I have hardly written since coming home from Japan. I cranked out close to 100K words of non-fiction there and maybe 20K or so of fiction. I haven't went through a spell like this in years, but overall am not too concerned, just feeling the itch and the need to get back--but not bad enough just yet. I have come a long way on some solid revision of a collection I wrote back in 05-06, but other than that I have felt either that I don't have the time or the will. Anyway, I pay a small fee for this site and need to get back to keeping it up. Since I got nothing new I'm going to post the closest post from a year ago at this time.
2-18-08 1:24P
These thoughts were not going through my mind as I walked to Hayama Junior High School for the second time: I won’t see any of the san nen-sei gakkyuu (third grade class students) again after today unless I see them in Heiwado or Tehara Station or some other place in or around Ritto. At 3:30 when I walk to meet Yoko at Ritto Junior High to pick up my schedule for next week I will have officially finished my fifth rotation of what will be nine total. For all of you who might be slow at math, that’s over half way. I will miss working with many of the san nen-sei gakkyuu, as they were usually respectful, tried to do their work and typically had a good attitude and sense of humor. So today is a farewell of sorts, a thought that occurred just before sitting down to a strange medley of yasai to buta (vegetables and pork).
Walking to school the snow was coming down and my jacket was slightly coated. I was thinking about LP’s ride to school and hoping it wasn’t too bad. I was happy that it was snow rather than rain and glad to be listening to Stereolab on my ipod. Normally I bike to Hayama, but last Thursday as I mounted the Bounty Hunter just after 5:00 PM I noticed instantly that the bike tire was flat—beyond repair flat. I had known this day was lingering, just waiting to try and surprise me, as the tire had been hopelessly low for some time. Not only was it low, but virtually impossible to fill with air. I’m not sure just how old the BH is, but it’s long past its prime. I decided instead of pushing this piece of trash all the way home that I may as well ride it as far as I could. That ended up being all the way home. I’m not sure if you’ve ever ridden a bike over a mile with a flat back tire, but I’ll tell you, it’s a hell of a work out. You also relinquish a great deal of control. So with the BH out of commission I’m walking to school for the second day and thinking about Rob and Amber arriving in Maibara in less than eleven hours. I’m thinking about jobs I’ve been applying for and thinking about how happy I am my boy Dave put Stereolab’s album Emperor Tomato Ketchup on the ipod my folks bought for me that he loaded up. I’m thinking I could care less if there’s no air left in my tires. I am not thinking about a farewell of sorts.
It’s a strange job here in more than many ways. One part of strangeness is the distance that is between the students and I. It’s not this way in every case, but there are several barriers to us forging a strong student/teacher relationship. First up, a language barrier, second the fact that I see them once or twice a week for four to six weeks and then leave. There’s more than that though. There are the cultural differences, the miscommunication and at times a lack of opportunity to actually interact with many students. However, in the case of the san nen-sei at Hayama these obstacles are much less. I have gotten to know several of the students pretty well. I know and call a very few of them by name. I work with great teachers who let me interact with students, who encourage them to interact with me and this has been instrumental in the fact that I’ve been able to develop some type of relationship with these students.
At home, whether I’m teaching in college, or leading a backcountry trip, I am able to develop relationships with students and campers much more on my terms. I am able to effectively communicate with them. I am able to learn their personalities and they mine. Often times there are gaps and barriers in these types of situations, typically age or ethnicity. We are usually able to overcome, or at least move past these without getting too hung up. Here, for the aforementioned it is much different.
It is difficult to gauge what your job is here, a mix between real teacher, half teacher, worksheet maker, and live human tape recorder—read and repeat, read and repeat. For these reasons I’m guessing it is difficult for students to gauge what your job is here, or who the hell you are and what it is you’re doing in their classroom. I am not foolish enough to think that more than a handful of kids would waste the space in their mind thinking about who I am and what my role in their classroom is. However, by the variety of reactions and interactions I have with students it plays out what must be in their head whether conscious or not. Some students seem genuinely glad to speak with you and want to try to learn as much as possible. Others take on the roll of your Japanese teacher and will teach you whatever words they can. Others see you as a means of entertainment, or as just an oddity—some white dude is in my classroom. There are some that seem freighted, whether it is of your foreigninity (hell yes that’s a good made up word) or their own fears of making a mistake while communicating with you is hard to tell, but their fear, or severe shyness is evident. Finally, there are kids that just don’t give a damn and they don’t have the time of day for you. There’s a nice mix, not terribly different from any classroom of any age group when you break it down, but again this isn’t any classroom, it’s somebody else’s classroom in Japan.
The farewell of sorts will be an ongoing farewell for the rest of our time here in Japan. I will move to Ritto Junior High School and say sayonara to their san nen-sei students. I will say goodbye, temporarily, to Rob and Amber once they come then leave for the warm summer weather of Australia. Our mother’s will come and go Yoko (our coordinator and friend) will resign in April—sayonara. Once we start our third and final rotation each school will have a much more permanent farewell and there will be no need to add “of sorts” to it.
These thoughts were going through my head as I walked home from Hayama Junior High School for what might prove to be the second and last time: I need to break the ten thousand yen bill in my pocket so I have the right denominations to give to Yoko for school lunch and the maintenance fee. I have to walk a bit faster if I want to make it on time. Rob and Amber should be on a Shinkansen on their way from Tokyo and I’ll be seeing them in less than three hours. Walking down the narrow street I am surprised at how quickly routes and landscapes become second nature and am thinking that these farewell of sorts really aren’t all that bad as they continue leading me towards a very big hello again.
Haven't checked the site in a while, and surprise it's "super crazy flashback time". Japan was super rad, we need to hang out more often.
Posted by: Willoughby | March 27, 2009 at 09:18 PM