Just Your Average Day

Now that I have a few weeks of teaching under my belt, I figured I would describe a typical day of jr. high in Japan. Documenting a typical day of anything sounds kinda boring to me, so to spice it up, I've written it in second-person. Your welcome.

6:45am - Early Riser

You turn off your Nintendo DS alarm clock. It rings nice and loud, as if meant specifically to wake up a gamer after late nights of saving princesses and getting power-ups. You feel refreshed, invigorated, and peaceful. You have time for a nice long shower and some breakfast. You bought those eggs some time ago, and you wonder why you don’t have them for breakfast more often… ooh, what if you had some bacon It's been a long times since you’ve had bacon…maybe you’ll even try and make some coffee today… the best cup of coffee you had was... was... zzz...

7:20am – The Second Rising

You jump awake from drifting back to sleep and check the time on the DS alarm clock. It's ringing again. You mumble a silent prayer of thanks to the inventors of the Nintendo DS, who require you to be fairly cognizant in order to turn it off it's alarm. You have time for a speedy shower. You realize why you never manage to eat those eggs. On the way to work, you stop to buy a tsuna onigiri; a rice ball filled with tuna salad at the convenience store. You remember how your sister laughed at you when you used to make them at home because she thought you were weird. You also appreciate how awesome it is that you can eat realatively healthfully off of convenience store food.

8:10am – Asanokai, Morning Meeting

After changing your shoes, you enter the staff room and shout a "good morning" to the rest of the teachers who have been there since 6am or before. All full time subject teachers have a homeroom and extracurricular activity they are in charge of, so they typically have a lot to do. Since you have neither responsibility, you get to saunter in at the late hour of 8am. There is a hot cup of green tea on your desk waiting for you, courtesy of "the tea lady" (that is her actual title, although you believe her duties extend beyond the realm of tea). You take a brief morning’s respite before beginning your lesson planning.

At 8:10 the first bell rings. The principal and vice-principal enter the staff room; you and the rest of the teachers stand up, bow, and shout a unified "good morning!" There is a short administrative speech given by principal and vice-principal. All sorts of Japanese is being slung about the staff room, none of which you understand yet, so you just smile, and nod, and hope they are not telling everyone the evacuation route for some typhoon expected that evening.

8:40am – 12:35pm, 1st to 4th Period

Since you teach anywhere between 1 and 5 classes a day, you use any free time to speak with the Japanese teachers of English (JTEs) about upcoming lessons, and since your title is "‘assistant" language teacher (ALT) you don’t always get to say exactly how those lessons go. Sometimes you have to plan a 10 minute activity, sometimes a 50 minute lesson. Sometimes you plan a 10 minute lesson and then learn a few minutes before class that it should be 40 minutes. You suspect that’s why you’ve been told Japanese companies love employees who describe themselves as "flexible." You are also just getting used to the fact that, in Japan, it’s the teachers that move around from class to class, while the students sit in the same classroom and same desk all day.

12:35pm – Lunch

Pop music chosen by the students plays over the speakers, signifying lunch time. You eat lunch with a different homeroom class each day so you return to your desk and wait patiently until a student comes to escort you to their class. Chances are that the student who now stands before you was chosen because they lost a game of janken; rock, paper, scissors. Sometimes, if they are well prepared, they approach you and say "Let’s eat lunch!," "Let’s go!," or something similar. Quite often though, they just smile at you nervously and look around for a JTE to tell you to go with them.

Lunch is eaten in the classroom, and is the same for all schools in town. The students have rotating duties, with about four of them on lunch duty each day. Duty entails donning a white face mask, cap, and apron, then heading down to the lunch station to pick up their homeroom's allotment of food. After carting the food back to their classroom, they serve the rest of the students. Everyone shouts itadakimasu!, and begins eating.

Generally, you are able to eat the food you are served, and it is expected that you finish everything on your tray. Despite always having an appetite, sometimes finishing everything is just plain impossible. You are somewhat particular about eating the whole dried fish thingies, so you hold it up in the air and offer it to the class. Two or three students usually want it, a lightning-fast janken occurs, and the winner comes to snatch it out of your hand.

1:20pm – Souji, Cleaning Time With Enya

"wax on, wax off..."

Since there are no janitors, the students are responsible for keeping the school clean. For 15 minutes, all the students and teachers clean the school. Duties rotate, but typically include:

• sweeping the hallways, stairs, and homeroom floors

• wiping the floors with a wet rag

• cleaning the walls and windows

• cleaning the blackboard and erasers

• cleaning the bathroom stalls and floors

• gardening, weeding, and feeding the school pets

Souji is a serious and contemplative time. The students are expected to be quiet, or at least talk quietly. Horseplay or loud talking is reprimanded, harshly. To enforce the peace, the school you are currently teaching at plays tracks from The Very Best of Enya (seriously!).

Maybe it’s the carton of milk you are served at lunch. Maybe it’s the quiet repetition of sweeping, or maybe it’s the breeze that blows through the classrooms with the windows open, but you are beginning to really like cleaning time with Enya.

Once duties are finished, you put away the cleaning tools, line up with your cleaning crew, bow, and shout another unified arigatou! before...

1:35pm – Yasumi, Break Time

The students get to mingle about the halls and rest a bit before classes resume. you use this time to interact with the students. It is during this time in particular you feel like you are starring in some bad made-for-TV-movie: one where the geek has grown up but gets to go back to school and be the popular kid. The girls giggle, ask you questions about your favorite things, and tell you how cute you are. The boys vie to give you a high-five, arm-wrestle them, or teach them English slang. The teachers smile warmly and tell you they enjoyed watching your class or something like that. It all feels so surreal, because you are now someone you might have despised (or maybe envied?) in high school. But there is a naturalness and innocence about it all. Any reflective concerns are washed away in the smiles and voices constantly shouting, "Good afternoon, Aaron-sensei!" and "See you, Aaron-sensei!"

1:50pm – 3:50pm, 5th & 6th period

You are either teaching more classes or spending this time studying Japanese/speaking with other teachers in the staff room. Either way, you are definitely not falling asleep because of the carton of milk you were forced to drink at lunch. If you are lucky, the tea lady notices that you are starting to drag a bit, and has another cup of hot tea ready for you.

3:55pm – Kairinokai, Afternoon Meeting

Your students have an afternoon meeting at the end of each day where they review homework that was assigned today, the subjects scheduled to be taught tomorrow, and any other student-related administrative tasks. This is usually announced by the class and subject representatives. You think this is very helpful for the students as you cannot seem to decipher how they determine which subjects are taught on what days.

At this time you usually have a game or short lesson planned for the same group of students you ate lunch with. The students usually enjoy this time much more than English class becuase the objective is not so much to teach as it is just to have fun. Your personal goal over the school year is to use this time to have your students stop saying "Good afternoon, Aaron-ssensei!" and get them to start saying "Whats up, Mr. Aaron?"

4:20pm - Club Activities

After school, you go to the teacher’s locker room, change into workout clothes, then pick a club activity to participate in with the students. Club activities are similar to extracurricular activities in America, except they are mandatory, and typically practice on weekends as well. While you are not required to go to club activites, you go anyway, because you like spending time with the kids. You could also use the exercise, fatty!

Club activities at the jr. high level vary, but often include:

• baseball

• softball

• brass band

• volleyball

• homemaking

• soft tennis

• table tennis

• kyudo (japanese archery)

• kendo (japanese sword fighting)

You have decided to primarily participate in kendo, as it is something entirely new for you. Some days you feel like a jedi, some days you feel like the star-wars kid. at least you finally found some sort of clothing in japan that fits you...barely.

6:00pm - Leaving

After club activities are done you head back to your desk and pack up your things. You say the requisite "osaki ni shitsure shimasu" (please excuse me for leaving before you) to the remaining teachers as you leave. This is generally appreciated as some of them will stay as late as 9-10pm in preparation for the next day. While the productivity level of a person working 16 hours a day is questionable, quantity begets quality here, and they are doing their best to be hard workers.

Despite drawing upon seemingly boundless energy at school, once you get home it feels like a large bag of sand is being dumped on your head. The only way to stop it is to lie down on the couch for a bit. You wake up 15 minutes later after having dozed off. At six feet tall, it's impossible to sleep on your tiny couch any longer than that. That's ok, you are recharged enough for the evening, and satisfied with your day. Your job just plain kicks ass.