First Day of School Recap

First Day of School:

6am - Woke up simultaneously by the town's bells and my own alarm. Looked outside and saw a beautiful day.

6:05 am - Remembered it was the first day of class. Got excited. Feeling good, feeling great.

7am - Got ready to go. Clean shaven and decked out.

8am - In the ride and driving to school.

8:25am - Parked at school. Feeling kind of anxious. Where'd that knot in my stomach come from?

8:30am - Sitting in a teacher's meeting not knowing a single thing being said. Feeling pretty dumb but it makes me think about how my students may feel when they don't understand me...

9:00am - An assembly is held in my honor. Wait, what? All the students and teachers congregate in the gym and I am formally introduced to the school. I give a speech in English to introduce myself. And the crowd goes wild like Hollyfield has just won the fight. Hey, maybe I shouldn't feel so nervous after all...

10:00am - First class. Most of my lessons this week will be class introductions so I just put on a smile and talk loud and slow. Confidence always pays. They looked half scared, half excited. I told them about myself, my family, my college and my hobbies. Then I taught them how to do the robot. They loved it! I felt half man, half amazing.

11:00am - rest of the day - I had 3 other classes today and please, believe the hype: I had heard that we'd feel like celebrities here but I didn't realize they'd seriously treat me like a superstar. The kids were so excited to see me. They'd run up to me in the halls and wave frantically from afar. I was apparently able to tame one of the loudest and most rambunctious classes just by being there. One girl asked to take a picture with me (I politely declined).

Afterschool - I walked around, talking to as many students as I could. I wanted to come across as friendly and non threatening as possible. I asked them about themselves and their club activities and joined in wherever I could: handball, volleyball (missed all my serves), band (played the snare), computer club (got served in a computer game) and so on. I sat in on a student council meeting and then told them about my high school back in the 90's.

This, I found, was a great approach. Students became even more receptive and liked that I was taking an interest in their hobbies and activities. I let them teach me Japanese to show that it's okay to not know a foreign language and that it's a learning process.

Just like high school in the states, students here are afraid of making mistakes, especially in front of their peers. So I wanted to start encouraging them early on. If I make them comfortable it'll be easier to teach them.

All in all, I gotta say it was a good day.