Same sign?

Last week, I started teaching at a shogakko in Ashiya, the Beverly Hills of Osaka. It was a breath of fresh air, and once again my motivation has been jumpstarted after 6 months of losing momentum.
A few weekends ago I went to scope out the neighborhood, and spent a whole Saturday skating around town. Benzs, BMWs, Peugeots, Porsches, and other luxury cars make up the majority of the traffic in this area, and it seems like most of the residents here have never seen a skateboarder riding on their streets. The houses are nice and large, there are plenty of well-groomed trees and pathways (makes for good riding), and everything looks either new or well taken care of. In any case, you can tell that the people who live here have some serious wealth.
I took a ride down to the beach, and was surrounded by things that I really wanted to do but couldn’t. A group of kayakers kept pace with me along the shore as I skated towards some sailboats in the distance who were having a regatta. As I passed over a bridge, I paused to watch five separate groups of wakeboarders, who were taking turns riding and jumping down a wide open canal.
Ah, it was so frustrating to see all of these people doing all of these things that I have wanted for so long to do and not being able to join them! I know that I’m lucky to have been able to do even do these sports in the past. But because of my desire to do these things will almost certainly be unfulfilled, I think I’ll stay away from the beach at Ashiya from now on. Now I can better relate to those who have not, it has made me more thankful for all that I have.
The kids that I’m teaching in Ashiya are being raised in an environment so different from my that of my high school. To generalize, most of them have the support that they need from their parents and teachers, come from affluent families, and are adequately challenged by their classes. After teaching only the 4th grader classes for just one day, it is abundantly clear that these elementary school students are better at speaking English, and in many cases reading and writing, than my current high school students. When they grow up, these kids are destined to attend high-level high schools, and are much more likely to set their goals higher and to succeed.
It is sad to think that if my high school students had the same support and education as my elementary school students, they would be so much better off than they are now. Most of them are going straight into work instead of trade school or college, after they graduate in December (this is strange because most students in Japan graduate in April- another sign that I?m at an unusually low-level school). The function of my high school has been to keep them off the streets until they graduate, and to help place them into jobs when they finish school.
I truly like my high school students outside of class. I can see that that most of them are bound to live lives full of challenges that they are ignorant of and ill-equipped to handle. At the elementary school, I can and will make a small difference with my students for the limited time I have with them. At the high school, I will continue to do what I can, but the best thing I can do for them is to reach out to the few students who want to learn, and to talk with the others and share in their good times.
I have had a few small victories in my high school classes. Although they are a lot less disciplined and respectful than what I was used to, the kids generally find my lessons to be interesting, even if I think otherwise. They still read manga, text on their phones, constantly talk to each other, and sleep, but sometimes I can get almost everyone to pay attention to an activity or game. I am convinced that I could make a difference if I had my own class, but teaching at this school as a full-timer would likely burn me out like most of the other students who teach here.

The problem kid’s stack of manga reminds me of forts that I used to make out of sofa cushions.
I am also proud to say that the one ?problem? kid that I was warned “could become violent” and advised to let sleep in class actually pays attention, asks for my help on our assignments, and participates in my lessons. None of the other teachers can believe it, but he’s actually one of my better students. It just goes to show you that there is a way to get through to almost anyone, even the ones that are given up on by everyone else. What he really needs is to be challenged more in class, because he is clearly a smart kid, but that is not the way of the Japanese educational system. Clearly, the system has failed in his case.
I am thankful that I have been able to teach at schools ranging from one side of the spectrum to the other (regarding funding, quality of teachers, resources, etc…). It has given me a perspective on the educational system in Japan that few others have been able to experience. It is easy to see how a teacher who taught in only one or a few other learning environments (for example someone who has only taught in rural, high level, a technical, a remedial, special education, nursery, or the different ranges of trade schools, colleges, etc.) might gain a skewed perspective of the system and make sweeping, case-specific generalizations about the Japanese educational system.
So what are some things that can be done to fix the system in Japan? First of all, people who work for the Ministry of Education should be required to visit a wide spectrum of schools and participate in lessons on a regular and frequent basis, to witness the effects that their decisions and policies have on the students, teachers, and staff first-hand. There are too many decisions being made without listening to or considering the input from the trenches. Problems could be much more quickly, efficiently, and effectively spotted and mitigated if the administrators were grounded a little more in reality rather than basing their decisions solely on second-hand information and administrative theory and speculation.
Next, the goal of students ranging from kindergarten to junior high should mainly be to master conversation with a little bit of reading, writing, and grammar to supplement the curriculum. If learning is made into an interesting subject, then students will start doing better at it. Expecting junior high school students to focus on grammar and non-spoken English is unrealistic (not to mention boring) and has its roots in the Ministry of Education’s old way of thinking. One might think that the head honchos would question why they can?t speak English even though many of them had studied it over several years, and try to make changes to the system as not to repeat the same mistake with the subsequent generations of students at stake, but it just doesn?t seem like they do.
I am also of the opinion that the entrance tests for high schools are not appropriate for junior high school students. The tests put too much stress, even more stress that high school students in the U.S. are subjected to from taking the SATs, on these young children. On the other side, I have heard that the entrance exams for the universities and colleges that high school students take are relatively easy (in general).
Entrance into higher education is more heavily weighted by the high school that one attends than how one performs on the aptitude tests, or on one?s grades, in comparison to western schools. Why is this? Shouldn?t the tests given to older students have a little more riding on the stake of one?s future than the ones given to 14 and 15 year olds? All I know is that I would have never had a chance to go to a U.C. school if the fate of my educational future had been determined by my performance in junior high school.
Putting too much pressure on any living thing will stunt its growth, and I do think that the high school entrance exams have a net detrimental effect on Japanese students (I think that this would be a fascinating topic to do some serious research on). It is so sad to see how much the kids stress out right before the tests. They should be able to enjoy their childhood when they?re still so young instead of carrying an adult-sized burden.
The last big thing I would change in the system is to introduce an emphasis on learning individual, critical, and creative thinking. The perceived need for this change probably stems from the values that I was raised with in America, but it seems that the majority of my students can not or do not want to think for themselves. They prefer to make decisions and think about things as a collective, but wouldn?t it be better if the students could both function well on their own, and as part of a team(I do believe that students in the U.S. would benefit from learning how to work and play together a little bit more and be a little less self-centered in their ways of thinking and acting, but that?s another issue)?
Should this change come into effect, it would greatly cut down on the amount of time that people in this country spend on meetings and consulting with others before actually getting things done. Do meetings really need to be had to decide on when to have other meetings? Again, perhaps this is an ethnocentric goal, but I think it would be a good thing for everyone to be able to express their own opinions at times other than a drinking party.

It looks like Mark is finally making his way back home, after traveling around southeast Asia for about two months. Check out his pictures (dude, it took you long enough to post them!) and read all about his odyssey at his blog. Well done Mark, and good luck back in the States.

I’m not sure how I stumbled upon this (I think I was doing a search on Kyushu), but it was a good short story. I really like short stories, like the ones by by Hemmingway (like the Nick Adams series), Louis L’Amour, Phillip K. Dick, William Gibson, or those by Roald Dahl. It’s amazing how much you can make with so few words.
Lately, short stories are just about the only newly released literature that I can read. I can usually get through a magazine, or peruse a few chapters of a book before my legs start to get tired from hovering around the English section. If only Kinokuniya would put chairs in their store in Umeda, then I would be able to read as much as I like.
The one new book that I actually own and am still working on is America (the book). It is seriously the best book to have over here because whenever I crack it open at school, it looks like I’m doing work. All of the teachers assume that it’s a textbook and that I’m using it for a lesson! Ah, sometimes living in a country where few people are good at or interested in English has its benefits.
On a side note, I’m finding that trying to study Japanese by reading novels is not a very good or easy way to stay motivated. The literary form of Japanese is much different than colloquial Japanese, but I guess it’s the same with English and other languages.
I think most Japanese feel the same way, because they seem to prefer to ingest their words accompanied by pictures. I enjoy reading comics sometimes (right now I’m reading Preacher by Garth Ennis- thanks Huw), but usually I would rather read a book and let my mind generate everything inside of my head than let a comic construct a world for me. Unless I’m tired of reading, of course.

You should read Bruce Sterling’s post on (a book about) the possible misuse of RFID chips. If you’ve been keeping up with RFID news, the new version of the American passport is slated to have one of these chips imbedded into it, and there has allegedly been little thought given to security issues that will arise from their use (like identity theft and data mining). Don’t know what I’m talking about? You should find out.

This is going to be an awesome event! If you can make it to Namba on the October 16th (Sunday), come and join us. It’s going to be in Minatomachi by the river next to the radio station. If you want more information or directions to the place, let me know.

Sadistic he is, that guy…

It is only because my parent took us on trips up to Mammoth, along the California coast, and to places such as Yosemite and Kern County, that I grew up in the outdoors, among majestic evergreens and splashing about in streams and rivers. Southern California used to have a rich watershed that supported steelhead and Grizzlies, but long ago they were dammed off, paved over, and methodically eliminated, or changed to the point where they were unrecognizable from their previous natural state.
The only river near our house in Orange County is the Santa Ana river, which is not really a river at all any more. It’s just a huge concrete drainage conduit that channels runoff, prevents the ground from absorbing water, and efficiently flushes it out into the Pacific Ocean (why are we doing this when we have a limited fresh water supply?). The only fish you’ll find in there are the occasional goldfish or mosquito fish, along with some crayfish that subsist off of the decomposing crud that stinks up the pools. It is amusing to see the occasional kayaker in there when it starts flowing, but not so cool when kids fall in and drown in the straight, powerful current.
Japan is a land of mountains and rivers. Sure, the Japanese still like to dam up their rivers and streams for no good reason (while the general practice in the US has become that of removing dams and restoring watersheds to their former state because society has finally recognized the value of a healthy watershed), but there are so many rivers over here that some of them are yet to be ?modified to increase safety and efficiency? so they are still in pristine shape. To find such rivers, you must venture deep into the country and search out those hidden places that are unknown to or neglected by the average Ichiro.

Yamabuki suigen was my favorite place in Aso, because it was only 20 minutes away from my house, and no one went there except for me. After a hard day at work, I would often come here and walk through the primeval forest, sneaking up on frogs, toads, salamanders, voles foraging for food, wild songbirds, and even rabbits, deer and foxes. The water was so pure that I drank it without fear of giardia or other microbes. The water bubbled out of so many places in the forest, feeding the snaking river and creating countless islands of lush green in its swirling flow.
The best time to go was just after the sun started to fall from its peak in the sky, because the light would pierce the canopy as golden rays, breaking up the thick shadows. This is surely the religious experience that John Muir loved so much and fought so hard to protect. The forest was mine, because no one else knew about it, and if they did, they seldom, if ever, went there. I actually preferred to be alone here most times, rather than break the connection that I had with the forest.
Obviously, some people did come here on occasion, because I was always picking up trash on my hikes. It felt sacrilegious to let litter sit here, and I could not comprehend how anyone could do this. This is one thing that I hate about Japan. They should really know better than to litter- they have so little land over here that you would think that they would treat the little patches that they have with more respect. It kind of made me want to start my own Monkey Wrench Gang, and to start punishing the bastards who defiled these sacred grounds.

Ikeyama suigen is the spring that everyone visits in Ubuyama. It is a nice place, but this is the “lite” version of Nature- manicured and commoditized.
If you ever find yourself on the Yamanami Highway, passing through Ichinomiya and Ubuyama, I highly recommend dropping by Yamabuki suigen (spring). The other spring, Ikeyama suigen, is quite popular and famous (people always come with plastic jugs to bring water home with them), but Yamabuki is so much better. Even if you follow the signs to Yamabuki, you still might get lost, but that?s a good thing. It keeps some of the riff-raff out, and it makes for a challenge.
My favorite time to visit the spring is right after a snowstorm. I wish I had pictures to show you but, take my word for it, it is the most beautiful spot that I have found in Northern Aso. It looks too beautiful to be of this world.

I really enjoyed majoring in the Environmental Studies program at UCSB, but despite being well educated in environmental issues I find myself not living sustainably or making choices that really make a difference in the right way. It’s just too big of a pain in the ass to do, and there is no benefit from thinking about it. To be ignorant of the extent to which man has and continues to abuse the commons of the world is to be free of a huge dead albatross around one’s neck.
The choices I make are informed, but that doesn’t really make them any better than the ones made by people who don’t take such things into their consideration. Maybe that makes it worse, because I know the implications of my actions and I more often choose convenience or comfort over the right thing to do. But it is damned hard to live a life of environmental morality, and to live this way would be pretty unbalanced. I have never met anyone who hasn?t been part of the problem, just people who try to minimize the impacts of their actions.
Sure, I take the train or skate to work every day, and I refuse plastic bags or disposable chopsticks when ever it’s possible, and I even pick up litter when I go hiking, but does this make a difference in the big picture? I would have to say no, having seen how people over here treat their natural areas as garbage bins/ashtrays. In the end, only I know the size of my ecological footprint.
It’s quite agitating to witness countless people shed and discard the various layers of packaging from their food or drink immediately after leaving the convenience store. I think that the average time that a plastic bag from a 7-11 is actually used before it is discarded would be less than a minute.
In school, I have to use large volumes of paper in order to do my job effectively because there is only one way to effectively manage my students. They need to be given worksheets to do. As long as there are worksheets to keep them busy, the stress level for both teachers and students is kept to a minimum. It comforts them in a way that other teaching materials can and do not. It kind of works the same as switching on the TV as background stimuli. They concentrate on it but lapse into sub-consciousness, or at least that?s what it looks like to me.
But the price for keeping the students busy and contented is quite high. I use at least one sheet of B4 sized paper and sometimes two sheets of A4 per class. I teach 5 regular classes of 40 students per class, 3 elective classes of 20 students per class, as well as a special education class of 6 students. A4 paper(210x297mm) is roughly equivalent to a standard sheet of 8×11 (216x279mm) from the U.S., and B4(250x353mm) is about 1.4 times the size of a sheet of A4 (for more information than you probably ever need to know about the ISO 216 paper size system, check out this site).
This may not sound like a lot of paper but the four minutes of the pounding machine gun “clackclackclackclackclack”, of the paper hitting the print tray terminus upon ejection from the risograph (a copying machine used to print out large quantities), that it takes to spit out 250 copies drives home just how much paper I use. That translates into an inch and a half thick, 5 pound pile of paper per week! I can’t describe the amount of paper that is kept in stock in the copy room, other than to call it a fortified great wall of paper. It is disgusting how much paper we use here, but there is really no other way.
There is no recycling system set up either. It all goes into the burnable garbage bin with everything else. I think that the only way to reduce the consumption of paper on this scale is by:

1. replacing the need for paper with some other substitute (like computers or tablets)
2. changing the way lessons are taught (but this is Japan, the land of social and ideological immobility)
3. hiking up the cost of paper (and this doesn’t necessarily have to be in terms of money)

I have already maximized the utility of worksheets in my classes by cramming as much material possible in every available space, and trying to stretch the material over as much class time as I can without sacrificing the quality of the lessons, so I am doing as much as is reasonably possible as far as I can think of.
I wish that paper was more expensive in order to cut down on waste, but I’m glad that I have enough paper to make as many copies as I need to make my job easier. I’m not going to lose any sleep over this, but it does bother me enough to write about. Let this be a warning to those who major in Environmental Studies. It is depressing when you know about the really ugly problems around us, and wanting to do something about it unless you set realistic goals. Individual choices and actions do have meaning, but most of the time they don?t mean as much as we would like them to.

Every so often, I stumble onto really cool things, places, or experiences when I least expect to. I thought that I’d seen everything of interest around Juso within walking distance, but tonight my wanderings led me to some excellent blues music. Mishark and I were out exploring the neighborhood when we came upon the Howlin’ Bar in Tsukamoto. If Jake and Elwood Blues lived in Osaka, this is where you would find them.
As we approached the entrance, the unmistakable sound of a live show pulled us up the stairs and into the bar. I bought a glass of Yebisu, and sat down to watch the last part of the show. The band was awesome- there were two guys singing/playing the harmonica to a band that was obviously having a good time (as well as the audience). I don’t know how else to describe the show other than to say that these guys rocked!
I talked with one of the guitarists after the show, and he said that the band was just a bunch of guys that got together for a jam session. They played so well together that I had just assumed that they were a band. Apparently, these guys have live shows at Howlin’ about once a month, and it looks like a lot of other bands frequent the bar to put on live shows as well.
In any case, I have a new favorite bar in Yodogawa-ku. Check out the guitarist’s blog (in Japanese) for a schedule of live performances around Kansai. If anyone’s interested, there’s going to be another show on October 29th (Saturday). I’m taking tonight as a message- It’s not like I’m on a mission from God, but I know that it’s time to start going out and exploring new places more frequently.