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So today, I had to get up nice and early to get down to the university by
8.50 to go to the shougakkou (primary school) to meet the kids. I woke up
at 8.45. God, I was so tempted to just go back to sleep, as it was so
late. But no, my conscience said otherwise, and I leapt out of bed and got
ready in record time and cycled at record speed to uni.
I was very glad I did. I'd really not been too keen on today, I thought it
was going to be another "gaijin circus" like that "international
symposium" we had to go to last time. But it wasn't like that at all.
My first impressions of the school was 1) it's absolutely huge, bigger
than my secondary school was in England and 2) it was freezing cold.
That's one thing about Japan you notice - everywhere will have air
conditioners, but no central heating. All the same, the kids were wearing
tiny shorts and skirts, while I was shivering in my big warm coat.
We met with three separate groups of shougakusei (primary school
students), who were all about 10 years old. Each time we met them we
followed the same routine; first, they would all say "good morning" in
English in unison, and then we would give a brief introduction in
Japanese. Then, they all lined up and said "hello" to each of us in
Japanese, and shook our hands (hand-shaking is purely a Western thing,
it's quite a novelty for Japanese to do it). Then, they'd all give us
mini-presentations in English about Japanese places, food (including
samples!) and items etc. After all this, the teacher called them into line
and they sang a song as a "thank you." One group sang "It's a Small World"
in English, which I thought was quite feat.
After this, it was our turn. We hadn't actually been warned about this,
but we had to give our own mini-presentations, in Japanese, about our
countries, using the picture boards we'd made ages ago for the uni
presentation. That was a little scary, but since the kids had done the
same for us, it seemed fair!
Then it was lunch time. We ate lunch with the kids, which is a very
different experience to lunchtime in a Western school. Everyone eats their
lunch in their own classroom, not in a canteen or hall like they do in a
Western school. The lunch is actually prepared and served by the children
themselves, consisting of simple dishes of rice, vegetables and fish.
Lunchtime is really short - only 30 minutes. We sat with the kids and they
were keen to ask us questions about what we'd experienced in Japan, and
were extremely friendly. In fact, the whole day all the children seemed to
be extremely friendly, well-behaved and simply nice. There was no signs of
any bullying or exclusion of other children, or anything of the sort. They
were incredibly cute, and seemed incredibly happy.
After lunch, it was time for us to leave. As we left, the children all ran
into the playground and waved to us as the bus departed. Awww.
So, it was quite an enlightening day. However, for me the highlight was
seeing this educational English sign put up in the classroom:
I kid you not. We were all cracking up for quite a while.
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