Today was a Toyo middle school day, but instead of normal classes, the students were out hard at work job-shadowing in various professions... which allowed me to go on a wild ride with some of the middle school teachers to "check up on" the students. Yeah, right. This is Japan. We didn't go to check up on them; we went to take embarrassing pictures that can later be used against them in the school newspaper or yearbook. The vehicle I rode in, which had 5 of us squeezed into a mini-van, had a sort of campy prison-break feeling. Yeah, we were teachers, but hell if we were going to be in school when the students didn't have to be. Eating lunch out (and being served by one of the students job-shadowing in the restaurant) was an added bonus.
Some of the students got to do pretty cool job-shadows. Two girls job-shadowed at the northern Tsushima police station in Sasuna, and when we sensei-tachi showed up, the cops pulled out all of their crime-scene investigative equipment and gave us demos. It felt like being in a television show (NCIS!!). The police had the girls walk over an area of ground and then lifted their footprints off it, then dusted for fingerprints on a car. The girls also got a mini-lecture about how it's too bad there aren't more female cops; there's apparently only one in Tsushima, and she's in the southern part. The police were very encouraging that the girls pursue a career in the field.
Another couple of students went to a kindergarden, where I got mauled and laughed at by many small children. Which was okay... my main tormentor was a small boy who asked me to say things in English and then laughed incessantly at my English pronunciation (as opposed to his and the other kids' Japanese-influenced speech). He was also fond of the monkey bars, which was his downfall, because I called him "Saru-san" ("Mr. Monkey") and asked if he did any non-monkey-like things. (Somehow, my dignity is saved if it was only a monkey laughing at me.) I also got offered a dango (hmm... translates to... ball of rice-dough?) made of out wet sand by a young girl. I guess they don't have mud pies in Japan.
After school, I made a trip to the hospital to get a recurring headache checked out. I'd kinda hoped to slip in and out without running into anyone I knew, but there were no less than 3 of my students (with parents) in at the same time. So much for privacy. I did, however, manage to stop 2 wailing little kids from crying purely by accident. Their mother said they must've been so surprised to see me that they were shocked out of their tantrums. I don't know if this is complimentary or not, but I made funny faces at them, which made me feel better. ..Am I degenerating into a 5-year-old? Is this the inevitable outcome of being an elementary school teacher? And, more importantly, will this shocking-kids-of-of-crying trick work on long airplane flights?
... after being examined, I headed over to the pharmacy to pick up whatever concoction had been prescribed and found myself reunited with my old friend from JYA Kyoto, kannpu-yaku. AKA ground-up leaves and roots from China stuffed in a packet, to be swilled down with a large gulp of water. Now, they are very well ground-up leaves and roots, so the mixture kind of resembles uniformly chunky sand instead of something hauled out of the compost pile. I did find it amusing when the pharmacist felt it necessary to stress that what he was giving me was "not Western medicine" and "from China." Actually, I kinda like the stuff. I have no idea if it works-- we'll see this time around, since I was taking many more pills during my week-long fever last time-- but it does have a homey, spicy taste.
P.S. Updated kaki count: hard-3 soft-23 ... I will admit to some embarrassment during my last grocery-shopping expedition when a parent leaned over to look in my basket and I quickly shuffled things around to hide the hoard of kaki in the bottom. But I still love them.
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2 comments:
Interesting that students in middle school are already job shadowing--far earlier than in the U.S.
I remember job-shadowing a radiologist in middle school; however, I think it was out of personal interest and not a school assignment.
I was a little surprised that the job-shadows occur over 3 days, all day... both the first and third grade middle schoolers (equivalent of 7th and 9th grade in the states) do it while the 8th-graders go on a school trip. I believe that high school is somewhat optional, however-- because there are such stringent high school exams, if you don't pass, it's just too bad.. so some of my kids may enter the work force this coming April when they graduate. However, it's pretty rare; the vast majority of kids continue to high school.
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