School Sports Day - 2014

Like the school Culture Festivals I just wrote about, my schools also have their Sports Day events in autumn. It's certainly a busy time for students and teachers! Sports Day, called undokai, is very similar in my current senior high schools compared to what I experienced at my junior high schools in the past few years. So again I'm just going to recap these fun events with some pictures below.

The first set of photos here were taken at the co-ed junior/senior high school in western Tokyo where I mainly teach:

School field before the event gets underway

The relay is one of the main events that everyone looks forward to

Students also performed large coordinated dance routines

Honestly, I don't know the how this game works exactly

Great finish... just slightly over-exaggerating I think ;-)

The next shots are from an all-girls junior/senior high school in central Tokyo where I taught at for a few months (the sports day took place in a separate location due to limited space on the actual school grounds). I have to be a little more sensitive about students' privacy here, so no close face shots! Anyway, here are the pictures:

Traditional group stretching routine called rajio-taiso 

Opening school-wide run to kick off the event 

Competing teams throw as many balls in the net at possible in 60 seconds 

A neat dance performance the girls did towards the end of the event

And lastly, the closing ceremony

School Culture Festival - 2014

Students decorated the school entrance for the festival

In the past, I've written about various school events such as undokai and chutairen. But now at my high schools I can also experience bunkasai (文化祭, culture festival). At my schools this takes place every autumn, and is a mostly student-organized event in which they showcase various school clubs and activities through elaborately decorated classrooms and activities, as well as through various performances. Held on the weekend, parents and families attend the festival and have a great time. The students put forth serious effort towards the event, with uncountable hours towards planning, preparation, building and making decorations, practicing performances, etc. The following are some scenes from this year's festival at two of my schools.

Japanese students love dance and are highly skilled to show for it!

The girls hit the stage, performing everything from hip-hop to "girl's pop"

And the boys, who show off some sweet bboy skills

These events are a great way for students to connect with each other

Students show off handmade crafts - here "uchiwa" (Japanese fans)

Fantastic paintings

At my all girl's school, they put on professional-level performances

Pictures don't do it justice; I was seriously blown away by how amazing this was

Tokyo Work Life: Teaching English in Private High Schools

A while ago I wrote about my experiences moving from Aomori, a quiet region of northern Japan, to the world-famous city of Tokyo. Needless to say, there have been many changes in my life since coming here. Although I’m still teaching English, my work life has changed quite a lot as well. Previously I was working as a teaching assistant in public elementary and junior high schools. Now I’m teaching solo, primarily in private high schools. I believe it’s been a really nice progression for me as I’ve gained more responsibilities, new challenges, and substantially more respect in the process.

Discussing an argumentative essay on the ethics of zoos

I’m working for a relatively small teaching agency based in the Tokyo metropolitan area. From my understanding, teaching agencies have traditionally been a middleman to help teaching find and secure good teaching jobs, I suppose like what recruiters do. My employer is a little different in this regard, as it’s basically like a permanent middleman rather than a recruiter. The agency has various connections and relationships with a number of schools. The agency hires part- and full-time teachers to work in these schools under agreements between individual schools and the agency. As for my situation, I’m working full-time for the agency and am sort of based at one school along with some less frequent, short-term teaching assignments. In addition, I do a little work in the agency office on top-secret projects (that’s sarcasm, but I still can’t actually discuss any details of this part of my work).

One of the awesome classrooms where I often teach with a great outdoor space

So far, I have thoroughly enjoyed my new job. I’ve had very positive experiences at all of my schools and agency office. Sure, I’ve had to work pretty hard and I’ve ran into a few challenges here and there. I’ve had some pretty lousy lessons at times, and had to deal with some troublesome students at one point. But I just try to have a positive outlook every single day and try to be a good, friendly teacher. As long as I do that, I always feel truly satisfied with what I’m doing.

The vast majority of my students are really great kids. And over the years I've learned that even when you have some "knuckleheads" in the classroom (usually immature boys who try to be funny), as long as you are a cool teacher with a good attitude you can make them behave and get them to learn something from you. In my first few months of teaching in Tokyo, I've taught at schools with both strict and liberal atmospheres. I respect both systems and don't have any problem teaching in either. But I still say teaching at my more liberal school has lead to some pretty interesting times. Given the extra freedom, it sometimes takes a little more effort to get the kids focused on the current task. But by the same token, it has lead to some pretty fun times!

Halloween at one of my schools, kids are allowed to and love dressing up!

 *Needless to say, in the above picture, I'm holding a toy gun--just to be clear ;-)