First day of school!

I'm writing from Naruto Junior High School on that island that I posted a picture of yesterday. This morning I biked here and I was lucky that it was fairly cool and not raining. I got here about 20 minutes before the morning teacher's meeting, so I had enough time to get myself situated. The teacher's room is a big open air conditioned room (the only one in school) with all of the teacher's desks grouped together in pods. In Japan, the students stay in the same classroom and the teachers move from room to room between classes, so their desks are all in one room. I have my own desk at each school. This morning I made a speech in Japanese and English to all of the teachers. It was short, but I also passed out a newsletter about myself in English and Japanese. Jeff was kind enough to proofread it.

Today I am helping teach two "first-year" classes. The first year in junior high school is the same thing as 7th grade in the US. I have several laminated pictures and maps made so that I can show the kids my family, where Wisconsin is in the US (no one knows when I tell them that's where I grew up), and where I went to school. I'm so excited!

Since this is the first day of school, the entire school weeds the school property during the afternoon. I was told to bring outside clothes for this event so I'm assuming I will be participating. Bring on the ragweed allergy!!! On a normal day the kids clean the entire school at the end of the day though. I don't have to do that but I may be assigned to a part of the building to oversee during the cleaning.

Tomorrow I go to Seto Junior High School and go through nearly the same thing. I teach two classes and instead of weeding, participate in evacuation training. Tokyo experienced a massive earthquake on September 1st over 80 years ago and ever since then, they evacuate on September 1st. I'm not sure if they do this all over or if it's just that school. Should be interesting. I was told to bring a hat because we'll be outside for at least 2 hours.

Erin, I'm glad you feel like you're here. My job here is to internationalize the kids, so my existance is about 80% of my job. But I consider this blog part of my job too because I get to internationalize you guys at the same time. Japan is left out of the US curriculum (minus WW2), at least it was in Germantown. So I feel like everything will be just as amazing to you guys as it is to me, who started learning about Japan from scratch at Wellesley. You should still visit me though Erin!!! There's so much that you just have to experience yourself.

Grandpa J, those trucks are made by many companies but they are all identical. Honda, Suzuki, Mitsubishi, etc. No non-Japanese makers though.