The Wonderful World of Elementary School


I vistited 5 different elementary schools this month. As I am usually based in junior high, this was a varied experience, not just a change of scenery and a break from the norm for me, but a view of Japanese schools from the bottom up.

While the kids got high on interacting with a foreigner ( for some it would be their first encounter), I had to adjust to all the attention. I spent most of my time outside of class, signing autographs and running around school with 4 children attached to each arm. It's only now that I can begin to understand Angela's daily toil as a one shot elementary school JET in Hirosaki. Though I still doubt I'll ever know what it's like to have a driver! For the past few weeks, I have been trying to think of an analogous exciting event from my own primary school time to try to understand the excitement that comes with being a tiny Japanese child meeting the ALT. Thinking of my visits from the kids point of view, judging by the excitement, shock, consternation it causes, the best situation I can liken it to from my own primary school days is a visit from the Meath Team after winning the Sam Maguire! (This thought also brings me back to another time a younger, hotter Meath team visited Loreto Navan after a similiar victory. Mr. O' Leary (R.I.P) got the worst of that when he was crushed by stampedes of screaming adolescent girls down at the piano rooms in St. Ciarans Building.) The point here being that perhaps now I know what it feels like to Colm O' Rourke back in the eighties!!

The whole experience came in welcome relief from working with shyer Junior High school kids. In both cases, perhaps, students are equally as fascinated, it's just that at elementary there are no inhibitions to come between students and their ALT.

First off was Yamanote Minami Shogakkou, where I kicked off with a 2 day visit in early May and finished the month there with a 2 day Grand Finale, 4 days in total and hence my longest elementary school stint. Yamanote Minami is located at the foot of Sankaku Yama (Triangle mountain) in West Sapporo.

It's rainy season now in Sapporo, that time in between winter, the 5 foot of snow, and 25 degree heat of summer. I have yet to catch Sankaku Yama on a clear day. This is a view of the moutain on a misty Sapporo morn.
(Taken 31st May 2006 )








Some earlier shots of Sankaku show the same mountain submerged in snow a few months previous.

This was a snow shoeing expedition on Sankaku Yama with Sekio Sensei, social studies teacher from Koryo JHS, in early March 2006.

Koryo JHS is my base school and is also in West Sapporo, near Sankaku Yama and Yamanote Minami E.S.