First contact

I have met the enemy, and they are rugrats…

So, I am now at my official first day of school. I am (Understandably) Nervous as all get out. I make it to school and I come in 15 minutes early. Just in time for me to walk in to the morning teachers’ meeting. So, I kinda slip in unnoticed (Except this is Japan, and nothing is unnoticed), and I sit down at my desk.

The speech-maker is my Vice Principal, and I have no earthly idea what he is saying, but it sounds like a “First day of classes go out and get-em” sort of speech. I don’t have to wait too long and the meeting ends. So I turn to the desk next to me where my JTE is (Japanese Teacher, English). She says good morning and says “You don’t have to be here 8:00… I think 8:15. Morning meeting…. Not for you” What it took me a while to find out was, “You can’t understand enough Japanese for the morning meeting to be a benefit to you, so go on ahead and be here at 8:15 from now on.” But it sure sounded like I wasn’t qualified to be part of the morning meeting…

It’s amazing how important being able to not just be competent in a language, but also be able to navigate the strange eddies and currents of inflection ad implication… I vowed to remember this lesson and use my budding Japanese with wisdom and care…

Well… my hearts in the right place…

I don’t have any classes scheduled for day one, so I am looking forward to getting some important things done, like tour the school and meet the teachers. So I turn to my JTE…

And she has vanished.

It turns out that it’s the first day of school, and my JTE is busier than… a Japanese 7th grade teacher on the first day of school.

So my Principal comes out and looks at me and says: “Mistaa Guy, You raik-u Golf?” And flashes a huge grin.

Day one: I have now watched golf with my Principal, told him all about me (In pidgin Japanese-English mix), found out that he actually speaks pretty good English (Which he learned in a High School real near our current location in the 60’s astonishingly enough), and is a really nice fellow.

After an hour of chatting, he tells me he has to go to the Kindergarten and so I ask him if it is okay to have a look around. He’s happy as a clam that I would like to do that.

Thus I embark on operation “Wander the halls”. It is the middle of second period.

My school is actually rather large and lovely. It’s a little old. I get the feeling it’s been here for probably long enough that my Principal may have actually gone to this very school. But it’s sturdy and well-kept. It has three stories, set up in three wings.

So I get to the second floor on the outer wing and I notice some 2nd years have lined up to enter a class. As I come up on them, I hear the whispers ripple through the awe-struck children… “It’s Guy-Sensei…. Guy Sensei…. Guy Sensei”.

Woah… My reputation precedes me…

One of the boys in the back of the line perks up at my approach, “Herrow!” He exclaims proudly, “How are you?”

I grin and tell him I am fine, and ask him how he is, he smiles and says he is fine and is obviously proud of being able to carry a conversation in English with the new teacher.

I thought this was going to happen, and I was counting my blessings to see that one or two of my students were forward enough to talk to me…

I had no idea.

As the day went on I carried out not three or four but countless Hello’s and I was even more complicated questions:

3rd year student: “Where are you from?”
Me: “America”
(The 3rd year consults his friend, obviously he had guessed I was American)
3rd year student: “Where in America are you from?”
I’m blown away… That is a pretty amazingly complex sentence there… I tell him, and then in Japanese I tell him that his English is pretty good and that I’m proud of him for that. He grins. I have made a friend.

Of course, this isn’t always the case. I come up on a clutch of 2nd year girls in the hallway, and they perk up upon seeing me and one exclaims proudly: “You are name!” At which time I stop, and say (In Japanese) “Close, try again”.

The girls go into a consultation mode, something only Junior High School girls can do, at which time the girl tries again: “You are name?”

So I try gently correcting her; “What’s your name?”

She says “Miko.”

Well, that wasn’t helping, so I say in Japanese: “Ask me”.

Now all the girls in the clutch are clamoring to say it, “What’s you name?” They all ask. I smile and tell them, suddenly realizing that I have to add on the “Sensei” because I’m responsible for the moral well being of these children, and they need to have their honorifics correct.
Weird…

At the end of the day, I’m in the teacher’s room when two 2nd year girls come in to get a key to a storage room. One of the girls spots me, inhales sharply with a massive grin on her face (Aha! I alone have discovered the secret hiding place of the new English Teacher!) and she waves enthusiastically.

I smile, and of course, wave back.

I dig my students. Apparently this is rather unusual behavior for Japanese students. I gather that English, as it is in America, is typically a rather reviled class in our schools… But my school has consistently placed high in the English competitions, and thus, it seems, that my kids are really in to English. And they aren’t very worried about wielding it on the new English Teacher…
That’s, of course, what I say now… We’ll see how this is in a couple of months.