Message to Third-year Students

Words to live by:

Dedication, Perseverance, Courage, Honor, Freedom, Love, Respect, Devotion, Steadfastness, Family, Compassion, Interest, Creativity, Passion, Bravery, Open-mindedness, Fidelity, Curiosity, Drive, Honesty, Adventurousness, Willingness, Community, Ecology, Integrity, Future, Humanity.

-Martin Nash

February 23, 2009

Monday - Kurotaki day

English teacher doesn't say hi in the morning; everyone else does.

A quick check of the daily class schedule indicates that third year is having tests, and leaving after three periods. Class load automatically cut down to maximum of 2. Second and third period, 8th then 7th grade.

In the morning: look at blog posts and RSS feeds for the first hour. No explanation of class, probably just regular stuff, no major activities.

Today's 2nd year lineup:

• Spelling Test
• Warm up - Teacher instructs kids to kids stand up and ask me a question. Each does, then sits down. Round two is done with followup sentences. Doesn't go as smoothly as hoped. Round three is done with the students asking me the question in Japanese, me replying in Japanese, then followup question and answer, then repeating the exchange in English. This was used to illustrate to the students they don't need to know an exact translation of a word (if there even is such a thing), they can use somethig similar -- lets use and be expressive with the language and words.
  
• Activity - students paired off, I read a question, students compete to answer the quickest. A rank was established, and the leader praised.
  

Good class with no preparation on my part whatsoever.

Back to the staff room for a ten minute break. Teacher then tells me that the 7th graders will be having their 100 question spelling test, so my services won't be necessary. A days work done at 10:30 AM. Plenty of time to review my Heisig and Kanji Kentei decks on Anki, read some Cocoa programming books, and make a blog post. And I've still got two hours before my workday ends.

End of the term; end of the year.

Third year students had a big high school entrance test yesterday. Today they were all very quiet and timid. They have been quiet and timid all semester, but today they were especially so.

Its the end of the 3rd term. Its the end of the school year. Nothing to do in class, so the teacher has them do worksheets. I stand aside and wait.

Work today in third year class:
1. pronounced "bought" and "boat"
2. played one round of hangman

I'm a teacher, right?

She makes me answer questions.

彼女は私に質問に答えさせる。

---それとも or---

私は彼女によって質問に答えさせられる。