Teacher as a verb. Teachering.

I thought, with this post, rather than telling you what teaching is like and what kind of teacher I am, I would show you. My JTE, the wonderful Chihiro Sensei, took some action shots of me in mid 'knowledge dropping' mode. Please enjoy.

This is my Oral Communications Class. We focus on communicating, sometimes even in English. They are all 3d year high school students, meaning they are graduating soon.

This is Daiki. Chihiro Sensei says he's bad at communicating in English. All he says is "Nice Derek. Nice curveball." I think he communicates just fine.

It's important, when you're a teacher, to give your students a solid, legitimate foundation. You must start with the basics. That's why I chose the longest word ever. It has most of the letters, you see.

In today's class, after we were done warming up with Mary Poppins, we got down to the real point of this class, and to our whole term, in fact: dreams. Not sleep dreams, but future dreams. After talking with all of them, it seems like they haven't thought much about it. I was the same way. This girl actually has, though. She wants to be a care worker. When her grandfather was sick she and her mother took care of him every day after school. Her grandfather said he was so happy to see them and recieve their help. That made her happier than she had ever been, and she wants to keep that feeling alive. She also wants a dog and to marry a Canadian.

I am trying to tell her that there is no need for a care worker in Canada because no one lives there.

The girl on the right, with absolutely no hints from me, said she wanted to have nine kids so that she could have a baseball team. Immediately after, the girl on the left said she wanted to have nine kids so her baseball team could beat the first girl's baseball team. Hearing their little comedy bit put me on cloud nine. Not because it was about baseball, and not because it was funny, but because that was actual communication. The first girl made a joke in English, which is rare in itself. But the second girl listened to the English joke, and then followed up with one of her own! Three months ago that defintely would not have happened. It's really nice that we're all getting comfortable with each other in class.
And one of the big reasons is Chihiro Sensei. She, like me, likes to keep the class light and full of humour. She also likes to let me just wander around and BS with the students about whatever topic we're covering. When I first got here, they were really shy, and I did most of the talking. But now, they're coming out of their shells and using English. Chihiro Sensei also treats me 100 percent like another teacher.
Conversely, at my other school, stuff like this doesn't happen. I wander around the classroom on my own, and I can tell the kids like it, but that JTE doesn't seem to like it too much. She laughs, and says, in Japanese, 'This must be an American style of teaching,' to the students. Also, when she starts class, she still starts it with, 'And today we have Derek, everybody, for some team teaching,' slowing down and emphasizing my name like I'm some sort of special guest party trick. Then again, the name of that class is English II and not Oral Communication, so maybe they already know how to communicate.

Teachering

It's been a long time since my last post, but that's because I've been busy travelling around. Basically, I'm trying to suck out as much fun as I can before I am shut in and stranded by feet and feet of snow. By mid January you guys will be praying that the snows stop here in Iwate so that you can stop reading my new 14 page blogs everyday.

A Haiku or two...courtesy of Satan's cookbook

As many of you may or may not know, I am a bit of a cooking enthusiast. While I won't be appearing on Iron Chef any time soon, I'd like to think that I get by pretty well with my cuisines. It is natural, then, that one of the first sections I planned revolved around cooking. In particular, one lesson involved students translating Japanese recipes into English. This served two instrumental purposes. First, the students got some very good practice using cooking verbs and common nouns like oil, salt, sugar, pot...They were busy with dictionaries and simple English recipes that I had given them as models. Second, I got a free English translation of a Japanese cookbook! One oversight on my part, however, was not checking with my JTE (Japanese Teacher of English who team teaches all my classes with me) the recipes that they chose. Some students chose incredibly difficult and involved recipes, with actions I didn't even know were done in a kitchen. (What the hell is flambee?)

Some students, to my surprise and delight, did quite well. (I am giving them grades based on how tasty I thought the dish was) Others, however, turned in finished products that much more resembled esoteric poems than recipes. Here are three of my favorite poems.

I serve soup in the container which I cooled
and save the light blue that I made slicing

...

The potato barks and makes it light
Ginko limits and exposes itself to water
The onion barks and slices it thin
to fiber in the right angle direction

Melt butter in a pan and fry it
not to burn till I soften
I drain land
As well as I fly lightly

...

While is warm, write four in the mixer; re mud whole;
it is similar, and become it
With the small strainer of eyes, go carefully


Honestly, I have changed nothing but the spacing. They really used semi colons (there are no semicolons in Japanese) and "till" and "small strainer of eyes." Honestly, I think you could throw that last one in with a few Poe poems and no one would be the wiser.

True Dreams of Iwate San

I tried initially to write this post like a story; a first person epic, more precisely. Unfortunately, someone named Samuel has already done me the honor of putting my tale to words. I'm not one to retell a perfectly good telling, so, if you would like the story version, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_Goliath.

So many fun, tiring, scary, amazing, beautiful, hungry things happened over this weekend that covering them all, and especially in order, would simply be impossible. Instead I will regale you with pictures and words, out of order. You may attempt to reconstruct the sequence for yourself if you'd like, but why bother? I don't even remember any more. In any case, I don't think it matters. A small preface though, just to set the mood.

In one corner you have the formidable 岩手山, but you may call him Iwate San. 26 million years old, his name means "Mr. Stone Hands." (Not to be confused with a Mr. Eric Sullivan, who has too often gone by that name whenever he drops one of my perfect spirals in the endzone.) He is now a 7,000 foot volcano. In the other corner you have me, a twenty two year old, mildy athletic, altogether unprepared, wide eyed kid looking for a good weekend on a mountain. Armed with two rice balls, a bowl of instant ramen, tennis shoes, shorts, and a whole lot of enthusiasm, I tackled the beast. It was a fight to the death. Unfortunately I have already spoiled the ending, as I am writing this blog and not Mr. Stone Hands.

Chapter 1 - Up the Mountain

'It's good to own land...'

This is Amanda Mulligan. She is Irish. She told me that in England, Polish jokes are actually Irish jokes. She is also very afraid of bears. She said so on the bus to the mountain. I told her that if bears attack, what you need to do is go up to the biggest one and hit it in the face. But I can't remember if that's for bears or prison. At any rate, all 40 of us ALT's came to a consensus on the bus concerning bears. Here is what we came up with: 'fight brown bears, play dead with black bears, give up with polar bears because you are dead, and guard your pockets if you see a bear with a picnic basket because you can bet Boo Boo is nearby gunnin for your wallet.'

Amanda is doing the classic Captain Morgan pose.

Mine is better.

A note: As I was on my hands and knees grappling with the mountain face, sweating profusely, gaining one inch for every two that I lost, that little child who is behind me in the picture sauntered right on by. As I looked up at him he waved at me. Then a dog skipped by. I'd like to think that Mr. Stone Hands made it easy for them because they are Japanese. And also because if he didn't, I really need to hit the weight room.

Look Dad! A Mets fan! I found him here on this mountain living in seclusion. After Backman and Hernandez were retired in the bottom of the 10th of the '86 World Series, he said he was so fed up with the Mets that he didn't even wait to see the last out. He said he couldn't stand the thought of his Red Sox friends holding this over him for the rest of his life. So he turned his back on the Mets, on baseball, on America, on his old life, and on civilization in general, taking the next plane to Japan and living here on Iwate San for the past 20 years. 'But I showed them,' he said proudly. 'So how did Carter make out?' he finally asked me. Soon after, he got a little violent, and we were forced to continue without him.

Chapter 2 - The summit

This is the lodge of summit number 1, where we spend the night.

This is where we slept. All in all, there were about 40 ALT's and 60 to 70 Japanese folk sharing this cabin with us. We had fresh, delicious mountain water as well as one small stove to boil water with. The quarters were tight, and we were all right up against one another for the night. That was fine though, because it got really, really cold. I had four blankets and a jacket and I was shivering by morning time. Lights out was at 8 pm so that we could wake up at 4 am the next morning to hike another hour up to the viewing summit.

'What do you mean we have to wake up at 4?' said Ryan

'What do you mean its 4 am and we have to hike for another hour?!' said Korey.

'It's awful dark for a sunrise,' said Jen.

Almost there...




There it is. Please note that we are above the clouds. 5:42 in the morning never felt so good. The orange disk slowly rose above the horizon and suddenly exploded into yellow. The clouds were thick and low so we could not see any sign of the city below us. I felt like I was in a little bubble, alone with the sun.

Chapter 3 - Out of the frying pan and into the fire; descent

We went down a different path than we went up, on the opposite side of the mountain. The next few pictures are of the trail, whose name is 鬼が城, pronounced 'onigajyo,' or The Demon's Castle.

This side of the mountain was thus named because of its rough, forbidding appearance. The brutal crags, slippery slopes, thick sulfer smelling woods, and devastating winds deter all but the most hardy travellers. It has been challenged throughout the years only by the grittiest samurai, the most legendary heros, the craziest ninjas and...

kind old ladies.

Obligatory cheesy 'we did it' photo. We were genuinely happy, though. The five of us got separated and for two and a half hours had no idea whether or not we were going the right way. It was almost another five points for The Demon's Castle, but we did it.

Then everybody got naked and went to an onsen. No photos.

If you make a profound statement and no one is around to understand it, is it worth it?

After a layoff of a few weeks with my English Club, we got together again today after school. This time, the "real" teacher who heads the English Club was there too. He is the "real" teacher because he has access to the club's money and decides in general, what the club should do. He is also the "real" teacher because he hardly ever shows up and hardly ever tells us what to do. He is extremely nice and has invited me to climb Mount Fuji with him in November. As a side note, Mount Fuji has lost much of its clout amongst the other mountains. In fact, there are ramen shops all along the trail, and the smog and urbanization of Tokyo and the suburbanization of the surrouding areas has diminished its once fantastic views. I have this picture of me struggling with my pick-ax at 10,000 feet, face bloodied, body battered, clawing and scraping for every inch to the plateau. And when I finally get there, Ronald McDonald is waiting for me with a Happy Meal, as are the 10 children who climbed it faster than me.

Any way, back to the English club. Today, this teacher, Shunichii Sensei, told me that he would like the English Club to "challenge the TOEFL." TOEFL is the Test Of English as a Foreign Language. It is also no walk in the park. People who pass have a pretty good working knowledge of English, and they are expected to be able to comprehend slightly scholarly or technical articles. Basically, it is way harder than anything we teach at high school. I was immediately worried. In the span of three months, I have to try and get six girls who say things like, "What kind sports are you the play?" to be able to understand and answer questions about a paragraph on Sophacles.

After reading a couple books and looking at sample tests online, I decided that vocabulary is the component that we need to focus on the most. Many of the test questions revolve around understanding the meaning of words in context in a paragraph, and many of the other questions just ask for definitions straight away. Those kinds of factual questions mightily overpower analysis or reasoning questions. And that makes sense. This test just wants to see if a non-native speaker can understand what is being said. What they do with the facts is irrelevant.

I explained to them today our plan to attack vocabulary, which is 15 words per week, grouped according to similar words. For example, today we did "act." Then we did "action," "reaction," "react," "active," and another few I can't remember now. But, they all had "act" somewhere in them. In one of my first real teaching breakthroughs, I got them to understand that one can dissect English words just like one can dissect kanji. One can gain a general meaning of a word, or capture some insight, by knowing just one of the kanji of a string. For example,

自転車

The last character, by itself, means vehicle. And the first one means self. So, you can understand that the word has something to do with self vehicle. In fact it is a bicycle. A self powered vehicle. They understood my analogy, and I was ecstatic. So, 15 words a week turned into about 4 roots per week. I wasn't done there, though. I was feeling the teaching spirit, so I kept riding the metaphorical train.

"Memorizing words is not enough though! You must learn how to use them, and how to understand them. You must make them your own. That's why we need to read news articles and have discussions and write our own compositions. You need to become familiar with the English language. That's what it will take to pass the TOEFL. What do you mean you don't understand what I'm saying? [silence] Ok ok ok. Look at it like this. You have this pen. [Derek picks up pen] This pen is one word. No, wait. Ok, I got it. Let's say you have one hundred pens! [Derek spreads his arms wide] BUT! You don't know how to write. What good are your pens then, I ask? The pens are useless! [Derek throws pen down and small Japanese girls flinch] You can have red pens, and blue pens, and green pens, and purple pens, and orange pens...But if you don't know how to write, it doesn't matter how many colors you have! So, the pens are words. You can memorize all the words you want, but if you don't know how to use them to get your point across, they are useless. You must learn how to use your words just like you must learn how to use a pen for it to be any good. BUT! Its a two way street. In order to paint a great picture, you must have many colors. Understand?"

An odd silence followed, with puzzled faces around the room. Then, a look of realization spread across Rika's face. She got very excited and said to her fellow English club members, in Japanese, "He wants us to use different colors for our words. That way we'll remember them better!"

I learned, today, that one victory is enough for one day. Don't go for broke out of the gate or else you'll have nothing left to finish with. At least the flashcards will be colorful.

Here are some pictures that have nothing to do with what I wrote about. Enjoy.

Hanamaki Festival from a couple of weeks ago

A shrine thanking the Gods for a good harvest. I carried one for 3 hours. They are certainly heavy.

A mixture of co workers, ALTs, and people I met at a bar.

Mom, please do not worry. These beers were purchased solely for artistic exploration. (A few of these make any picture look good.) Dad, and fellow frat bros (E beth included), please do not worry. No beers were harmed in the making of this picture.
Jon, if you can zoom in, please notice what it says on the mug. "For a relaxing time..."

My Job

The title of this blog is "Let's Japan Blogging," as you may or may not have noticed. This conjugation is known affectionately by JET assistant language teachers (ALTs) as the present japanified continuous. I believe that is the technical name. For whatever reason, Japanese people very often say "Let's ____ing!" "Let's eating!" "Let's going!" "Let's singing" are all common phrases out here. Unfortunately, they are not English. We ALT's recognize this and get a kick out of it when we hear it, just like Japanese people laugh at us when we murder one of their words with poor pronunciation. We enjoy the present japanified continuous so much in fact that we use it amongst ourselves. "Let's drinking!" "Let's passing" (on the road) "Let's burnable trash combusting" are all staples of the ALT's language. But please realize that I am only using this poor English to understand the nature of the beast. I must first get inside the mind of Japanese learners of English in order to know how best to teach them the correct way. ("Let's combust our burnable trash." etc...) And that is the essence of my job. I must pull up my sleeves and get my hands dirty with pronunciation and verb tenses and gerunds and similes and metaphors and all that good stuff. Hopefully, when I am done, no one in Kitakami will say, "Where going?" or "I eating lice every day." I will tour the country side exterminating poor English everywhere. I also teach high school English on the side...

I work at

北上翔南高校

which means Kitakami Shounan High School. Shounan is represented by the two kanji (Chinese characters) in the middle. They literally mean "soar south." I work there Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. It is my base school. Even though I work at another school on Mondays and Tuesdays, Shounan pays me and handles all the administrative stuff. I do things with them on weekends and my supervisor (the fantastic Megumi Sensei who translates important things for me like setting up my utilities and making sure I don't get lost) works at Shounan. Shounan is a fantastic school. It is not a specialized high school or trade school. While it is considered academic, meaning that most kids have higher education aspirations, it is not a top academic high school. The education is much more liberal and there are all sorts of extracurricular activities available that are not generally available at other schools. At true academic schools, like my other school, the kids are very serious about their studying. They are students first and foremost, and do other things on the side. Shounan students are much more well rounded in my opinion. There are many more students with 'personalities.' They are very interesting to talk to. That is why their school festival, an exhibition for parents put on by the different home rooms and clubs, is a fantastic showcase of their non-academic talents.

Every homeroom decorates its classroom with a theme. One homeroom turned its classroom into a haunted house. Another one had an apple bobbing pool. Another one had a crystal ball and the students would predict your future through palm readings and horoscope charts and the like. Also, all the clubs put on demonstrations. The tea club held a fantastic tea ceremony, there were traditional Japanese dances, music, and food. There were also three student rock and roll bands that played a couple songs a piece. One band played "American Idiot," by Green Day. When parents picked up on the words American Idiot, they looked at me nervously, trying to gauge if I was offended or not. I imagine they don't know Green Day or the context of the song. They probably just thought their children were calling Americans idiots.

There was also a fashion show. A girl asked me, the day before, if I would judge the show. I said sure why not. I generally just agree to things and let it all sort itself out later. I assumed it was a serious fashion show. It was not. In fact, it was a comedy fashion pageant, with much cross dressing. I'll leave out the details, but it was hilarious. The winning 'outfit' was a kid dressed like a cigarette, and all he would say was 'Tobacco bad!'He made an encore appearance later with one of the bands . The whole festival was amazing. I certainly never had any experience like that in my high school, and it was inspiring to see how hard everyone worked and pitched in. EVERYONE helped. Even the kids who do nothing in class and seem like they don't care. Even those kids were hanging balloons and running around with a spring in their step. Pictures.

The English Club preparing. We sold foreign candy and had quiz in English for people to take

This was on the English Club room's chalkboard

Bands

I get by with a lot of help from Japan

The eight of us were crammed onto a tiny blanket surrounded by a sea of people. We had arrived at one o clock in Akita for Japan's largest fireworks show. It was still four hours away, which we thought would give us enough time to find a good seat and liesurely get some food and drinks. Apparently, though, people had been there since dawn staking out the best spots. We found a tiny patch of unclaimed ground and set down our sad little blanket. The sun was relentless and we hadn't brought any water or food, or shade for that matter. We were very much unprepared. We came on a whim, thinking it would be awesome to see a four hour fireworks competition between the prefectures. We resolved to hunker down and just fight through the sun and the sweat and the humidy and the dehydration and the cramped conditions because there wasn't really anything we could do. We looked on in envy at the other patches of ground that were covered in tents and umbrellas and coolers and grills.
At about hour 2 of the ordeal, I turned and asked an elderly Japanese couple behind me how many prefectures would be competing. They were shocked that I could speak some Japanese. The woman looked at her book and said about 25. Then she asked me why my Japanese was so good. (If you can merely say 'hello' in Japanese, people will breath in sharpely and comment on how fantastic your Japanese is. For a laugh, you can say thank you, and reply that their Japanese is decent as well.) We continued to talk, and her husband insisted that I drink the whiskey that he brought with him and eat some of the foods they had packed.
He was missing teeth and had such an accent I couldn't understand a word that he said. His wife had to translate his extremely difficult Japanese into difficult Japanese for me. Thus, we 'communicated.' A little later, a younger man came over to our little blanket and dropped off two dishes of yakitori (grilled chicken on a stick). He said his group had bought too much and that he'd like us to help out. Then another blanket came over with water for us and and umbrella, and a chair we could borrow. Our luck was changing.
A couple of us went over to the first blanket a little later to thank them. We brought over a pack of gum and some candy, which was really all we had. Then, for the rest of the night we hung out on their spacious blanket, (at their insistence of course) watching fireworks and drinking their beers and eating their food. At one point, some sort of game began where they tried to see what I could and could not eat. Thank you Babcia and mom for making me eat all sorts of 'weird' things back home when I was younger. Long after my friends politely excused themselves from the competition, I was eating chicken gizzards and hearts and ears and nasty smelling beans (natto) and all sorts of things. The Japanese people almost seemed disappointed when I could eat something. They finally got me with the fish semen though. I didn't eat it, and that made everyone very happy, most especially me.
So far, this sort of experience has been the norm for me. It seems like everywhere I go people are so friendly and anxious to help. All it takes is a little Japanese. JETs who have been here already for a year tell me that in general Japanese people are thrilled when foreigners make and effort to speak and learn Japanese. From co workers to people on the street to people at a festival, they appreciate you trying to learn their language.
Just last weekend, at another festival, a woman pulled my friend and me off the street into her dry cleaning store and gave us coffee and corn and rice balls and chicken and all sorts of stuff. We took a bunch of pictures with a bunch of women about the same age and left with everyone smiling and laughing.



When trying to ride buses and trains, people will lead me to where I need to be if I don't know. Now that I understand how these things work a little better, I thankfully don't need to inconvenience them any more. But, besides one time when someone completely ignored me, every time people go out of their way to help me if I am asking for help. Sometimes if I don't even need help, they offer to help. I was standing on a corner waiting for a friend when a mom and her child came over and asked me if I was lost and if I needed directions or to call someone. I really can't impress upon you guys enough how much everyone here rules. I understand its different in other parts of Japan, because I've been there. In the big cities, its just like NYC. But out here, 483 km from Tokyo (there is a sign near my house that says that. I didn't measure it myself) its been fantastic. So, please understand that so far all the great experiences I have had, and am sure will have, are fueled by a lot of help from Japan. Pictures!

My school

A shrine near my house

The unmatchable Ryan 先生(sensei)

More will be coming soon.