My School

My blog has mainly been about the places I've been in Japan, which has always been at the weekends as there's not a whole lot round here. So this post is just about what I've done Mon-Fri, at my little school which I'm rather fond of. So, this last year, I have been working here:

with classes like this:


spending a fair bit of time in here:


working with teachers like this:

[A side note about the social studies teacher, the guy who is left on the second row giving the thumbs up and with the anpanman on his desk: like a lot of young teachers, he hasn't yet passed the full teaching exam, and so still is technically a trainee. I can't see what difference this makes in workload, they can be form tutors just like regular teachers, they work just as long hours, the only difference I think is in pay and conditions. So anyway, the teaching exam, which is only held once a year, was on the same day as a baseball match for the school team (which he coaches), and we're not brilliant at baseball or anything, it was the second round of the national high school baseball championships which is normally as far as we go. The guy is so dedicated that he gave up the chance to pass the exam and become a fully fledged teacher just to attend the match as coach. Then later on over dinner Mitsutake sensei told me he did the same thing last year! That is love for the school. (We lost the match by the way.)]

and teaching kids like this: (I know it's wrong to have favourites, but these kids are, they're from my Sogo Eigo class or the Paper Debate writing class and so feature the creators of Sou Chan, Konnyakun, Balloon Chan and Tanbo Bros).


It's been fun. The kids are pretty low level and not all that interested in English to be honest, but they're really good natured (in general, a couple of the new first years have dreams of being rudeboys but compared to London it's nothing) and if you put the effort in to a lesson they'll always give it a go and often surprise themselves.

There's something very sweet about being in a small school, as I think I mentioned before, you get to know all the kids pretty well (which is a massive plus when getting them to work in class) and everything feels small and cute. Our soccer club had one member! He used to disappear for two hours and read manga/do kickups in his Celtic shirt.

I'm not going to become a teacher but the experience of working in education has been great. Working around kids has been brilliant, just like those 'use your head. teach' government ads with all the slogans about working with kids being interesting and never stagnant. It's true! I've gained a lot from my year here and I'd like to think the kids have got a little something from it as well.

Me and Taro, (I'd go as far to say something terrible like 'partners in crime') about to teach English real nice like.