happy birthday mom and casey!

Happy birthday to my momma and baby brother today! I LOVE YOU!

I feel like I’ve been running around at a million miles a minute for several months now and last week it started taking its toll on my immune system. I’ve been feeling the beginning stages of a cold for some time but have been trying to fight it off with extra vitamins and a raw determination not to get sick. Ha ha. Well, it worked for a while! Then, I started getting a scratchy throat and deep earaches last Wednesday and it’s steadily progressed until it hit me full force this weekend. My chronic sinus problems have flared up again and I have an intense head cold to complicate things. Ugh. I hate being sick! In all fairness though, I don’t think anyone particularly enjoys feeling as if your head’s been stuck in an ever-tightening vice or as though someone has clawed the inside of your throat. My voice has been deteriorating since last Thursday and as of Saturday night, I lost it entirely. Ha ha ha I still can’t make a sound above a scratchy whisper... !

Luckily for me, I didn’t have classes today and so I’ve spent a lot of time sitting down, drinking hot honey-water, and hunting for cold and sinus medicine. I can’t believe it, but I might actually call in sick in the morning, as well. This will be a first for me if I do and although I would like to optimistically declare my assurance that I’ll be in perfect order come morning, I’m guessing from my lack of progress so far that I won’t be going anywhere just yet. Also, tomorrow is the day I go to my special needs school and I’m particularly worried about their delicate health and even though I doubt anything I have is still contagious at this point, I don’t want to risk spreading anything to my students there.

On the plus side, I guess getting whacked in the head with a cold from hell has given me the perfect chance to sit down and update my blog... :-)

I’ve had a lot on my mind lately and much of it has to do with the time I have left before the school year draws to a close... Now, if I can just form some thoughts coherently enough, maybe I can share them with you... I apologize in advance if this post ends up even more discombobulated than the rest!

Anyway, the Japanese school year is very different from the traditional school schedule in the States and so, here, the school year is almost over! Classes begin at the beginning of April and there are short breaks periodically throughout the year, but no equivalent to the Western “summer vacation.” Another difference from Western school that I was surprised to learn is that, at least at Miyagi First, seniors are pretty much done for the year by February. They have to take rigorous entrance examinations for college admission, but there aren’t actual classes for them. Already the girls come for morning class and then have the afternoons free to study for their exams every day—soon they will have no formal classes at all. Then, graduation is on March 1 and they are out of school entirely until college begins in the fall!

I’ve been helping several senior girls since last fall as they’ve been preparing for their entrance exams and it’s kept me pretty busy at work so far, but I really love it. I shared some of their essays on my blog a few months ago, but I just keep getting blown away by these girls and I absolutely love working with them one-on-one to improve their writing and speaking skills. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I have my prep periods and lunch periods all to myself again—when I don’t walk up to my desk to find another essay waiting for me to check! The essay subjects and student opinions contained therein have been vastly different from one another and I’ve read students’ personal views on birth order, racism, sexism, globalization, protecting the environment, the value and danger in cultural pride, and so much more. I’ve squealed excitedly with some students as they’ve gotten accepted into the colleges of their dreams and wiped away the tears of others as they’ve come to me with letters of denial. I’ve felt the joy of watching hard work pay off with some and felt the burning vengeance of a mother when I’ve seen other students get passed over because of dirty academic politics and unfair systems. I cannot express how badly I want these girls to succeed. They come to me with complete faith in my ability to help them and I feel the incredible weight of that faith—I don’t want to let them down just as much as they don’t want to let me down.

It is going to be so hard for me to say good-bye to these girls when they graduate!! Ack! I’m participating in the graduation ceremony to be held on March 1 and I’m really excited for it on one hand, but on the other hand, I’m dreading the day because I know it’ll be the last time I’ll ever see a lot of these girls. I can’t believe it’s only a month away! I’ve told them all that if they ever come to the States that they have a place to sleep in my home and I mean it. I’m awful at good-byes and the only way I handle them is by telling myself that they aren’t ever really permanent, so I’m just going to cling to the hope that someday each of these girls will have the chance to come visit me; then maybe some of you can meet them!! :-)

As far as my regular classes with the sophomores go, I’m almost done there, too! Since I teach an oral communication class that’s outside of the standard Japanese school curriculum, students don’t have the traditional finals for my course that they have for other subjects like history and science. Therefore, I will stop teaching by the beginning of March as well and my students will concentrate on preparing for their core exams. I’m almost done with the textbook and I have a few “special” lessons planned for February, but that’s about it. I’m going to have SO much spare time in March that I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself! Ha ha ha maybe I’ll actually maintain my blog regularly then...? Maybe...

Anyway, I just want to say how grateful I am for my job. I genuinely love my work...I love seeing my students’ faces every day and I am always seeking ways to be a better and more effective teacher. To be honest, I was really hesitant when I learned that I would be teaching high-school students. Teenagers? All day? Seriously? I vividly remember high school and although I had a blast as a student, I have no idea how all my teachers survived us. I think about all the spoiled, 16 year-old divas and the arrogant, punk boys trying to prove themselves and it sends my head spinning. I really think I lucked out to get the best students in the world. Of course I have class clowns and those that would rather pull out their own teeth than study English, but it’s been a great challenge for me to try to reach out to those that think they are beyond the bounds of learning.

For example, there is this one boy in my classes— his name is Nao. At the beginning of the year, Nao was always one of the first to raise his hand and he was clearly a good English student. Soon enough though, I saw him begin to fade out. His particular class has a lot of the “cool” kids (it’s interesting to observe the universality of these dynamics, by the way) and many of them clearly felt that English was “uncool.” Soon, I had to call on him to get an answer and sometimes, after looking quickly around at his classmates, he would suddenly look down and give me a wrong answer or act like he didn’t know—but I knew he knew. I stopped giving him public attention because I saw very quickly that he was only withdrawing to gain acceptance from his peers. I didn’t want to encourage this, so I directed my attention to the outgoing students that genuinely did struggle with English and helped them feel comfortable in my classroom with participating and actually trying to learn. In the meantime, I still made a point to praise Nao and check his work, but I did so quietly, while the class’s attention was focused on group projects or individual work so that he wouldn’t feel targeted. I would stop by Nao’s desk, as I try to do with every student, and I would make sure to compliment something he did well or point out a right answer he marked in his book.

Over time and after a lot of conditioning, the students’ attitudes toward English began to change and now his class is one of my most enthusiastic classes. Even the “cool” kids like to volunteer when I ask for help and they hassle each other for giving wrong answers. Nao has opened up again and it feels so good to see his smile after he’s answered a question correctly in front of his classmates. The truth is that these kids just want to be accepted. They, like all of us, want to feel like they belong. Sometimes they, like all of us, seek approval from the wrong people and end up lowering their standards to impress people they don’t actually like. Ultimately though, they want to be good! They want to learn; they want to do well and, believe it or not, they want to contribute to the classroom. My responsibility as their teacher is to create an atmosphere that allows them to do that. I want all my students to know that they can answer questions without fear of ridicule from me or their classmates. I encourage participation and welcome any effort—and I praise...a lot, especially when they genuinely try but make mistakes.

It’s hard to be a teacher and see students withdrawing from something I KNOW they are capable of learning because they don’t believe in themselves, but it’s absolutely incredible to see that processed reversed. I have so much more respect for my old teachers now and I have learned a ton about myself because of this job.

I’ve learned that I care. A lot. And sometimes this makes life really hard for me—because I get deeply attached very quickly—but it’s also been a great strength for me because I know that my students can tell how much I care about them...and they really respond to that. I can see in their eyes that they want me to be proud of them, that they brighten with my praise and that they need to feel special and individually recognized. I’ve also learned that people will often rise or stoop to what they feel is expected of them. I’ve learned that it’s possible to love teenagers and that it’s possible to intimately connect with others despite staggering barriers of culture and language.

I’ve learned that I have to be passionate about what I do. If my whole heart isn’t invested in something, I can’t do it, even if it’s convenient for me or expected of me. On the other hand, if my whole heart IS invested in something, it doesn’t matter how many obstacles smack me in the face or knock me off my course, I can, and will, stick it out because I’ll want to see it through. Despite the challenges that have come my way in the past 10 months, I have been blown away by the unending stream of blessings bestowed upon me. This is because my heart has longed for everything that living in Japan has given me. I have been able to devote myself to my work out here and that has resulted in more peace and satisfaction with my job than I ever anticipated. It’s hard! Most of the time I have no idea what I’m doing and I’m making it up as I go, rolling with the punches and trying to make the most out of the chaos, but I’ve learned to laugh at my mistakes, recognize my weaknesses, and get down on my knees to thank the Lord for all of it anyway. My goodness, what a beautiful ride it has turned out to be.