Katei Homon

Today was the dreaded annual home visit by my son's teacher (Lilia's teacher will visit in the summer). My friend L. said that she didn't understand why the visits occurred so early in the scholastic year. The kids have only been in school for two weeks. What could there possibly be to talk about? I reminded her that the visits are not meant for discussing the children's progress. The teachers enter their students' homes to check out their living conditions. For me, as an American, these visits constitute an invasion of privacy. The closest American equivalent I can think of would be a visit from social services. I guess the difference would be that Japanese teachers don't make any suggestions about changing their students' environments. They just take notes and file away the information for future reference. They might then cut a kid some slack if they know he's living in squalor with his single mom.

Last year I couldn't find the appropriate moment to hop up and serve refreshments. This time, I made sure I had a pot of coffee and a plate of cookies all ready. As soon as the teacher came into the house, I directed her to the sofa and poured the coffee. And then we talked about yesterday's paper-ripping incident. Yesterday evening, Jio was earnestly taping one of his prints back together, saying that his teacher would be angry. (She has complained already about the state of the prints that he shoves into his backpack.) Upon further questioning, we discovered that some kids in his class ripped his homework print. There have been other similar incidents, and Jio is not one to talk, so we're ever vigilant.

It's hard, though, to strike a balance between caring too much and caring too little. We want him to be able to fight his own battles, but we don't want him to be bullied. He's a sensitive kid, and I'd like to nurture that, but I don't want him to get stomped on.

Second Grade

This week the twins started second grade. Here are my daughter's textbooks. Lilia has two books for music class, as well as three textbooks for Japanese (she has the standard one, and a slow-paced one and then something else). Last year, Jio had a textbook for P.E. Who knew you needed a book to learn how to do jumping jacks?

So about the teachers. Lilia has the same homeroom teacher as last year, but her special helper teacher has changed. No longer do we have the dour and conservative Miss N. Now we have the bright and good-natured Ms. Y., who if I recall correctly, taught a deaf boy with ADD or something like that, last year. Miss N. was always in a bad mood by the end of the day, and I felt kind of sorry for my girl. I understand that she is difficult. She's extremely willfull and easily distracted (except when she's being stubborn about something), but she's also a cheerful and funny kid. I was happy to see Ms. Y. laughing when I went to pick up Lilia yesterday. My friend L., who taught high school in Australia, says that high school teachers should never teach small children. Maybe she's right. Last year Miss N. moved down from the high school to be Lilia's teacher. Now she's gone.

Jio didn't get the rumored kibishi (strict) teacher he expected. He said his new teacher is nice, and he came bursting out of school on the first day with a big smile on his face. The woman took one look at me, turned to Jio, and said, "Does your mother speak Japanese?" I found this very off-putting and wanted to slap her, but maybe things will get better. At any rate, Jio's anxiety seems to have died down a bit.

In Celebration of New Teachers

In just two days, my twins will begin second grade. I can't wait to find out who their homeroom teachers will be. My son has heard rumors that his will be a strict male teacher who piles on the homework, and he isn't quite looking forward to that. My daughter, however, is counting the days till she advances to the next grade level (while I worry about the homework).

It's possible that her homeroom teacher will be H.-sensei, who just earned his master's degree from Ehime University. H.-sensei was once my husband's student. He is also profoundly deaf, and I think he is the first deaf person my daughter ever met. It's very difficult to pass the teacher's exam, and very few do on the first try. Clearly, H.-sensei is a remarkable individual and he will be a shining example for the deaf kids at Lilia's school.

Elsewhere, Hirotada Ototake, author of No One's Perfect, was appointed a full-time teacher at Suginami Daiyon Elementary School in Tokyo. Ototake was born with tetra-amelia, a congenital condition that stops the limbs from developing properly. Basically, this means that he doesn't have arms or legs. His disability is very obvious. I am sure that these two men will wield a positive influence over the coming generations.

Portrait of the Artist

On the last day of school, Lilia received an award for a painting she did in art class. Her teacher entered it in a prefectural-wide concours of artwork based on students' reading. Lilia's was based on a book called Pao's Christmas, or something like that. She got an Honorable Mention. When I heard that, I got tears in my eyes. I remember when Lilia was the only kid in her class who still scribbled, who couldn't draw a recognizable face. Back then, I had no idea of what kind of progress she would make in school. Also, there was a boy in her class who was really good at drawing. He won first prize in an art competition of deaf school students all over Japan. There was an award ceremony at school, and a well-known actress came and made a speech. This boy was featured in the newspaper. I figured with him around, Lilia had no chance of ever impressing anyone with her drawings. That boy, who is going to be integrated from April, has been more interested in baseball than art, lately, and he didn't win anything this time. I am very proud of Lilia and all she has accomplished this past year. (Please excuse the messy room!)

Snow White

Yesterday was my son's happyokai, which means every class in the elementary school put on some sort of presentation. My son's class did "Snow White" in English, so that all of the parents would be impressed by their kids' newly acquired language skills. It was cute. The kids remembered their lines, danced well, and Snow White did some impressive fainting.

The second graders sang a few selections from "The Sound of Music," and then after that the performances were increasingly high culture. The next class - the third graders - did a poetry reading in sort of a No mode, and the fourth graders played an avant garde musical composition. The fifth graders performed a story by Kenji Miyazawa in English, which had an off-off-off Broadway feel, and the sixth graders did a performance of kyogen, speaking once again in a highly stylized way, a la kabuki.

I kept thinking, "So this is the difference between public school and private school." At a public school, we would have been treated to more mundane fare - the theme song to "Popeye, the Sailor Man," for example, and dramatizations of folk tales that everyone knows. I couldn't help thinking that it was all a bit pretentious. But then again, I went to public school. I'm the hoi polloi.

Mama at the Marathon

For some reason, Japanese educators think it's a good idea for children to run around half-naked in the middle of winter. Thus, on Friday, my son had his school "marathon." I showed up to cheer the kids on as they ran from their playground to a shrine down the street and back - about a kilometer. The mothers were sensibly dressed in long underwear and down jackets, but the kids wore just T-shirts and shorts on a day when snow was predicted. Several years ago the school was known for its hadaka marason - "naked marathon" - in which children ran in their underpants.

My daughter's "marathon" was the week before. She did the course in a walker, and while wearing a track suit.

Happily, the kids were given warm drinks afterward.