Well, well, well... several weeks ago, I was talking about how well things were going over at the elementary school near Kobe. Well, the honeymoon is over... for some classes, anyway.
* A few weeks ago, I did a sports lesson. I had a bunch of sports toys from my company that I used to help teach the target English. Well, at the end of a few of the classes, some of the boys decided to grab the materials and take off, and I had to go chasing them because I needed the materials for the next classes.
* Today, I was doing a class on food. We played a game where the kids had to use a toy fishing rod to pick up these picture cards and put them in a paper bowl. One boy had trouble with the fishing rod, and, in his frustration, he threw the thing against the blackboard, breaking part of it.
*Here's the worst part: recently my hair has been kind of long, and the kids love to touch my hair during and after class. I don't mind that; after all, these kids don't get many chances to touch a black person's hair. However, after the last class, a couple of boys went too far. They grabbed a few strands of my hair and PULLED THEM OUT! That really got me steamed. After that, they went to their friends saying, "Mite! Mite!" (That means "Look!" in Japanese). It's like they got a souvenir or something. I was really upset.
Notice that in all the problems above, they involved the boys. The girls are no problem; they're sweet and nice, but a little shy.
25 November 2004
15 October 2004
Elementary School
Yep, that's right... in addition to teaching at a high school 3 days a week, I'm also teaching at an elementary school near Kobe every 2 weeks or so. The first time was yesterday. It was a blast! The kids were excited to be learning English, so they were eager to see me and participate in the activities. It was more fun than high school! I was dead tired after work, though. 5 straight lessons with 10 and 11 year olds will do that to you. But it was enjoyable, a break from all those bad high school students.
13 October 2004
12 October 2004
The Land Down Under
I just had the most wonderful vacation. My girlfriend and I have just come back from Australia. That's right, the Land Down Under. It was only the 4th country I've been to, besides the USA, Canada and Japan. We went there for 5 days. It was great!
First, we went to the Gold Coast in Queensland. The Gold Coast is famous for its beaches, and they were some great beaches. We also did some other things there like shopping, restaurants, and riding buses that turn into boats. We went to a place called Sea World (a little different from the ones back home) and we went to a walking nighttime safari and saw kangaroos, crocodiles and koalas.
After a few days at the Gold Coast, we went down to Sydney for the second half of the trip. There we took in the sights, such as the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour. We ate at some good restaurants and enjoyed the city. We drove to a Koala Park and saw, yep, koalas, in addition to some other animals. We fed kangaroos and petted wombats. We even saw a sheep get sheared! That was hilarious. After that, we went to the Blue Mountains and saw some gorgeous scenery, including the Blue Mountains.
The trip was great for me. It was good to be back in a place where everybody spoke English, even if it was Australian English. It was good to be back in a multiracial environment, too, especially Sydney. But I guess I'm too used to the great service we have here in Japan, because I missed that in Australia.
What a trip. Unfortunately, it was too short. Maybe we can go back sometime. But for now, it's back to the world of teaching in Osaka.
First, we went to the Gold Coast in Queensland. The Gold Coast is famous for its beaches, and they were some great beaches. We also did some other things there like shopping, restaurants, and riding buses that turn into boats. We went to a place called Sea World (a little different from the ones back home) and we went to a walking nighttime safari and saw kangaroos, crocodiles and koalas.
After a few days at the Gold Coast, we went down to Sydney for the second half of the trip. There we took in the sights, such as the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour. We ate at some good restaurants and enjoyed the city. We drove to a Koala Park and saw, yep, koalas, in addition to some other animals. We fed kangaroos and petted wombats. We even saw a sheep get sheared! That was hilarious. After that, we went to the Blue Mountains and saw some gorgeous scenery, including the Blue Mountains.
The trip was great for me. It was good to be back in a place where everybody spoke English, even if it was Australian English. It was good to be back in a multiracial environment, too, especially Sydney. But I guess I'm too used to the great service we have here in Japan, because I missed that in Australia.
What a trip. Unfortunately, it was too short. Maybe we can go back sometime. But for now, it's back to the world of teaching in Osaka.
10 September 2004
Below the Rim
Whenever I have some free time after a hard day's work teaching English at my high school, I decide to play hoops with the basketball team. Now, the basketball team is not even a team right now. They have only four players: 3 boys and a girl. The hoops teacher is all too happy to have another body there to make things more interesting.
Yesterday was just my second time to join the hoops team for some b-ball, and today we decided to have a little ball game. I and two of the boys were on one team, and the hoops coach, the third boy and the girl were on the other team. I'm proud to say that the game was very competitive, with the coach's team winning a close game, 10 to 9. The highlight of the game for me was when I posted up against the coach, spun around and made a layup. Apparently, the team doesn't learn much about posting up, so you should have seen the looks on the students' faces at that work of art. All of a sudden, rumors are going around the school that I'm a basketball star. One of the students called me Jordan. Hey... I'll take that. That's better than Kevyn Little.
Yesterday was just my second time to join the hoops team for some b-ball, and today we decided to have a little ball game. I and two of the boys were on one team, and the hoops coach, the third boy and the girl were on the other team. I'm proud to say that the game was very competitive, with the coach's team winning a close game, 10 to 9. The highlight of the game for me was when I posted up against the coach, spun around and made a layup. Apparently, the team doesn't learn much about posting up, so you should have seen the looks on the students' faces at that work of art. All of a sudden, rumors are going around the school that I'm a basketball star. One of the students called me Jordan. Hey... I'll take that. That's better than Kevyn Little.
31 August 2004
Back to School
This week I started teaching at the high school again, after a good summer break. By the way, summer break was nice. I didn't do much, but you know, those are sometimes the best kind of vacation. I needed to just relax.
The high school hadn't changed that much. The bad students still behaved in class, and the good students were still too shy to say anything in English in my class. One thing that I did notice was that a lot of the girls have started to call me Kevin Lyttle. I had no idea who Kevin Lyttle was until they started calling me that. (If you don't know, he's that soca singer with that song, "Turn Me On", which, surprisingly, is popular here in Japan.) Both my girlfriend and I think that I look absolutely nothing like Kevin Lyttle. But most of these students have never seen a black person in the flesh before, so any black guy looks like Kevin Lyttle to them.
Even so, it gets on my nerves, because (a) I don't look like him at all, (b) it's not just one girl that's doing it, it's a huge number of them calling me that, and (c) they do it every single day. You'd think they'd get tired of it.
Oh, and while the girls call me Kevin Lyttle every day, the boys are worse. I've been at that high school since May, telling everybody that I'm American. But even here, in August, the boys insist that I must be from Jamaica! I know why they do that: (a) I'm black, (b) their idea of an American is someone with blond hair and blue eyes, and (c) reggae music is popular with the boys at that high school. Still, it bothers me.
Enough ranting. By the way, I do like working at the high school, if you can't tell.
The high school hadn't changed that much. The bad students still behaved in class, and the good students were still too shy to say anything in English in my class. One thing that I did notice was that a lot of the girls have started to call me Kevin Lyttle. I had no idea who Kevin Lyttle was until they started calling me that. (If you don't know, he's that soca singer with that song, "Turn Me On", which, surprisingly, is popular here in Japan.) Both my girlfriend and I think that I look absolutely nothing like Kevin Lyttle. But most of these students have never seen a black person in the flesh before, so any black guy looks like Kevin Lyttle to them.
Even so, it gets on my nerves, because (a) I don't look like him at all, (b) it's not just one girl that's doing it, it's a huge number of them calling me that, and (c) they do it every single day. You'd think they'd get tired of it.
Oh, and while the girls call me Kevin Lyttle every day, the boys are worse. I've been at that high school since May, telling everybody that I'm American. But even here, in August, the boys insist that I must be from Jamaica! I know why they do that: (a) I'm black, (b) their idea of an American is someone with blond hair and blue eyes, and (c) reggae music is popular with the boys at that high school. Still, it bothers me.
Enough ranting. By the way, I do like working at the high school, if you can't tell.
10 August 2004
I know, I know....
Sorry everyone... It's been a while since I updated my blog. I know, I know... I'm lazy. Actually, I've been kind of busy lately with some projects at work, so I've been too tired to go here and update it like I should. I'll do a better job of it, I promise.
Anyway, now it's my summer vacation here in Osaka. Today I visited Nihongo Club for the first time in 3 months! It was good to see everybody again. For those who don't know, Nihongo Club is a volunteer Japanese teaching group where you can go and talk and learn Japanese. I went there for several months before I got my new job with ECC Outsourcing in May. I had a good time there, talking to some of the people I haven't seen for a while. But my former teacher, Mrs. Ishida, wasn't there. How sad. Maybe I'll see her in the winter vacation, if I'm not travelling.
Anyway, now it's my summer vacation here in Osaka. Today I visited Nihongo Club for the first time in 3 months! It was good to see everybody again. For those who don't know, Nihongo Club is a volunteer Japanese teaching group where you can go and talk and learn Japanese. I went there for several months before I got my new job with ECC Outsourcing in May. I had a good time there, talking to some of the people I haven't seen for a while. But my former teacher, Mrs. Ishida, wasn't there. How sad. Maybe I'll see her in the winter vacation, if I'm not travelling.
02 July 2004
Is this a Japanese high school?
Well, several weeks into my high school job, I can say that I've been very very surprised. In the U.S.A., we always hear about how Japanese high school students study all the time, how good they are at math, science, etc. The people that tell us that have never been to the high school I'm working at. In their classes, some students sleep, email friends using their cell phones, curl their hair with curling irons, read comic books, listen to their Walkmans, put on makeup, play with their little sticker books - anything except pay attention to the teacher. And this goes on every day, in just about every class I have.
Part of the problem is that teachers don't discipline students for those kind of actions. You can be sure that if I listened to my Walkman in class, I would have been in detention or something. But the students at my school get away with it. I don't know why the teachers don't do anything about it, or can't. But obviously they're embarrassed about it. The teachers that I team-teach with always say, "Herman, we're very sorry. Don't think this is a typical Japanese high school. Don't believe these are average Japanese students." In other words, this school is a special case.
To be fair, my high school is about an hour and a half by train from Osaka, in the countryside. These students don't expect to be much when they are adults. Many of them have hard lives: poverty, family problems, peer pressure. They don't have the motivation to study hard. So that's probably why they behave that way.
Still, I'm surprised every day I go to school. It doesn't bother me that much. It just makes my experience more interesting.
Part of the problem is that teachers don't discipline students for those kind of actions. You can be sure that if I listened to my Walkman in class, I would have been in detention or something. But the students at my school get away with it. I don't know why the teachers don't do anything about it, or can't. But obviously they're embarrassed about it. The teachers that I team-teach with always say, "Herman, we're very sorry. Don't think this is a typical Japanese high school. Don't believe these are average Japanese students." In other words, this school is a special case.
To be fair, my high school is about an hour and a half by train from Osaka, in the countryside. These students don't expect to be much when they are adults. Many of them have hard lives: poverty, family problems, peer pressure. They don't have the motivation to study hard. So that's probably why they behave that way.
Still, I'm surprised every day I go to school. It doesn't bother me that much. It just makes my experience more interesting.
12 June 2004
12 June 2004
Let me update you on what has been happening in the past month. Well, I left my old job, and I got a new job. I'm working as an English teacher at a high school! It's definitely more interesting than my old job. I'm the only foreign teacher in the high school, and the students love me just for that fact. It's cool to be in a Japanese working environment. But let me tell you... it's not easy teaching high school.
In other news, I got a new working visa, so I'm set here in Japan for the next few years. Things are looking pretty good right now.
In other news, I got a new working visa, so I'm set here in Japan for the next few years. Things are looking pretty good right now.
Welcome to My World
Hey everyone, welcome to my blog! Basically, this is a website that I can easily update and share with you what's going on in my life. There's not much here yet, but as time goes on, I hope that this page will bloom to life. So please, be patient!
Just a couple of disclaimers:
(1) My parents, grandmother, and other family members see this blog, so I'll keep it clean (no 4-letter words, etc.). Please do the same with your comments.
(2) I talk about my girlfriend a lot, but she doesn't want her name to be mentioned on the internet. (Maybe she's embarrassed to be mentioned along with me... can't blame her.) Therefore, she will only be called "my girlfriend" here. If you know her name, don't mention it here, either. Also, if you know me very well and you don't want your name to be mentioned here, drop me a line and say so.
Talk to you later.
- Herman
Just a couple of disclaimers:
(1) My parents, grandmother, and other family members see this blog, so I'll keep it clean (no 4-letter words, etc.). Please do the same with your comments.
(2) I talk about my girlfriend a lot, but she doesn't want her name to be mentioned on the internet. (Maybe she's embarrassed to be mentioned along with me... can't blame her.) Therefore, she will only be called "my girlfriend" here. If you know her name, don't mention it here, either. Also, if you know me very well and you don't want your name to be mentioned here, drop me a line and say so.
Talk to you later.
- Herman
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