Fasci-Nation Part 2

Fasci-Nation Part 2

16 minutes and done! Yesterday afternoon, we conducted lessons with actual students and they lasted 16 minutes. As soon as the kids entered the room, three other teachers and I started playing with them and the provided balloons. After the ten minutes kid play, I was warmed up - for teaching and body temperature. My custom over the week when presenting lessons is to go first, so first I went. The basics of the lesson was to teach the kids some vocabulary and then "I can see (vocab word)" and "So can I". I'll spare you the rest of the details but the lesson went pretty well, even if I was met with blank stares a bunch of the time. What was amazing was that these kids sat through four 16 minute classes and there was not one disruption or distraction. Granted their parents were in the room but I've never seen kids so well behaved for that long! Someone must've sedated them before entering the room. That's the only logical explanation.

So after 16 minutes, I was sweating pretty fiercely but, at least, I was done and just got sit back for the other lessons. It's only been one week of training and only 16 minutes in front of actual children but this is already amazing. What I've yet to understand about teachers is how they can keep a straight face through class. A few of us observed a lesson earlier in the week and the little boy was working on his workbook and put his pencil in his mouth. The teacher noticed and, in stride, said "eww gross" but looked away to prepare something. The boy still had the pencil in his mouth and was looking at another teacher and me. He bit the tip off of the pencil and kinda raised his eyebrows at us. Neither one of us could contain ourselves and we spent the next few minutes retching with notebooks over our faces to suppress our reactions. Aside from Becky's idea to teach kids only Jamba Juice terms in an effort to gain trained labor for my new store in Himeji, I am probably going to really have to figure out how to creatively teach a lot of stuff. We have basic lesson plan skeletons and certain methods to use but activities are pretty much up to us - we have plenty of resources and a list of good activities to use but that can only last so long.

It's Sunday morning now and in about an hour, we're leaving for the train station to commute to our towns. Sadly, I've grown pretty attached to the people here and we have to separate after only a week. Last night, our trainers took us out to a traditional Japanese dinner. I am not sure what it's called but it came in about 8 courses and one was more delicious and beautifully presented than the last. And true to form, we ended the evening with karaoke. We'd learned earlier in the week Nomikaido effectively means 'all you can drink' - so four hours of awesome rocking plus nomikaido for about $50...perfect. We received a deposit back that we paid a few months ago, so factoring that in, I had spent about $10 this week; I had no qualms with throwing down 5000 Yen. Three hours sleep seems to be the more taxing price of the night but I'll get a nap in somewhere. Actually, I'll go grab some iced coffee from one of the roughly 23093849028 vending machines lining the street. Time for showering, cleaning the room and heading to Himeji...here are pictures from dinner and karaoke last night. All of the food was delicious - even if I didn't know what it was....delicious to everyone but Gino because he's ridiculous.


Mariah with the provided tambourines. Five tambourines, eleven drunk gaijins = not a good idea
Rice pudding type thing with raspberry sauce and a mint leaf
Kurt trainer
Blue shirt clockwise - Adam, Lauren, Susan, Mariah, a head I don't recognize, TJ
Matt-Sensei, Jeff-Sensai, Javaria-Trainer
Mussels - wow
Eggplant, kimchee, corn, pork cuts
Randal-trainer
Beer plus spread
Something with squid
Pesto fish and potato things
Assorted stuff