Avoidence

I've been avoiding this, mostly because if I'm sitting on the computer then there are some other things that I should be doing, like planning lessons and whatnot. But I'm done with doing that this week, so here we are.

I'm going to use this opportunity to talk about some of the things that my mom asked me for her presentation. And we'll just have to see how many I get to.

"They're in school year-round, right?"

No, I'M in school year round, but they are not. Their school year starts in April and goes until I don't know when (it's one of those questions I've been meaning to ask) where they have at least a month off. I know that summer break is the longest of their breaks, but also that, because it's in the middle of the school year, they have a butt ton of homework to do, and they're accountable for it.

Fall semester runs September through December where they have about 3 weeks off. Then Spring semester runs from January until half way through March (this semester is much shorter than last semester. I wish someone had thought to tell me that, it would have helped with planning . . . ) where they have Spring Break, which is about 2 1/2 weeks.

"Please remind me about the daily schedule. You told me, but I forgot
some details."

I don't know when the kids HAVE to get here, but I think they have to get here at 8:15 just like the teachers. First period starts about 30 minutes later, but the exact times that the periods start and stop changes per school. Each period is 45 minutes long and in between is a 5-20 minute break in which the kids are self supervised and the teachers do whatever they need to do. Between 2nd and 3rd period there is a "tea time" where the teachers will meet in the tatami room and have tea (or more likely, coffee) with whatever snacks someone brought.

Lunch is after 4th period, it is served by the children and cleaned up by the children. Afterwards is "Cleaning time" where the teachers and staff clean the school. Then 5th and 6th period (if there is a 6th period, it seems to change depending on school and day of the week). So the kids go home (maybe) when school is done. Or they just hang around the school, finishing up projects, or just hanging out and using the gym or playing field, although these kids might be a part of a sports club or something, I usually don't see a supervisor.

"Please tell me again about lunch."

Look at a previous entry.

"And the students are responsible for a lot of the functioning of the
school, right? I remember you said they clean up after lunch. Do
they also clean the school in general? Bathrooms?"

Yes, there is no janitor. No landscaper. No cleanup crew. Kids clean all of it, sometimes with the supervision of the teachers. The administration are the people who keep the school working. Not heavy stuff like tech, mind. But it is the principal who mows the lawn and whatnot.

"How is p.e.? Does the whole school exercise together?"

Taiku is a class just like science or math that they go to. I don't usually get the opportunity to watch as most of the classes seem to be in when I have my classes, but seeing how I only get 2 class periods a day off, that's not very unusual.

"How many different languages do they learn in school?"

2. Japanese and English. Unless you count Japanese as 3 languages. Spoken Japanese, Composing Japanese, katakana and hiragana. Learning the Chinese parts of Japanese, kanji--in Japanese you only need about 3-5 thousand to be able to function proficiently in society. (See why I just gave up?)

"Are there any with learning or behavior problems? If so, do you know
if there are special classes for exceptional students? Or do they
just not attend school?"

No, I don't have an autistic first grader in my class without any back up but the homeroom teacher. And I don't have that girl in 5th grade who just "doesn't talk" (I've gotten no more explaination for this than that, she seems smart). Or the, I think she has auterburgers in 6th grade. Yeah, kids with learning disabilities are just pushed into the regular classrooms, expecially in the small schools where they don't have someone there to work in special ed. Maybe they have someone who comes and helps them. Just not during my classes. *sigh* At Heiichi (the largest school) there is actually a special ed teacher who takes kids out and has privet lessons. But that's only in Heiichi so far as I know. I'm not sure what happends in Junior High, but if there is a massive problem, they do have Special high schools.

"What are the class sizes? I know this varies because of some small
schools, but for average size schools, what would they be?"

My smallest class size is 3. In my smallest school the 5th and 6th graders are combined into one homeroom with one teacher, but when they come to see me I get them one grade at a time. Which I find rather silly because all it means is that I do the same lesson, twice, and I can't play some of the games because there aren't enough people to play them. I do the same lesson because I see them so infrequently that it's really not worth it for me to change it up. They don't remember what I taught last MONTH, so there is no building of new vocab on old, so there's really no point in varying when they don't remember the little stuff that they should remember from 3rd grade.

Oh, I lied. My smallest class is 0 because that school has no 4th graders.

My largest class is 39. 40 is the legal limit. And this isn't an issue of there has to be at least 15 kids to make a class. Most of my schools only have 1 class per grade. And if they get that ONE child too many, then they have to immediately break the class up and find a new teacher. Which means classes will just hover at 38-39 throughout the year and they just pray they don't get a transfer. But then, because I don't live in a big city, transfers don't happen that often. I got that one kid from Fukui-ken, and other than that I can count on one hand how many kids have just moved from one small town to another.

"Is religion taught in school?"

Perhaps if it's a private, religious school? There is no national religion in Japan, it's actually this really convoluted hash of Ancestor worship, Buddhism, Shintoist, and whatever else they see and like (for example, they ganked Christmas and Valentine's Day without qualm because it seems like fun. secular not included). So no, they don't really teach that kind of thing in school just because it's part of their world and traditions. At New Years you go to a Shrine. When someone dies you go to a Temple. During Obon your ancestors will come out of the ocean and visit you for 3 days so don't go swimming or they might drown you. Regular, everyday life.