A Day in the Life
Thursday was my last day of Elementary School lessons this term- this year, actually (reminder: the Japanese school year starts in April and ends in May). It was a pretty funny day (both ha-ha-funny and interesting-funny). Some people have asked what a typical day is like for me. I've had difficulty figuring out how to describe a typical day, but my last day at Elementary School two days ago will give you a good idea of just how random my school days can be, because I would describe it as pretty typical of my experience in Japan over the past 3 years. :-)
Okay. Here we go. This past Thursday I went to Myoukaku Elementary School, the largest Elementary School in my town (roughly 200 students). Most of the grades at Myoukaku have 2 classes for each grade, and when I go to elementary school I typically do English lessons for 2 grades, 4 classes in all. On Thursday I was set to teach 3rd and 4th grade. When I got to school, I looked up at the board where the days events, etc, are written, and saw that 4th grade had been wiped off my schedule. Class 3-1 was marked for me for 1st-hour and class 3-2 was marked for 3rd-hour. Shortly after I sat down, the Vice Principal came around and apologized for the change in my schedule, then handed me the day's time table. The morning classes had been shortened to 40-minutes each (normally 45-minutes) and afternoon classes had been cancelled. The students were going home after lunch. A bit of a surprise, but with 6th grade graduation coming up next week, as well as the end of the school year, after 2-years of finding these kinds of last-minute scheduling changes common, (at least last minute for me; the regular teachers might have known about them in advance because they can actually read the circulated memos) it was no problem to roll with the punches. Only 2 classes for the day....okay, good thing I brought along the TIME magazine someone had given me only days ago, as well as my Japanese text book! Looked like I was going to have a LOT of free time on my hands during the day!
Shortly after talking to the Vice Principal, I heard her go over to one of the special needs teachers and tell her that if the special needs classes had any time during the morning that they wanted to integrate English into the classtime, that they should feel free to do so. Then the 3-1 homeroom teacher came up to me and explained that they were running behind on finishing their class mural for the 6th graders graduation ceremony, so her class was going to need to use the English-class hour to work on their mural, but that I should come and help them. Okay, no sweat.....then the special needs teacher went up to the scheduling board and added to my schedule a visit to her class for 2nd hour. I had been at school for all of about 15-minutes and now I was teaching only 1 pre-planned English class, helping do crafts for another, and now had to scramble to figure out what to teach special needs with the materials I'd brought for regular 3rd and 4th grade classes. :-)
Time came for 1st-hour to start, and as expected, 2 students came to the teachers' room to escort me to class. Except they took me to class 3-2 instead of class 3-1. No worries, class 3-2 was supposed to be the one regular class of the day, although the surprise change to 1st hour from 3rd hour made me a little apprehensive as I walked into the room that the teacher was going to spring another surprise on me. :-) No surprises; I was able to go along with my originally scheduled plan for an end of term quiz game - like team-challenge Othello (I show a picture and the first team to raise their hand and answer correctly in English gets a square on the grid I've drawn on the chalkboard. That same team chooses the next square to play and can attack another team's squares if they get the chance. I borrowed the game from one of my JHS English teachers and adapted for Elementary students. ;-D ).
2nd-hour came along, and 3 students from special needs showed up to collect me, including one student I hadn't had a chance to teach at all this term (hmm). When I walked into the classroom, all 6 special needs students (ranging from grades 1-6) were there. I hadn't had more than 3 students max in any of my special needs classes over the course of the term. "This was going to be interesting," I thought. But, I was saved from having to do adlib English lesson by one of the teachers who immediately started in a speech that went something along the lines of "Class together with you was a surprise for us today too. So I hope you don't mind, we cooked some broccoli that our class grew together this term and are going to eat it during this class. I hope you like broccoli, Mandy! Please eat with us! Just a minute..." Suddenly all the students and teachers disappeared to the room nextstore and came back with dishes, small forks, mayonnaise and salad dressing, and a big bowl full of boiled broccoli. So, we ate broccoli. Then the students all had to stand up and give a little speech about what they enjoyed about studying English this term (and all us teachers tried to pry out whatever vocabulary words they remembered whenever we could work it in). And then we played everybody's favorite "Ask Mandy Questions" game until class was over. Alright, 2 down, 1 to go.
3rd hour.....again, 2 students came to collect me, we walked into the classroom, I said good morning to everyone, then they all grabbed their scissors, glue and origami paper and suddenly everyone was filing out of the room. I wasn't quite sure where we were going, but okay, I followed along. We went to the building out back that until last year was also used as classroom space. Class 3-1 was using one of the now empty classrooms as their staging area to make their mural. I spent the next 40-minutes learning how to make origami roses and tulips, and cutting out pre-printed outlines of cherry blossoms. We weren't able to finish the cherry blossom petals, so I took the extra pink construction paper back to the teachers' room and finished up during 4th hour. After lunch, the third grade teachers asked me to help them finish gluing the cherry blossoms to the mural. Once we finished that, we took the mural down to the gym and worked the logistics of hanging it up. And then it was time for me to call it a day. :-)
Okay. Here we go. This past Thursday I went to Myoukaku Elementary School, the largest Elementary School in my town (roughly 200 students). Most of the grades at Myoukaku have 2 classes for each grade, and when I go to elementary school I typically do English lessons for 2 grades, 4 classes in all. On Thursday I was set to teach 3rd and 4th grade. When I got to school, I looked up at the board where the days events, etc, are written, and saw that 4th grade had been wiped off my schedule. Class 3-1 was marked for me for 1st-hour and class 3-2 was marked for 3rd-hour. Shortly after I sat down, the Vice Principal came around and apologized for the change in my schedule, then handed me the day's time table. The morning classes had been shortened to 40-minutes each (normally 45-minutes) and afternoon classes had been cancelled. The students were going home after lunch. A bit of a surprise, but with 6th grade graduation coming up next week, as well as the end of the school year, after 2-years of finding these kinds of last-minute scheduling changes common, (at least last minute for me; the regular teachers might have known about them in advance because they can actually read the circulated memos) it was no problem to roll with the punches. Only 2 classes for the day....okay, good thing I brought along the TIME magazine someone had given me only days ago, as well as my Japanese text book! Looked like I was going to have a LOT of free time on my hands during the day!
Shortly after talking to the Vice Principal, I heard her go over to one of the special needs teachers and tell her that if the special needs classes had any time during the morning that they wanted to integrate English into the classtime, that they should feel free to do so. Then the 3-1 homeroom teacher came up to me and explained that they were running behind on finishing their class mural for the 6th graders graduation ceremony, so her class was going to need to use the English-class hour to work on their mural, but that I should come and help them. Okay, no sweat.....then the special needs teacher went up to the scheduling board and added to my schedule a visit to her class for 2nd hour. I had been at school for all of about 15-minutes and now I was teaching only 1 pre-planned English class, helping do crafts for another, and now had to scramble to figure out what to teach special needs with the materials I'd brought for regular 3rd and 4th grade classes. :-)
Time came for 1st-hour to start, and as expected, 2 students came to the teachers' room to escort me to class. Except they took me to class 3-2 instead of class 3-1. No worries, class 3-2 was supposed to be the one regular class of the day, although the surprise change to 1st hour from 3rd hour made me a little apprehensive as I walked into the room that the teacher was going to spring another surprise on me. :-) No surprises; I was able to go along with my originally scheduled plan for an end of term quiz game - like team-challenge Othello (I show a picture and the first team to raise their hand and answer correctly in English gets a square on the grid I've drawn on the chalkboard. That same team chooses the next square to play and can attack another team's squares if they get the chance. I borrowed the game from one of my JHS English teachers and adapted for Elementary students. ;-D ).
2nd-hour came along, and 3 students from special needs showed up to collect me, including one student I hadn't had a chance to teach at all this term (hmm). When I walked into the classroom, all 6 special needs students (ranging from grades 1-6) were there. I hadn't had more than 3 students max in any of my special needs classes over the course of the term. "This was going to be interesting," I thought. But, I was saved from having to do adlib English lesson by one of the teachers who immediately started in a speech that went something along the lines of "Class together with you was a surprise for us today too. So I hope you don't mind, we cooked some broccoli that our class grew together this term and are going to eat it during this class. I hope you like broccoli, Mandy! Please eat with us! Just a minute..." Suddenly all the students and teachers disappeared to the room nextstore and came back with dishes, small forks, mayonnaise and salad dressing, and a big bowl full of boiled broccoli. So, we ate broccoli. Then the students all had to stand up and give a little speech about what they enjoyed about studying English this term (and all us teachers tried to pry out whatever vocabulary words they remembered whenever we could work it in). And then we played everybody's favorite "Ask Mandy Questions" game until class was over. Alright, 2 down, 1 to go.
3rd hour.....again, 2 students came to collect me, we walked into the classroom, I said good morning to everyone, then they all grabbed their scissors, glue and origami paper and suddenly everyone was filing out of the room. I wasn't quite sure where we were going, but okay, I followed along. We went to the building out back that until last year was also used as classroom space. Class 3-1 was using one of the now empty classrooms as their staging area to make their mural. I spent the next 40-minutes learning how to make origami roses and tulips, and cutting out pre-printed outlines of cherry blossoms. We weren't able to finish the cherry blossom petals, so I took the extra pink construction paper back to the teachers' room and finished up during 4th hour. After lunch, the third grade teachers asked me to help them finish gluing the cherry blossoms to the mural. Once we finished that, we took the mural down to the gym and worked the logistics of hanging it up. And then it was time for me to call it a day. :-)
posted by Mandy | 11:41 AM
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