10. Teaching at Awa Nishi High School

Laura with members of After school Club

Now, not all my days were spent at the beach of course. I did go to Japan with the purpose of teaching in a local high school; and I did, sort of. My assignment was a part-time one, as an A.L.T. ( Assistant Language Teacher) at a private, co-ed, Japanese high school called Awa Nishi. I worked with all the students at the school, which was Great! I say co-ed, but I only had one third year class that actually had boys and girls both in it, the rest of the classes were divided by year and then by girl and boy groups. The school only had about 350 students total, with three grades: 1st year, which is like sophomores, 2nd year like juniors and the 3rd years, the seniors. So within each grade or year there was only about 100 or so students. Isn't that amazing! Everyone wore uniforms and when they changed into their PE clothes, they had colored warm-ups, designating their given class, such as red warm-ups for the 3rd years. Students, as well as staff were expected to change their shoes prior to walking through the buildings. So everyone had their own shoe box or shelf to hold your outdoor shoes. You just switched shoes each time you went in or out of the building so as not to track outdoor dirt into the building. Now, here was another thing that surprised me-there was no custodial staff at the school. At the end of each day, the students are responsible for cleaning up their rooms, sweeping, emptying the trash and so forth. Often I saw the teachers and principals, alike cleaning up outside and planting new flowerbeds.

View of Awa Nishi high School

I think the thing that first really amazed me was the respect that was not only expected, but for the most part was given by the students to all staff. Take for example this scenario: the bell rings for the end of class, the teacher walks out ( maybe even a few minutes prior) and goes to the teachers' room to prepare for his or her next class, the class remains in class unattended! Students are given a ten minute break every hour after each class, they are free to move about the building in an orderly fashion, even visiting the teachers' room. When it is time for elective classes, such as PE or music, the students are expected to dress-out in their rooms and make their own way down to the appropriate classrooms. For lunch, students eat at their desks, or occasionally visit other classes to sit with friends and have quiet lunch time for 30 minutes, at which time the teachers also have their lunch break and they remain in the teachers room to eat while the students stay unsupervised in their rooms! Amazing concepts aren't they? I could go on and on with all the contrasts.

Laura in English class with a 2nd year student, Jun

English teachers (sensei); Makino, Saigo, and Arai

I was assigned to the three English instructors: Arai sensei, Makino sensei, and Saigo sensei. They were all very good to me but I had a feeling that maybe the school was not so sure what to do with me. So I was given the task of working alongside the English instructors in their classes as an assistant. I was asked to review proper pronunciation and work on short conversation drills with the class. This was the extent of my duties at first, no lesson plan preparation, no grading, no paperwork, no mandatory meetings...just show up and speak. Sounds pretty sweet, but in the beginning I felt a little unfulfilled so I later asked for more responsibilities and I was even given my own after school English conversation club to run. But more on that in my next article.

During my stay at Awa Nishi I learned a great many things about the Japanese educational system and I was very surprised to hear of an all too present problem of bullying in school. It has become such a problem that many children can no longer attend school, for their phobia becomes too strong. And while for the most part Japanese students are still much better behaved than American students, there is a trend toward more rising discipline problems in the classroom. Corporal punishment is still allowed in most schools but students' attitudes are definitely changing. Whether the changes are coming from greater exposure to western culture or just a progressive generational change, the problems that many Japanese schools are just starting to witness can be corrected if only the schools realize that the problem is not going to suddenly disappear and must be handled now before things get beyond control. So hopefully Japan can learn from our past problems as well (maybe even learn from some of our mistakes before they escalate) so as to have a much smoother 21st century transition.

Closing ceremony, students with Japanese flag

(to be continued...)

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