I'm back from the US, and have everything back into my regular run of things at the university here. I've come to a number of decisions on my feelings for Japan and university life, good and bad.
First a bit of news: My boss, Gerald Williams, has been appointed as the chair of the department for next year, making numerous professors comfortable in their lofty seats very uncomfortable. He is instituting many major changes into our department's structure. I see them as primarily for the benefit of the university, although some of them have a definite "Japanese" twist to them (probably to keep people from panicking and going wild (like wild...boars) from having the first NATIVE to head our department and immediately changing things). Plenty of people who are hurting the system are threatening to quit (or gracefully retire rich). Which works for me I guess.
The whole experience at the uni so far has lead me to understand that the school system is generally corrupt. It is the universities' fault. Elementaries are phenomenal simply because they are the only ones that seem to ignore these things entirely. I think I'll actually tell you a little a bit about them here before continuing any further.
Elementary school is at first only a few days a week for a few hours a day in the morning. Moms are free to stay and assist, and be accepted as a "mom" to all the kids there, or to go have some "me time." Other women seem to be allowed to come in and help, really...just to up and volunteer with little or no certification. Some of my favourite students, who are really just big kids at heart, are TERRIBLE students in English, not really motivated or anything, but are EXACTLY the kind of people that we'd need in America, I think (if they spoke English).
After a while, kids come 4, perhaps even 5 days a week (maybe six in some private schools, with a "half day" for Saturdays--meaning every other Saturday having a full day). Still, 5 hours a day is pretty typical. A small meal or snack is about all they bother with during that time. Dispite the time being so much less than in American elementaries, you tend to find they have greater responsibility, better test scores, plenty of skills, and a variety of arts. Local masters from different trades teach them, as I have seem myself, with perhaps moderate compensation for what they (the masters) probably feel is part of their moral obligation. Funny, it is once they get into LONG days 6 days a week in their later schooling that they seem to stop learning anything of much VALUE and turn into memorization machines...it is a top-down version of education, but honestly, if they kept people in something like elementary here for 20 years, they'd get more out of it as a human being! Honestly, kids here seem to be more capable individuals with more responsibilities than college students, in some ways. What a mess.
I'm going to go participate in another Elementary school event this Sunday though, so that will make me a bit happier about things!
It's funny, I realized, that I've really had no real communication problems with getting what I want since I came to Japan. Not having to do with language. Sure, sometimes others seem to have problems getting me to understand what they want, which is partially my fault and partially a failure of the English education system in Japan (OK, a large part). I've had even less problems communicating with those who are also foreigners to Japan (
gaijin, pronounced almost like "guy-jean"). They usually know English better than the average Japanese if they are living in Japan, since they tend to be internationally-prepared folks in general if they are in Japan, at least on the linguistic level if not the cultural level. I'd say on the cultural level, Japan might as well be LIKE a 2nd language to me, being that I honestly feel I have more of an awareness and understanding of their culture than most natives seem to here! I think this has been the key to my making it here. Understanding precedes language when it comes to living in other places, every time. They are of course linked in an unbreakable way, but enculturation comes first.
A group of my students from the Learning Support Center, one of my man little jobs in and around the school and in the community, will likely be continuing classes with me after they close for the break. Basically meaning:
THEY LIKE ME! THEY REALLY LIKE ME!
ahem.
Anyways. Those are my Okinawan kids. They are great kids, really quite cool. And I'm not just saying that because they are deciding to keep me on beyond their school requirements, hahah. Next class we are throwing a potluck in celebration of our last formally constricted class through the LLC. So other than having a cold and being super-busy, things are going GREAT again.
I'm only wondering how well I'll be doing when I can never see all my students here again!
