School Update

Two weeks ago we had an opening ceremony for the new school year with all the current students except for the youngest, newest class. A lot of bowing and a few speeches took place. Overall it took less than 30 minutes, but I still had to come to school all day and wear a suit. The day after that was almost exactly the same except that it was called the entrance ceremony. The new classes filed in and their mothers watched from the back of the gym. There were speeches and more bowing of course. All the teachers were introduced including myself. Again, less than 30 minutes and I had no classes for the rest of the day. In the afternoon the kids cleaned the school. Easiest money I ever made.

Many of my classes have been shortened lately because the homeroom teachers need time in the afternoon to have parent teacher conferences. They drive to every single student's house and meet their parents for about 10 minutes and move on to the next student's house.

There is such a thing as a PTA in Japan, and what I find really amusing is that it's actually called the PTA despite the words parent and teacher starting with completely different letters in Japanese. I wonder how that got started.