and dragging everyone around. Literally, she’ll grab your hand and drag you whether you want to or not. Even the girls who were a little scared or wary of me seemed to warm up once she dragged them into a game with me. I guess I just need a similar go-between with the boys before they start to relax.

Sports Day at Asago Junior High is tomorrow, followed by another enkai in Ikuno. Expect lots of pics of the one after I sober up from the other.

We can’t even think of a word that rhymes

Brave New World

So, had my first solo class today. That was much sooner than expected.

First, I was worried. I thought it was only an hour, then I was told it was two hours, and all I could think was, “How am I supposed to teach kids English for 2 hours by myself?” It seemed an insurmountable obstacle.

Luckily, I was worried for no reason. My 15-minute lesson plan ended up taking almost an hour, and the kids really seemed to get into that. The language barrier was a problem sometimes, since I spoke no Japanese and they spoke little English, but we managed to work past it thanks to my English->Japanese dictionary and one of the students’ Japanese->English dictionary.

Once I’d spent the first hour giving them a crash course in Canada, (Beavers eat trees!), I helped them work on their introduction speeches for the Ottawa trip later this year. I was surprised at how well they were written; most of the mistakes were simple spelling errors. And one of the girls was busting out polysyllabic words, the meaning of which most English speakers probably don’t know. Very impressive.

Then, they made posters of some traditional Japanese games and activities so they can show the Ashbury kids how to play. The best was the one for “A Daruma doll falls”; I don’t remember the Japanese name. I know there’s an English version of it but I can’t recall the name either. The only thing that comes to mind is the game the kids are playing at the beginning of El Orfanto. Anyway, the point being the girl had forgotten the English translation of the rules, so they had to teach me how to play (in Japanese!), and then get me to write down the rules in English so they could make the sign. Loads of fun. Seriously.

And before I knew it, we’d spent not one or two, but three hours. So we ended there, after I nearly fell out the window trying to hang the curtain back up. Don’t ask.

Honestly, the idea of solo teaching terrified me before. Now? Not so much. Maybe I’m not as bad at this as I thought.

I have seen many things, in a lifetime alone
Mother, love is no more, bring this savage back home