The jury is in

It has been three weeks since starting to teach at my new school, Koga third; and I could not love it more! It has been such a short time, so my camaraderie with the other teachers isn't so strong, but the responsibilities of my job more than make up for that; and those friendships will come too! This is the highest level school in Koga, so the students are really studious and actually understand almost everything I say! Of course I am conscious to keep my vocabulary at a lower level, but students at my other schools still don't get much of what I say.

The biggest perk of this school is that I teach alone!! I can teach the students anything I want and I am not bound by a set curriculum or textbook! They only give me 20 students at a time, but that is a great number for me and I have such a blast every Friday! I have my own classroom - they have just given me the audio-visual room in case I ever want to use PowerPoint. And the librarian at this school is fantastic! When I have free time on Fridays, I go down to the library to speak with her and just hang out. She wants to learn more English, but I am able to speak to her a lot in Japanese, which is great practice for me.

My situation at this school could not be better. If my whole job was this way, I would have stayed a second year - no question. I had such a great class on Friday with a group of students from homeroom 5. From the moment they walked in, they were laughing and ready to meet me. I went through my self introduction and they were so enthusiastic and had some great questions for me. I was able to play back and forth with them and we all just had a really great time. It is fun to teach kids with dreams and aspirations. Almost all the kids at Koga third go to college - and really great colleges at that. I met a girl who was accepted to Meiji University. That is one of the best schools in Tokyo!

I walked around and took some pictures of the school last Friday and stumbled upon a display of student artwork that I found to be really impressive. The students at this school have enthusiasm and talent that I remember from my high school days. To me this school should not be out of the ordinary, this should be the norm.

I was able to watch some graduation rehearsal at this school too and it was actually kind of exciting! They have their own brass band (which most schools don't really have "arts" clubs) and they were conducted by a student. Before they began rehearsal, all the students got a lecture in the proper way to bow for such a formal occasion. There was discussion about how to sing the school song in a very loud voice - oh, and if you forget the words they are printed on the wall to the right of the stage!

It has been and will continue to be a refreshing place to work. I was really nervous in the beginning, but after a few weeks I have some nice warm and fuzzy feelings. Check out my new pictures of Koga third.