My first day of school!
Okay, things are starting to finally move along in my new job. To be honest, I can't wait to be back on some sort of daily routine. I can only create my own schedule for so long before I start to lose focus and motivation...anyone else like that? All right, first things first:
Ogi SHS Culture Festival (Saturday, Sept. 7)
I think all high schools should have events like these. In Japan, every school puts on a two-day festival that is more or less completely planned, executed and arranged by the students. The Culture Fesitval is just that; students make and sell local foods (such as okonomiyaki, my personal favorite), hang artwork in the school gallery, play music and sing in the gym (much like Indian Hill's MusicFest, for those in the audience who are fellow grads ;), and a variety of other things, even a used bookstore.
Ogi is large school of 900 students in three grades (high schools in Japan have just three grades, corresponding to our 10th, 11th and 12th grades). The big dark shape in the foreground is the low-hanging branch of a huge tree (I'll get a picture of it at some point) that has to be several hundred years old at the youngest. It's very beautiful and well-kept, and seeing as there's a fairly large shrine nearby I can't help but think they're connected somehow. You seriously can't go four kilometers in Kyushuu without running across a shrine, temple, or sacred spot of some kind. These large stones (engraved with kanji) are everywhere. I've counted at least ten in Saga-shi alone, and that's just on the routes I take by bicycle. I imagine the case is simliar in the rest of Japan; I read that in Kyoto there are over 2,000 shrines! I wish I knew more about them, I bet they all have an interesting story about why they're sacred (no doubt written in those indecipherable kanji). Ogi Town is fairly unexciting, the neighborhood around the train station is the most run-down area I have yet to see in Japan. Closer to the high school though there are some very nice traditional-style homes and well-trimmed trees. I love these Japanese trees, I'll have to find out what species they are.
I got a ride to Ogi with Andrew, a 3rd-year ALT who also teaches at Ogi, and we had the dubious privilege of sitting for the morning meeting. In most American schools that I've seen, teachers have their own offices (well, some do) plus a staff room where they can all hide from the students during lunchtime and eat in peace. Japanese schools are run a bit differently; just like at Kenchoo, the teachers all share a large staff room. Everyone gets their own desk, but they don't have cubicle walls so you're easily visible. Ogi's staff room has the pleasant feature of being one of the only rooms in the school that is air conditioned :) But anyway, every morning at 8:30 the morning meeting commences. Everyone stands up, says "Ohayou gozaimasu" ("Good morning") and bows to the principle. Then we sit and the princple drones on for several minutes in Japanese about the events and schedule changes of the day. After that he invites teachers to make announcements. The funny (or not so funny) thing is that often at least one of these speeches will have something to do with the ALTs and our class schedule, but since we can't understand it we miss the info. I've been in these schools only a few days, but I've already had to learn that if you want any information as an ALT, you have to ask, otherwise you'll be left in the dark.
Once the meeting is done, all hell breaks loose as teachers scramble to get ready for homeroom (for those teachers assigned one) and first period. Students come in and out of the staffroom running various errands and tracking down teachers they need to speak to. After about 20 minutes things die down and classes get underway. Today was the first day of classes for Ogi after summer break, so my first two of three Wednesday classes (I'm used to six classes a day; I'm in teaching heaven!!) were canceled. Because of this I got to observe the whole staff room cycle. Ogi has an hour-long lunch period for all teachers (I'm told this is normal for Japan) but it's not peaceful. For the the students this is a rare opprotunity to run more errands and talk to teachers about class, so there are always people running in and out, and Andrew ended up helping a third-year student with her English speech contest for most of lunch. Very different from what I experienced at St. Veronica!
Getting back to culture day, after the morning meeting we headed down to the gigantic gym for the opening ceremony. A group of student drummers came out in pretty yukatas and performed. The calligraphy club also put in an appearance, and I've been invited to visit their club. I intend to :) I'm thinking now I also need to find one of the these traditional drum groups and join them; it looks so fun! After the ceremony I helped with an English club, then I was free to wander around and enjoy what the students had set up. The art students here are amazing, as are the members of the calligraphy club: 1, 2, 3, 4. #3 is a board of foam kanji. They were really cool. Last week when I visited Ogi during preperations for the festival, they asked me to draw their logo for them (I think I mentioned this in a previous post). The end result, finished with toothpicks, was quite nice I thought. In the afternoon I sang (in Japanese, reading from romanized lyrics) with one of the second-year students. We actually practiced quite a bit before our little performance (I'm not sure we could be heard over the real singer, actually, the music was very loud) and this girl was so sweet, helping me with pronunciation and showing remarkable patience. I hope she's in my one class of second-years :) Here's a photo us with her friends. They even gave me flowers! The kanji display behind us is made completely of origami cranes fitted together. I wonder how long that took to make...
After the festival ended I headed home by train (Andrew left early to go to a music concert) and to a surprise birthday party for one of the city ALTs, who's been kind of bummed since he came to Japan. The party went very well (The planners did a good job hiding it from him, so he was actually surprised) and he seemed much happier by the end of the night ^_^
Sunday was the Sports Festival, and this was even cooler than the Culture festival. The students spent months preparing for this, and it really showed. At Ogi the students are divided into four teams according to where they live in relation to the school; North, West, East or South. They paint several elaborate banners for their team and rotate through them over the course of the day (the teachers vote on these and the winning team gets a certificate at the end). This group in yellow was South, and apparently they're DBZ fans. If you look in the background of some of my other pictures you can see the other banners. Some were based off posters, but many were original designs, and quite well-done I thought.
The Sports Festival seems to be a mixture of very different events. Some are regular (to a Westerner anyway) sports such as tug-of-war and races. Others are more unique Japanese activities such as this group flag capture and bamboo tug-of-war. The neatest event though was the coreographed group dancing, complete with music and elaborate costumes handmade by the students (more on the dances in a second).
I have to include a separate paragraph for one activity which I found entertaining (in a Roman Circus sort of way), shocking and interesting all at the same time. Apparently this is a traditional game where groups of boys hoist one of their number onto their shoulders (mimicking a horse and rider, I think). Two of these groups will then go at each other. The two guys on top try to unseat each other from their "mounts". This made for some entertaining wrestling matches (the guys underneath do everything they can to keep their "rider" from falling; as long as he stays on their group won't be disqualified. The team with the most groups still standing wins) but it's incredibly dangerous. Sitting in the teacher/makeshift sports clinic area I counted as least four bloody noses from boys who fell to the ground and one kid even got a fairly serious concussion. I couldn't get over the fact that there is no way a game like this would ever be permitted in North America. The lawsuits would be piled to the ceiling! There were tons of parents in this audience too, and if you look in the photos you'll see teachers weaving their way though the groups, attempting in vain to catch anyone who falls. They do this game every year, and it's the boys' favorite part of the whole event. Enough said, I think.
The best part of the day was the dancing. Each team chose dancers, made gorgeous tradtional costumes and coreographed their performances to traditional drum music performed by students at the back of the field. Coolness :) Here's some photos of the performances, I took video with my phone too but it turns out the cell phones save the footage in some weird format that can only be viewed on the phone. Figures :P Still images will have to do for now. Enjoy! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. The last photo is the very end of the festival when the students were getting their certificates. The South team had my favorite outfits; I want one of those hanten jackets!! Their black and yellow poster in the background is apparently a caricature of their group leader. I found that amusing ;) At the very end of the day the students formed big rings on the field and had to do pair dances to cheesy music. They looked thouroughly miserable to be doing this, and I didn't blame them. Most of them didn't know the moves and they looked very silly trying to do Western square dancing. On top of that, they must have been exhausted after playing and performing all day; good thing they got the next two days of school off!
Here are some other assorted photos of Ogi I couldn't fit in above: 1, 2, 3.
And here, finally, is a picture of the outside of Kenchoo. Even though it's from the back you can tell how big it is. Hey, at 11 stories it's one of the tallest buildings in Saga-shi. I told you this city was small ;)
My first teaching day at Ogi today when pretty well I think. I played my planned self-introduction game and the kids didn't fall asleep; unfortunately their ability is a bit low (well, they are only first-years) so I'm not sure how much they really understood. I start at Kanzaki Seimei on Friday, wish me luck!
Ogi SHS Culture Festival (Saturday, Sept. 7)
I think all high schools should have events like these. In Japan, every school puts on a two-day festival that is more or less completely planned, executed and arranged by the students. The Culture Fesitval is just that; students make and sell local foods (such as okonomiyaki, my personal favorite), hang artwork in the school gallery, play music and sing in the gym (much like Indian Hill's MusicFest, for those in the audience who are fellow grads ;), and a variety of other things, even a used bookstore.
Ogi is large school of 900 students in three grades (high schools in Japan have just three grades, corresponding to our 10th, 11th and 12th grades). The big dark shape in the foreground is the low-hanging branch of a huge tree (I'll get a picture of it at some point) that has to be several hundred years old at the youngest. It's very beautiful and well-kept, and seeing as there's a fairly large shrine nearby I can't help but think they're connected somehow. You seriously can't go four kilometers in Kyushuu without running across a shrine, temple, or sacred spot of some kind. These large stones (engraved with kanji) are everywhere. I've counted at least ten in Saga-shi alone, and that's just on the routes I take by bicycle. I imagine the case is simliar in the rest of Japan; I read that in Kyoto there are over 2,000 shrines! I wish I knew more about them, I bet they all have an interesting story about why they're sacred (no doubt written in those indecipherable kanji). Ogi Town is fairly unexciting, the neighborhood around the train station is the most run-down area I have yet to see in Japan. Closer to the high school though there are some very nice traditional-style homes and well-trimmed trees. I love these Japanese trees, I'll have to find out what species they are.
I got a ride to Ogi with Andrew, a 3rd-year ALT who also teaches at Ogi, and we had the dubious privilege of sitting for the morning meeting. In most American schools that I've seen, teachers have their own offices (well, some do) plus a staff room where they can all hide from the students during lunchtime and eat in peace. Japanese schools are run a bit differently; just like at Kenchoo, the teachers all share a large staff room. Everyone gets their own desk, but they don't have cubicle walls so you're easily visible. Ogi's staff room has the pleasant feature of being one of the only rooms in the school that is air conditioned :) But anyway, every morning at 8:30 the morning meeting commences. Everyone stands up, says "Ohayou gozaimasu" ("Good morning") and bows to the principle. Then we sit and the princple drones on for several minutes in Japanese about the events and schedule changes of the day. After that he invites teachers to make announcements. The funny (or not so funny) thing is that often at least one of these speeches will have something to do with the ALTs and our class schedule, but since we can't understand it we miss the info. I've been in these schools only a few days, but I've already had to learn that if you want any information as an ALT, you have to ask, otherwise you'll be left in the dark.
Once the meeting is done, all hell breaks loose as teachers scramble to get ready for homeroom (for those teachers assigned one) and first period. Students come in and out of the staffroom running various errands and tracking down teachers they need to speak to. After about 20 minutes things die down and classes get underway. Today was the first day of classes for Ogi after summer break, so my first two of three Wednesday classes (I'm used to six classes a day; I'm in teaching heaven!!) were canceled. Because of this I got to observe the whole staff room cycle. Ogi has an hour-long lunch period for all teachers (I'm told this is normal for Japan) but it's not peaceful. For the the students this is a rare opprotunity to run more errands and talk to teachers about class, so there are always people running in and out, and Andrew ended up helping a third-year student with her English speech contest for most of lunch. Very different from what I experienced at St. Veronica!
Getting back to culture day, after the morning meeting we headed down to the gigantic gym for the opening ceremony. A group of student drummers came out in pretty yukatas and performed. The calligraphy club also put in an appearance, and I've been invited to visit their club. I intend to :) I'm thinking now I also need to find one of the these traditional drum groups and join them; it looks so fun! After the ceremony I helped with an English club, then I was free to wander around and enjoy what the students had set up. The art students here are amazing, as are the members of the calligraphy club: 1, 2, 3, 4. #3 is a board of foam kanji. They were really cool. Last week when I visited Ogi during preperations for the festival, they asked me to draw their logo for them (I think I mentioned this in a previous post). The end result, finished with toothpicks, was quite nice I thought. In the afternoon I sang (in Japanese, reading from romanized lyrics) with one of the second-year students. We actually practiced quite a bit before our little performance (I'm not sure we could be heard over the real singer, actually, the music was very loud) and this girl was so sweet, helping me with pronunciation and showing remarkable patience. I hope she's in my one class of second-years :) Here's a photo us with her friends. They even gave me flowers! The kanji display behind us is made completely of origami cranes fitted together. I wonder how long that took to make...
After the festival ended I headed home by train (Andrew left early to go to a music concert) and to a surprise birthday party for one of the city ALTs, who's been kind of bummed since he came to Japan. The party went very well (The planners did a good job hiding it from him, so he was actually surprised) and he seemed much happier by the end of the night ^_^
Sunday was the Sports Festival, and this was even cooler than the Culture festival. The students spent months preparing for this, and it really showed. At Ogi the students are divided into four teams according to where they live in relation to the school; North, West, East or South. They paint several elaborate banners for their team and rotate through them over the course of the day (the teachers vote on these and the winning team gets a certificate at the end). This group in yellow was South, and apparently they're DBZ fans. If you look in the background of some of my other pictures you can see the other banners. Some were based off posters, but many were original designs, and quite well-done I thought.
The Sports Festival seems to be a mixture of very different events. Some are regular (to a Westerner anyway) sports such as tug-of-war and races. Others are more unique Japanese activities such as this group flag capture and bamboo tug-of-war. The neatest event though was the coreographed group dancing, complete with music and elaborate costumes handmade by the students (more on the dances in a second).
I have to include a separate paragraph for one activity which I found entertaining (in a Roman Circus sort of way), shocking and interesting all at the same time. Apparently this is a traditional game where groups of boys hoist one of their number onto their shoulders (mimicking a horse and rider, I think). Two of these groups will then go at each other. The two guys on top try to unseat each other from their "mounts". This made for some entertaining wrestling matches (the guys underneath do everything they can to keep their "rider" from falling; as long as he stays on their group won't be disqualified. The team with the most groups still standing wins) but it's incredibly dangerous. Sitting in the teacher/makeshift sports clinic area I counted as least four bloody noses from boys who fell to the ground and one kid even got a fairly serious concussion. I couldn't get over the fact that there is no way a game like this would ever be permitted in North America. The lawsuits would be piled to the ceiling! There were tons of parents in this audience too, and if you look in the photos you'll see teachers weaving their way though the groups, attempting in vain to catch anyone who falls. They do this game every year, and it's the boys' favorite part of the whole event. Enough said, I think.
The best part of the day was the dancing. Each team chose dancers, made gorgeous tradtional costumes and coreographed their performances to traditional drum music performed by students at the back of the field. Coolness :) Here's some photos of the performances, I took video with my phone too but it turns out the cell phones save the footage in some weird format that can only be viewed on the phone. Figures :P Still images will have to do for now. Enjoy! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. The last photo is the very end of the festival when the students were getting their certificates. The South team had my favorite outfits; I want one of those hanten jackets!! Their black and yellow poster in the background is apparently a caricature of their group leader. I found that amusing ;) At the very end of the day the students formed big rings on the field and had to do pair dances to cheesy music. They looked thouroughly miserable to be doing this, and I didn't blame them. Most of them didn't know the moves and they looked very silly trying to do Western square dancing. On top of that, they must have been exhausted after playing and performing all day; good thing they got the next two days of school off!
Here are some other assorted photos of Ogi I couldn't fit in above: 1, 2, 3.
And here, finally, is a picture of the outside of Kenchoo. Even though it's from the back you can tell how big it is. Hey, at 11 stories it's one of the tallest buildings in Saga-shi. I told you this city was small ;)
My first teaching day at Ogi today when pretty well I think. I played my planned self-introduction game and the kids didn't fall asleep; unfortunately their ability is a bit low (well, they are only first-years) so I'm not sure how much they really understood. I start at Kanzaki Seimei on Friday, wish me luck!