long dayyyyy! And I haven't written for the past few days have I? So....need to catch up on what I've been doing.
Right...Thursday, I had my fave school again. The lessons went really well. These kids also really love the murderer game. It's amazing. We just all love dark stuff don't we? The interesting part of the day was the supposed English workshop. School actually had a special timetable that day, because (as I was informed) all my teachers had to go to this workshop. One of the guys from Interac actually came. I had to go to...and was interested to see what was gonna happen. It turns out other teachers from the schools in Numazu also came to this workshop! I even saw one teacher from a school I taught at for that week replacing Amy! It was so good to chat with her again! we were both very suprised! So it started off with an english lesson. Probably showing us how "fun" it can be to learn english. It was basically a similar lesson to what I would do. Very..weird being on the receiving end of that. Playing finger twister with the teachers, and janken with random teachers was odd. Then it was all in japanese. One of the other teachers was being my translator. They were giving out lots of information sheets with stats, informing us of the increases in students hating english, when they get to Jr High. So I started discussing it with this teacher, we just got talking about the possible reasons for why that is. I was voicing my opinion on the whole pressure of exams..the lack of enthusiasm because no real use is seen in learning english..bla bla...we then realised that the room had gone quiet and the board of education woman was saying something to my teacher. I was like "*&%%*( I am gonna get bullocked for talking in a teachers BoE meeting!!!". What actually happened was that the BoE woman wanted to hear about what we were talking about. My teacher stood up and relayed all my opinions on the current education system and things for improvement to the whole teacher gathering. They were all looking at me and nodding encouragingly, while the BoE was writing notes, on what was being said. It was very weird. I could feel myself turning scarlet. But it was kinda cool too, I was being listened to like an adult. Which is a strange feeling after the dismissal you receive at university.
Today was kinda a good day too. School was alright cause I didn't have any of the bad classes. though during my grade 3 lesson I got a little unnerved. We were playing fruit basket, when the teacher suddenly said something in a slightly stern voice. One of the boys went over to him, and the teacher just suddenly grabbed him, shook him hard and started shouting at him. Obviously he was demanding something off the boy. He didn't answer though, and so the shouting continued. My entire class went silent..and I was too shocked to react properly. I was then asked to finish the class, while the teacher went in to the side room to continue shouting. It was really odd. I mean..he is only 2 years older than me. I didn't expect the younger generation to also be like that. But I guess it's just a different culture. In England you'd lose your job immediatley for even touching a student. Yet there is no such thing as expulsion or detention here..so chastisement is the only thing you can receive. And I have to admit I like the fact that teachers here can ruffle their students' hair or give them a pat on the shoulder without being accused of nasty things...touching here is ok...whereas in England it's gone in to a more paranoid non touch non contact kind of way. So which is better?
I was also invited to the magic club which was on after school. I was very honoured! Watching the kids do card tricks, coin tricks, tell horror stories and do performances. It was pretty cool. We played cards afterwards too.
I met up with Imo in the evening, and we went for thai food. I love listening to the thai speak because it sounds a bit like vietnamese, and makes me feel at home. We then went off for some cake at this really cute place and had philosophical debates about argument, cancer, politics, drama and it's evolutionary benefit amongst other things. It felt really good to talk like that again!
By the way, the pictures are of my fave schools x-mas calendars!
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