Mr Ferguson’s Classroom

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.

 

 YouTube: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This entry was posted Saturday, November 14th, 2009 at 11:07 pm and is filed under Blog. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.