WE ALL START SCHOOL

September had finally arrived and Brian, Nancy and I started school with the students when they returned after their August break.  The calendar year in Japan starts April 1, and school ends sometime in March. In Japan, students attend local elementary schools and local junior high schools.  But they study very hard in the 9^th grade to be tested and accepted into competitive academic high schools if they want to go to college.  Some students go to private junior and senior high schools. Some of these require a considerable commute by the student or parents send them to schools which have boarding facilities if the commute is too far away.

Students are not driven to school as a rule.  They walk, or use public buses, trains or ferries.  Some ride their bicycles and after age 16 may ride a snazzy scooter.  Some have commutes using ferries and take their bikes or scooters to travel the rest of the way, or use public transportation.  They are in school from 8:00 a.m. through 3:30 and, some stay for extra study until 5:00 if they are studying to test into colleges in their senior year.

Teachers in the high schools start with one class in the tenth grade and stay with that class through the twelfth grade.  This is great for the students who like their teachers but it can be a long three years if they do not. Teachers all stay until at least 5:00 p.m.  Homeroom teachers fill the capacity of guidance counselors as well, and often share responsibility with parents when problems arise.  Teaching in Japan is not an easy job by any means.  We ALTs, however, left at 3:30 with the students and we had time for a social life after work.  I personally felt that was a huge perk, especially after having worked full time with college classes a couple of nights a week. 

We were each assigned a schedule to visit several schools 4 days a week with one day in the office.  Nancy was employed by the city school district and could walk to most of her schools right in Kaseda. She went primarily to junior high schools, a couple of elementary schools and some adult classes offered in the evening through the city government.

Brian’s main school would be in Kawanabe, a beautiful town a 20 minute bus ride away and also Satsunan, more of a trade or technical school in Chiran, just beyond Kawanabe.   Chiran was historically famous for its community of samurai residences with walled streets and also as a base for kamikazi bombers that targeted American ships in WWII.  He had a junior high school with the furthest location, a good one hour bus ride each way to Bonontsu.  It was  a seaside village with a beautiful protected harbor filled with fishing boats, and previously mentioned as the filming location in the James Bond movie, “You Only Live Twice.”

My main high school would be the highest-rated academically, Kaseda High School, where most of the students aspired to go to college.  I would also take buses to junior high schools in Oura Cho (town) and Kawanabe.  I had two other high schools in Kasasa, which was beyond Oura Cho, and Makurazaki City.  I would go to Kaseda High School at least 2 times a week, and the other schools very generally twice a month. 

Kaseda High School

The office staff at Kaseda High School

Closeup of Chrysanthemum Bonsai tree in the photo above

Makurazaki was my furthest school, about 45 minutes due south of Kaseda. A large, very old city, it stretched out along the seashore on one main road.  It was famous for processing smoked tuna and smoked mackerel.  The smoked tuna was used to flavor soups, especially miso soup and the mackerel was used similarly but has a more oily taste. When the bus entered Makurazaki, the smell of smoked fish could be over-powering. The scenic ride from Kaseda was mostly downhill through low mountains covered with green cedar trees and went through a small village.  Because of the bus schedules, a teacher was always assigned to drive me to back to my apartment at the end of the day.

A group picture of the teachers at Makurazaki High School

Makurazaki High School was a magnet school for students planning to work on tuna boats or planning careers in communication for the shipping trade and also fish or seaweed farming and harvesting.  The students there were almost always in dormitories, and they looked like they worked hard and were tired from living away from home.  

They were not as motivated to speak English but we worked on communications in English via email with a high school in Germany.  It was the only place that I saw email in use in Kagoshima schools, but I am sure more schools were using it.  I only went there twice a month.  It was an old school and not as comfortable as Kaseda High School.   Directly on the ocean, it was cold and damp in winter.  The bathrooms were old and not as clean as I would have liked, and I would be there all day and only go to a couple of classes.

But the up side was that they had several teachers and office staff that were friendly and always up for a bit of laughter.  I could go outside in good weather and enjoy beautiful flowers and views of the open sea from the back of the school.  In the spring they prepared a big surprise for me.  They let me go out in a very large lifeboat with the students and a teacher while they practiced rowing.  I didn’t see any life jackets but we didn’t go out very far. 

The boat was heavy, and the students did a good job of getting it turned around to go back to the dock.  I was glad it was a short ride because getting seasick would have been a sure thing. We were sitting three across and I was next to the teacher, who was always wearing a smile but didn’t speak English.  He suddenly started speaking excitedly and then smacked me a good one on the hip.  The gaijin was sitting on the rope we needed to tie us up as we came to the pier.  It was not really as embarrassing as it was funny, and the students could not hide their laughter.  I felt a little sorry for the teacher, but we were both laughing pretty hard, too.  I wonder if he is re-telling the story or keeping it to himself.  Oh, yeah, I am sure he enjoys repeating it.

About once a month, a principal would come from an elementary school and personally chauffeur me from the office to spend just an hour or two in the gym with three or four classes of students and their teachers. The adults spoke little English but we sang songs such as “The Farmer in the Dell” and played games like “duck, duck goose”.  The students were shy at first, then laughing and running and having a good time.  After fun and games I would go to the office with the principal, and the office lady would bring in some green tea and a piece of Japanese cake (Okashi) or rice crackers (senbei) for both of us. Then he would drive me back to my apartment. 

This seemed quite formal, because no one could speak English. Bows, greetings, smiles, but that first visit seemed long and tedious.  I had already learned a smile could go a long way in terms of communicating.  No matter how I felt, I smiled. I learned that it was up to me to make it fun for the kids and the adults. If I made it easy, everybody had a good time. 

Soon I wore my biggest smiles for the kids, and made a big show of using the words loudly and repeatedly as we played games and sang songs. Each successive ride with the principal seemed more relaxed for both of us, and the principal seemed to wear a bigger smile each time, too.  They always paid me extra, which I tried to return because I got a monthly salary and travel money, too.  They must have thought I was nuts to try and return it, so I finally accepted it , and used it to see more of their country or for a couple of nights out at the "Southern Cross".

Getting up and going off on a bus was like an adventure in and of itself.  I had stayed close to home but now I sat on the bus, and paid attention, making sure I got off at the right stop.  I usually had a block or two to walk from the stop. On each of the rides, I found new sights that became favorite views, and I would intently anticipate and relish each of them as I passed. 

My favorite ride was to the junior high school in Oura cho.  It was a short ride but it was along the sea coast with mountains in the distance.  Besides a beautiful bay, it passed an area where fish were laid out on nets to dry and be packaged for markets.  They were small and looked like sardines.  I seldom saw more than a few boats out to sea and they were all small fishing boats.  I did not see sailboats or pleasure craft.  I was beginning to realize I had made a good choice on my application.  We could pick rural or city preferences.  Since I grew up in a small town, the choice had been easy.  But I did not expect such raw beauty.  It soon became a treat to visit the other schools, and I enjoyed each journey along the way.

An appreciation of the countryside, the mountains and the sea paved the way for me to develop feelings for this new place.  The language, food, religion, and culture were so different from my own, and yet this beauty was now becoming more familiar and carving a place in my heart.

The dynamics of the teachers and the students were different in each school, and I would soon learn that some wanted me to work with them more than others and often for good reasons. These will be given more detail in later posts. In the meantime, just showing up and smiling was working well for all of us.  Teaching tips and adjustment problems were scheduled to be addressed at a mandatory three day conference scheduled for mid-September in Kagoshima, and over 100 ALTs from the entire province, including those based on islands would attend.

 We would have meetings to address our adjustments and any problems, panels to provide teaching tips and a lot of networking and sharing of the best places to eat and where we might find necessities  or brands of items we needed.  It also seemed a bit like a paid vacation because we would have travel money to make our own hotel reservations and to pay for the food we would eat at places of our choosing.  

The meetings would be led by senior ALTs because the JET Program encouraged that one year contracts be renewed for a second and a third year.  This conference would be a chance for all of us to meet all the new and returning ALTs in Kagoshima.  I was really looking forward to finding out more about the city and meeting everyone.   I had met Maria and a couple of others in Tokyo, and Nancy, Brian and Mark would all be there, but  the other 100 or so attendees would be new to me.  My admiration for the JET Program would grow with each of these conferences.  They were providing support we all needed, respite from routine, and they were also allowing us to see new places around the country.  I never grew tired of seeing more.