Hello, stalwart blog readers! Sorry for abandoning you for the past month (oops…time flies when you’re having fun?). It’s not that I haven’t had anything to write about (in fact, maybe I have too much? Undoukai, mountain climbing, visits from PiA friends, microwave baking adventures…), it’s that I’ve been realizing how tiring teaching is and, honestly, I’ve been lazy. My new resolution is to try and update at least once every two weeks. For those of you that are super curious about what I’m up to and that won’t be enough, you can either check back on the main page here for my linked Instagram feed, or you can follow me directly @kelseylostinasia. My Instagram is always up to date, because let’s be real: it’s much easier to post a picture and 20 words than it is to write a whole blog post.
Anyway, I’ve made it to my eighth (!) week at the youchien already. I can’t believe I’ve already been here for as long as an entire Summer of Service lasts! It’s only Tuesday, but week eight hasn’t disappointed. Here’s a quick summary of what happened today:
- A boy got a bloody nose in my first waku waku class today (from picking his nose…?) and then giggled as he wiped blood on my polo on purpose while he was leaving. (TOTALLY DISGUSTING. And you thought nothing weird happened at the Tokyo post…)
- Another boy pulled his loose tooth out in the second waku waku class. (A girl lost her tooth in class last Friday, too…’tis the season? I’m not sure why these kids can’t wait until they’re at home.)
- The best student in my second grade class told me, as she walked out the door, that today was her last English class. I learned shortly after that another girl is also stopping the class.
Despite all that, today was still a good day. The weather was nice, I got to play outside with the kids, and my classes went relatively smoothly.
Looks like in Tokyo, you win some and you lose some (literally).
What I’ve been feeling a lot during my second month as a teacher is that you really need to take every day one step at a time. This is going to sound painfully obvious, but each day is totally different. Some days are great. Some days are bad. Some days my lessons are fun. Some days they are boring. Some days my students are well behaved. Some days (like important days such as when my PiA PD comes to visit) my students are little monsters (thanks, guys). Some days Japanese people ask me for directions (!). Some days I ask Japanese people for directions. Some days I love this job. Some days I wonder why I’m here. You never know what’s going to happen.
Not knowing what’s going to happen makes life really hard. At the same time, however, that’s what makes this job awesome. Kindergarteners, and elementary school kids, are so, so random. I find myself laughing in class all the time because of crazy things they say or do. One kid spontaneously complains in a super dramatic way that he’s too tired of coloring or that he’s too lazy to finish writing his own name. Another kid doesn’t answer when I ask him questions, but says sporadically throughout class, with perfect pronunciation, “why, Japanese people!!” It’s all one giant mystery, really.
Spontaneity is frustrating, yet also rewarding. Isn’t it annoying how that works? The thing about my job that makes me the angriest and most frustrated can also be the most fun. I’m glad I’ve realized this, though. It only took two months.
Speaking of random occurrences, last week the head teacher told me very casually that I was to go pick potatoes with the nenchosan (5-6 y.o. kindergarteners) on Monday the 26th. While bummed because that meant I wouldn’t get to teach my favorite class (Enjoy English), I was also super pumped because I’ve never been potato picking before. Yesterday was D-Day (or should I say….P-Day? Sorry, sorry….that joke was for you, Dad!) and it was AWESOME. I think it’s been my favorite day in Japan so far, and not just because I really, really love sweet potatoes.
Yesterday, I got to school at 8 am and shortly after was in a car with another teacher and the rijicho-sensei (board chairman? as well as my boss’ dad) on my way to Chiba. The kids, their moms (and one dad), and some other teachers all took three big charter buses to the field. Yes, you read that correctly. They took charter buses to a farm to go pick potatoes. There were also two professional photographers on hand. This is just how we roll here in Ryogoku. The kids were barefoot and wore smocks and gloves to pick potatoes. The moms covered their shoes in plastic bags and wore gloves. I didn’t think ahead, so I just wore my sneakers and went bare handed.
I didn’t care about getting my hands dirty, but it also didn’t matter too much because this trip was not about me picking potatoes. This trip was about the kids picking potatoes that were as big as small pumpkins. I was just there to help set up and make sure they found all the potatoes. They picked hundreds of potatoes and cleared the whole field in about an hour and a half. If you ever need farm work done, call a group of 50 energetic kindergartners. They’ll think it’s super fun. Jokes aside, the whole picking potatoes field trip was very cool because it was a whole family affair and because the kids had actually planted the potatoes themselves last spring. They got to see the fruits of their earlier labor and now their moms need to figure out how to eat potatoes every single day for the next five months.
After the kids finished digging up all the potatoes, I helped pack them into bags and load them onto the buses to carry back to the youchien. When we finished that, everyone walked up the road to a big clearing where we had lunch. I thought we’d call it a day once everyone had eaten, because it was getting close to the time the kids would usually finish school and we were an hour and a half away from Ryogoku, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I went with three other teachers to a park nearby and helped set up a challenge course for the kids and the parents to do. We spent about half an hour walking around and putting guiding arrows, questions, and different tasks everywhere for the kids to find.
The sign says: “Greet Kelsey-sensei and listen to what she has to say!”
My job during this challenge course was to wait at station number three. When the kids got there, they had to greet me in English, go down a giant slide, and climb up a line of tires. After everyone finished that, I gave their group a sticker and they could move on to the next stage. The kids were divided into five groups and the parents were divided into another five groups. It was pretty funny watching the parents go down the slide, but in some groups I think they had even more fun than the kids! In between groups, I had a nice chat with the photographer that was hanging around my station to take pictures of all the groups. I can’t remember how we started talking about this, but he mentioned a comedian called Atsugiri Jason that did a skit on TV called…WHY JAPANESE PEOPLE that joked about how hard it is for foreigners to learn kanji. (MYSTERY SOLVED. This explains so much about my crazy 1st grade class’ behavior. You can watch the skit here. Not going to lie — sometimes I do feel that way when learning kanji.)
After all 10 groups went past my station, it was time for me to go. I didn’t actually get to see the end of the course, but I needed to hurry back to Ryogoku to make it in time to teach my 4:30 class! I got there just in the nick of time, and both my 1st grade and 3rd grade classes went super well. Everyone seemed to have a fun time, so it was a wonderful day overall.
It was a wonderful day not only because I got to be at a farm with kindergartners all day instead of at school, but also because I felt very integrated with the group. I have moments every single day where I feel out of place and awkward at the youchien, but yesterday I felt especially included and it was great. I picked some potatoes, had some lengthy Japanese conversations, watched kids have fun, and taught some successful classes. Every day is not like that in the slightest, but the ones that are that awesome make up for the harder days!
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Edit: I’d read this NPR article when it first came out, but it was brought to my attention again by fellow PiA fellow Ellis. It mentions some of the struggles I’ve had with deciding if I like my job or not and how stressful it is to think you need to be a really amazing teacher and not being able to reach your own expectations.
Kelsey Lost in Asia 