Mr Ferguson’s Classroom

At Midori Hoikuen, the lunch menu is written by a student as a daily classroom chore, then read to class before everyone eats. Unfortunately, even after it was explained to me, the best I can translate is that it’s a little technical, except for the bottom line which reads みかん, mican, meaning orange.

Today’s lunch was nishime, vegetables boiled in water and soy sauce. At the bottom left is lotus root, carrots, french beans, and chikuwa, made from fish. The bottom right is koyadofu, a kind of tofu. Top right is a spinach steamed with bonito flakes (fish, but tastes salty like ham). Top left is potatoes boiled in soy sauce in water. Rice, oranges (locally in season right now), a banana and tea.

I’m happy some new visitors found my pictures last week. To answer some questions left in comments:

The children in the nursery school have recess about three times a day, which doesn’t include group game activities like dodgeball, kick the can, relays, walks or swimming in the summer. Each classroom door leads to an open air hallway and then the children are outside. The doors and windows are open, even in winter if it’s not too cold.

On preparation, usually two cook teachers, as they are respectfully called, prepare the 70-80 lunches for the students and teachers in the school. I see them cutting vegetables when I arrive around 9, and finishing up around 4 or 5, after they’ve prepared snack, which is also usually handmade. They also buy food directly from grocery suppliers, but follow food guidelines determined by the prefectural government.

Thanks for the comments.

I’ve recently been inspired by two vocal advocates for healthy lunches and better food/cooking education for school children. The first is Jamie Oliver, who is using his recent TED Prize award to fight obesity in America.

The second is a teacher anonymously blogging as she eats her school’s lunch every day in 2010.

One of the most stressful times for me as a teacher in America was lunch time, of all times when I needed peace the most.  I hated it because everyday my children got packets of sauce or dressing to slather on their food, which I had to open because their 5 year old hands were too small. I hated cleaning it off of them when they tried to open it by themselves, thinking that nothing about their lunch was made with children in mind. I hated being rushed, often not even finishing my own lunch. And I hated watching trays, plastic cutlery, napkins, milk cartons, and unwanted food thrown away, sometimes twice a day.

I hated that children were given food completely removed from a source and provider, and taught that that everything in the lunchroom is disposable. So when I moved to Japan, I immediately noticed the differences in the hoikuen (nursery school) lunch experience. I noticed table cloths, real plates, cups and utensils, children serving each other in their own classrooms, the secular blessing “Itadakimasu” said always before a meal, eating broccoli and finishing it, and rice, fresh fruit, and tea every day. The only frozen food I’ve eaten at lunch here is a frozen orange served as a dessert.

I respect what the anonymous teacher is advocating for so much, so I’d like to start posting one of my school lunches every week as sort of an international counterpoint to her school’s lunch program. I am not trying to suggest that the hoikuen lunch is perfect, nor best for American school lunch programs, nor that there aren’t American lunch programs much better than mine. However, for a little perspective, I want to share one way that children are fed in one school, in another country. The children’s lunches are just like my pictures only with smaller portion sizes. So for today’s lunch, I ate:

Tuna salad made with noodles, carrots, cucumbers, homemade, tofu burgers with green onions (I forgot to ask what else), broccoli, miso soup with konbu seaweed, mushrooms, green onions, and daikon radish, rice, and strawberries.

When I returned to Japan from Christmas vacation, this was my first school lunch:

Baked salmon, aemono (cold vegetable dish) with spinach, tofu, carrots, konyaku, persimmons, and sesame seeds, soup with konbu and mushrooms, rice, a banana and tea. This is typical of what I eat for lunch most days, and to say that I was happy to eat it shows how much my food tastes have changed since I moved here.

One day a month, the school’s cook (or cook teacher, as she is called, as opposed to lunch lady) takes a day off, and all the children bring an obento to school. It would be unfair to simply translate obento as a lunch box, as there is a lot more care in presentation and health that goes into these meals. The containers are small but are meant to contain several different foods. Children also bring small plastic mats to sit on, and we eat outside.

The NY Times recently had a nice article on them, for more info, but take a look for yourself:

and mine, lacking in cartoon faces.

 

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This is currently my youngest English student, and seems to be getting the hang of things.

In a children’s bookstore, I found new print of Kaijutachino irutokoro, Where the Wild Things Are, with two advertisements on the cover: one that Obama read this book to a group of children on Easter, and two that the film adaptation would be in theaters in Japan January 2010. The teachers and I agreed it would be worthwhile to have a Wild Things themed Halloween party this year, so we spent a couple weeks making costumes and having the children make masks from scrap paper.

We started the party out of costume, did a few songs together, then one teacher read the Japanese version of Wild Things while I and the other teachers changed. The children then trick-or-treated at each classroom, then in the teacher room where we had set up a “haunted house”. In Japan, there are traditional holidays that involve a considerable amount of scaring, so the teachers really encouraged the idea of scaring children at Halloween. Some children laughed, some cried, but everyone managed enough courage to get a piece of candy.

Now this could easily be viewed as inappropriate and seditious, as I first did, but I later realized that the teachers saw it as a fun activity, a way to give children a reasonable challenge to overcome. They respect the kids enough to feel comfortable scaring them. After two Halloweens now, I think I agree with the teachers. There’s nothing wrong with a good scaring if it’s done in fun. Although, anytime I explain this to someone, I embrace for backlash that it’s damaging and traumatic for children. People said the same thing about Where the Wild Things Are, though, to which Maurice Sendak replied, “let’em wet their pants.”

Here’s a video from our Haunted House. Enjoy and let me know what you think.

 

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Almost daily this summer, a child approaches me with two hands clasped over each other, concealing some insect that they’ve found on the playground. The first thing I saw children doing on my first day of teaching was actually catching cicadas with butterfly nets. This year, when the semi (cicadas) congregated in the cherry blossoms, I watched the children catch dozens, keep them in plastic terrariums for a day, then release them the next day and watch them fly back into the trees.

In August, I found children huddled around a cardboard box just outside the 5-year classroom door. Apparently, a man who works at a nearby recycle shop stumbled on a colony of kabutomushi (rhinoceros beetles), and delivered about two dozen of them in a box as a gift to the nursery school. For the next month, children kept them in small terrariums, tending to them by spraying water on the soil daily, and keeping them stocked with beetle food, actual packets of food you can buy in general stores (they look like packages of jelly candy) and cabbage. The 5-year teacher planned time to share books about beetles and other insects, and helped students make posters about them and the cicadas. The language from these projects found its way into the children’s daily conversation and journals (how I learned the word ‘kabutomushi’ was from asking children what animals they liked that week).

Of other insects, I’ve seen kids with praying mantises and walking sticks bigger than their hands, butterflies, roly polies, dragonflies, and lightning bugs. The size of most of these insects (roly polies excluded) make them incredibly fascinating creatures for children to observe and interact with. It’s something I can’t quite find an equal comparison to from my own childhood.

Japan is also home to many dangerous insects, such as centipedes, spiders, and hornets, all of which in their giant forms are highly venomous, requiring immediate attention if a child is bitten or stung. Teachers have told me that about once a year, they, or the children, will find a mukade, giant centipede, on the playground. Just this week I saw all the 4 year students outside their classroom because a hornet had flown in through a window. The principal, armed with a spray can and a dustpan, managed to shoo him back out.

But the risk of finding a mukade doesn’t stop teachers from allowing children to collect insects, and the possibility of a hornet flying into the classroom doesn’t stop them from opening the windows. The fear for the worse doesn’t keep them from enjoying the best. It would be a worse crime to keep children from enjoying the outdoors, even if in the name of protecting them from it. Thinking about this and the ways in which people attempt to protect children reminded me of an Eisenhower quote I had to look up to remember, ”we must not destroy from within what we are trying to defend from without”. Whether the threat from without is an insect, or television, or a speech, this seems like reasonable advice for anyone responsible for raising children.

There’s a rice field just outside of my apartment, and when I last posted the plants just barely peaked out of the pool of water, so little that you could still see the clouds and surrounding buildings reflected in the fields. The rice is knee-high now, which means the summer has passed without writing about it. My apologies to those still reading, all five of you. To get caught up, here’s a clusterblog to explain my hiatus.

I did a fair share of traveling in May in June,

first to Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing for Golden Week (the Japanese Spring Break). This was a whirlwind tour of China, not for the weak-minded, requiring minimal sleep, counting in two new languages, and using every available form of transportation at our discretion (bikes in Shanghai, a mountain ascending tram in Hong Kong, an overnight train to Beijing, and a sled down the Great Wall). It wasn’t made any easier with the beginning of the swine flu media scare right as we left.

This was the last big trip for Tara and I, my fellow English teacher and all-time best traveling companion. It took us both two weeks to recover from the lack of sleep and some ill-fortuned gyouza (and we laughed when pork was being recalled after the swine flu panic).

Meanwhile in the schools, teachers were hosting Dr. Constance Kamii from UAB for a month of professional development. Each school studied children playing the games Guess Who, Blink, and Mancala to look at the development of logical reasoning in children. There were also several outdoor activities while the weather was still nice.At one school, we took a bus to the Fukuyama zoo. At another, we spent the day at the park and had a picnic. In May, we planted rice in mud fields, and lots of flowers to keep around the school.

Then in June, I came back to America to visit friends, family, and a couple conferences in Long Island, Princeton, Birmingham, Atlanta, and Columbia. Highlights include a day trip to Philadelphia (pictured), going to the zoo with my niece and sister, 4th of July barbecue with the family, disco party in Birmingham with friends, and getting to share our eye-movement study with other researchers.

At the WLU conference, 5 former and current English teachers and 5 Japanese principals reunited for the week, including a presentation of our eye movement research with nursery school students. We also relived our infamous night of salsa dancing in Brisbane last year (where we first discovered that our Japanese colleagues, serious principals by day, turned into “dancing machines” at the sound of a conga) in the one salsa club in Columbia, South Carolina. There’s something in the rhythm, I guess, that allows for a year’s worth of repressed emotion to erupt on a dance floor, so much that the owner of the club pointed out one of our most spirited principals and said, “Now this one here knows how to have fun!”

And back in Japan, I’ve returned to the things I remember from when I first came: children catching cicadas, fireworks festivals, and practicing the stilts for this year’s sports festival. This time around, though, I can understand more of what the children are saying to me and others, filling some large gaps of understanding I had the last year. I hope that this year will be spent getting to know the children and teachers better, studying more Japanese and seeing more of the country, and getting more of it written down. Here’s to the new school year!

In this part of Japan, the sakura (cherry blossoms) have gone from pink to green this week, losing their flowers to wind and rain and growing new leaves. Most cities have cherry blossoms planted everywhere- in parks, medians, train stations- so when they are in bloom even the view during your daily commute is transformed. 

Hikari nursery school has the largest sakura in the area on their playground, so last week they held a hanami, picnic under the flowers, just for the grandparents of the children. 

Midori nursery school held a hanami at night for the teachers. Spotlights were placed under the tree; sometimes a hanami is more a party than picnic that can go into the night. We ate obento’s together, which are carefully arranged dinner boxes of traditional Japanese foods. I contributed Girl Scout cookies to the dessert, thanks to my parents who carried a supply to me last month. 

On the weekend, I ventured out to a nearby temple famous for its sakura. Hundreds of people shared the same idea, and hiked up a mountain to Senkoji temple to picnic and drink under the trees. I wandered around, bought some local oranges and honey, and took lots of pictures. 

Even without a planned event, it felt like everyone took any excuse to be outside, be it a walk around town, drinking sake under a tree, or even just taking a longer recess at school, all of which in their own way shared a reverence for the new season. 

In the classroom, I started a couple new lessons, one with some of my recent graduates from Midori. It started as four girls sent to me full of pent-up energy after sitting at school all day, but now has increased to five. The other is with two brothers who graduated a few years ago from Hikari. One of them is apparently the top Karate student in the Hiroshima prefecture for his age. I’m not sure which lesson makes me more nervous (just kidding; it’s the girls). 

At Futaba nursery school, we’re preparing for an upcoming open school. As of yesterday, we’re considering performing 5 Little Monkies for the parents. 

 

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More soon!

Long time no blog. Spring has come and with it new projects, vacation, baseball season, the new school year, and the blooming of the sakura, or cherry blossoms. Every year when this happens, people gather wherever there are trees and eat and drink. I would be doing this today if it wasn’t raining, so instead I’ll try to catch up on what’s been happening. 

In Japan, the school year begins in April, with little break between it and the end of last year. So during March, I wrapped up English lessons with my 5 year olds. At each school, we planned cooking activities, preparing sandwiches, soup, and pizzas using recipes the children wrote.

During this time, we also collected eye movement research on about 20 children reading a picture book in Japanese. There were a lot of exciting moments documented during children’s reading, the analysis of which is my priority for April. 

And just after collecting the data for our eye movement study, I took a week off while my parents came to visit me for one of the best vacations I’ve ever had. We managed to visit two of my schools and meet all my coworkers, watch a sumo tournament in Osaka, go to a Spring festival in Kyoto, spot the Hiroshima Carps baseball team, be included in a wedding photo, eat wild boar. 4 major cities, 2 islands, and just about every mode of transportation available, all in one week. Being able to connect my family with my life abroad is certainly the highlight of my time spent here. 

And just after my parents left, and much sooner than I wanted, two of my schools held graduation ceremonies for the 5 year students. The largest part of my job here has been with these children, and I wasn’t ready to see them go.

Both ceremonies were very formal and emotional events, really unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed. Parents and teachers all wore dark suits. Children walked in one-by-one and sat in the front seats. The ceremony included a number of speeches where teachers, principals, and parents fought back tears to finish their message. 

After the children were handed their diplomas, the 5 year class sang a song to the incoming 5 year class. This really hit everyone pretty hard, including the elementary principal who came to say a few words to his new students. 

Last, the 5 year teacher spoke to her class, little of which I could understand but can only imagine was incredibly passionate and heartfelt, based on the increase in sniffles during her speech. During the year, the teachers and I talked a lot about pedagogy, and what kind of activities and methods are best for children’s learning development, etc. But really, anything that can produce that much love and care for the school, the teachers, and the children must be doing something right in my opinion.

I remember at the ceremony thinking about an article I had read recently about the U.S. Dept. of Ed. considering merit pay for teachers. Below is part of an editorial on the subject. 

 

Public-school teachers should have their pay tied to performance, Hobbs [Sen. Steve Hobbs, D-Lake Stevens] told Seattle Weekly.

Because merit pay has worked so well in the corporate world.

The times are schizophrenic, aren’t they? Just as we go ballistic over bonus pay in the financial world — even blaming it for causing the meltdown — President Obama and many lawmakers locally are pushing the same premise in the educational world.

There are a zillion versions of merit pay. But the basic idea is to link a person’s pay with some measure of whether they’re good at their job.

For Wall Street bankers, the gauge was profits or stock prices. For classroom teachers, it’s usually student test scores. Those who get higher profits or test scores earn more cash. Those who don’t are left behind, and eventually weeded out.

Simple, efficient, Darwinian. 

Except on Wall Street it was a disaster.

Setting aside the practical questions raised by how you measure performance, I thought about what it would be like, after Mika the 5-year teacher spoke at the ceremony, to tell her that she would get paid more if next year her students did better. How insulting that idea is to teachers like her that put their heart out and work hard because they love children. What an insult. 

Sorry for that tangent. Anyway, the best part of the ceremony for me was learning that 4 of the graduates were going to begin a private lesson with me in the afternoons, which I’m very much looking forward to. 

If the sun comes out, I’ll be sure to get pictures of the cherry blossoms posted, hopefully sooner than later.