The JET Microcosm

Well, I posted a message critical of the local professional development on Facebook yesterday, and one of my "friends" felt it necessary to tattle to our supervisor. I felt bad for the supervisor, as he realized that my post made no mention of JET or Kobe and was somewhat lead astray by the whistle blower as to the severity and specificity of my commentary.

This leads me to the JET microcosm; the community is so small that every one is in every one else's business. Many of the foreigners on JET are easily aware of what's happening with other foreigners whether they want to be or not, and gossip can spread quite easily within the community. Furthermore, those who have been here longer often see themselves as being superior to those who are new, sometimes going so far as to treat other adults like complete children.

In all honesty, my commentary on today's professional development was fairly benign and relatively tame. In all truthfulness, the training was woefully inadequate and highly impractical: Planning a Budget? Really? Unless you're a financial planner giving me investment advice, I think I can manage my day-to-day living expenses, thank you very much. I needn't go further, as the purpose here isn't to bash anyone, but to shed light on the fact that those who are leading a room of adults in a professional development workshop should clearly know who their audience is, what they'll actually need, and how to deliver the material in an appropriate manner. Fair enough, one would think.

Summer School and Such

Well, it's been a while since my last blog. I've had to take four days of barely useful Japanese lessons, but was also able to participate in two fun-filled days of summer school with junior high students from around Kobe. As a chaperon, I helped lead students around to four different rooms filled with different games and activities for practicing their English. In the afternoons, I had the pleasure of listening to their English presentations.

Given that many of the students had only had one or two full years of English training, I was quite impressed. Their pronunciation still needs work, but many of them displayed a tremendous amount of creativity and assertiveness. The variety of tone and topics was also impressive. I have to remind myself that these students are the "cream of the crop," however, and I also have to keep in mind that not a single student from my school attended the event.

This is my challenge: I have less than a year's time to try and make English a relevant subject for my students. What can be accomplished in a year's time by an outsider who speaks in a foreign tongue and seems immune to the pressures of normalcy in Japanese society? What can be accomplished in a school that has necessarily made discipline the primary focus of daily interaction? What can be accomplished by someone who is only an "assistant" language teacher? In a couple of weeks, I'll begin to find out...

Children and Public Transport

We used the subway and trains to take the kids to Osaka yesterday. We spent five hours in a department store, having lunch, window shopping and checking out the Pokemon Center for my son. Then, we took my daughter to a Disney on Ice performance around 5:00 p.m. and had dinner at a Yaki-niku (Korean BBQ) restaurant afterward. We finished dinner around 9:30, and by then began the exhausting journey home: packing two sleeping children and the days baggage on a series of subways and trains before finally blowing $25 on a taxi to drop us off near our apartment. We begrudgingly hauled them up three flights of stairs and placed them soundly in their futons just after midnight. Well rested, they woke up at 5:30 this morning ready to play with their overpriced souvenir toys.

Japanese Bureaucracy

Well, one can't be in Japan very long without experiencing the frustration and inconvenience of Japanese bureaucracy. In many ways, it's worse for returning Japanese than it is for foreigners. It seems like everything requires a substantial amount of paper work and all of it is ultimately based upon their family registry and their place of birth, which often makes acquiring the necessary documents a complete nuisance. Hopefully, we'll navigate through the process as quickly and smoothly as possible.

Day One at Maruyama

Well, it's not quite 8:00 am, but I've made it to my new job at Maruyama Junior High after several days of somewhat helpful, but mostly redundant trainings and orientations. It's nice to be away from the other foreigners for a spell and get a chance to meet everyone at my school. Maruyama has the reputation of being the 2nd worst school in Kobe, but because there aren't any students here yet, I can't say how accurate that assertion is. The kids I met along the way from the train station were helpful in directing me here, so it can't be all bad.

On a separate note, I'm happy to be getting some things delivered tonight: wash machine, dresser, shoe rack for the gennkan (entry way), three small book shelves, a fan (thank god--intentionally uncapitalized), and a combination microwave and "real" oven. Hopefully our house will be a home soon.