Day 11: Mikatsuki Elementary

We arrived at the elementary a little bit early so we could be there as students arrived. I sat on the steps in front of the school and soon was surrounded by little kids who challenged my abilities at rock-paper-scissors. When school started we were met with a warm welcome of 1,000 cheering kids, all sitting neatly on their bumbs in the gymnasium. It was the closest I will ever come to feeling like a star. After our introduction a little sixth grade girl stood and welcomed us in English. She had prepared a speech and read it perfectly. I felt my eyes getting damp. The kids sang us their school song and we left to more cheering. I was assigned a class and did my best to introduce myself using the chalk board. I stayed in the class most of the day. Lunch was just like the junior high, very disciplined and efficient. We left the room once to go to the music room, where students sand and played the recorder for the music teacher. During math another teacher who must specialize in the subject came in and “team” taught. I stepped out for a minute to observe a class that was doing an art project. They kids were learning wood-block printing and were in the first stages of drawing their eventual print. Something that most of us noticed and asked about when we met with teachers after school was the lack of computers in the classroom. It was the same at the junior high. Each school had a computer lab, but none of them were being used. This seemed odd in such a technologically advanced country. The teachers explained that this is a problem that the government is looking into. They said that kids learn to use computers at home. Eventually, when they graduate college, companies will train them according to what they need to know specifically for their work.

This evening I went to dinner with a few others in the group. We found a place where the waitress, cook, and greeter were the same person. She was an old heavy set woman with a raspy voice and warm smile. She and her husband run the place. It was a place where the locals eat. We ended up pointing to someone else’s food in order to tell her what we wanted to eat. I had some stir-fried veggies with rice and miso soup. It was delicious.