Sports Day

I started this blog entry by writing 'it's difficult for me to describe how different the students here in Japan are compared to the UK' ... but I'm editing that because it's not difficult - High School students here like Mickey Mouse. full stop.

Anyway on with the original entry about PE and sports day ...

I teach at a Senior High School so all the students are between 15 and 18 years old so they're about the same age as sixth form students at home. In the UK we don't have PE classes in sixth form, after we've finished compulsory education they no longer feel the need to subject us to the horror of PE classes. I obviously never complained.

I understand the education system at home is very different, in that we only study three or four subjects to A Level (and we're treated much more like college or university students than school pupils) where as they still cover a broad range of subjects at SHS so PE is naturally still included (and they're treated like children).

Considering this now - I think it's a good thing that they still do PE at this age I was reading some staggering statistics about obesity in Britain and I started to think we should have done more PE in school and for longer. But the problem would be motivating the students; even once we reach GCSE stage PE is definitely put on the back burner. We're still in compulsory education so we have to attend class but that's about as far as it goes. Tennis involved sitting on the flood banks watching the boys out in the further fields and trampolining included the strenuous exercise of all sitting around the trampoline and chatting. We'd given up and so had the teachers.

In our last year of compulsory education we don't even have to attend the school's sports day, it's our reward for being in Year 11 and having completed our exams and I don't think anybody feel hard done by.

In Japan however the classes in their third year (our Year 13) have to perform some elaborate dance performance in front of the school. They love it and it's taken very seriously. I was told by one of the students that they have been practicing since the beginning of May and at weekends they've been practicing for 7 hours. 7 hours?! (I find this unbelievable as the boys in 3B uncoordinatedly pranced around in stuffed bras and skirts but nevertheless…) I can’t possible imagine trying to motivate classes of forty 17-18 year olds in the UK to choreograph and perform a dance sequence, because lets face it (I know it’s terrible) but they’d all be in the pub!

This is just one example of the difference in the students and it’s much too big a topic to go into further now so I’ll leave it at that and get back to yesterday’s sports day.

This was the first time I’d spent the duration of the day at the Sports Festival, last year I had to duck out to spend a few hours at the dermatologist at Matsusaka hospital. My absence from much of last year’s day meant that I didn’t have to take part and I had a valid reason for it.

This year I was asked to run in the teacher’s race by one of my friends – I shook my head and pulled a funny face and they got the idea. Plus, we seem to have a huge group of student teachers in school at the moment (I’m sure there weren’t this many last year) that were overly enthusiastic to take part so I wasn’t really needed anyway.

I haven’t run a 200 metre race since I was 14 years old and as for a relay I don’t know if I’ve ever done one (at school I wasn’t bad enough at sport that I got to completely sit sports day out but nor was I good enough to do any of the track events, hence I became our class’ entry into the ‘events nobody else wanted to do’ i.e. throwing the shot put or javelin etc). The main reason I didn't want to take part was that I don’t like the image of everyone feeling sorry for Helen sensei as she trails her slow ass around the track and I especially can’t stand the idea of everyone watching me.

I was also asked to take part in the teacher’s skipping team, which would be fine but I’ve never done that in my life before either. So, I was left sat thinking that I’m a really bad ALT, that I should be more involved, that I should be more enthusiastic but when it comes down to it I don’t always like being the gaijin on show and acting like a clown while being told how kawaii I am.

The other notable even of the day was when I popped home (as I do every day) for lunch. I’d called into the teacher’s room, picked up my key and headed home. While I was making my lunch my home phone rang a couple of times, I didn’t answer it. Who else could be phoning me in the afternoon but some Japanese person I’m not going to understand and who is going to get me all flustered?

I arrive back at school and am walking back to the field when one of the teacher’s comes up to me ‘Helen sensei where were you?’ "at home eating lunch" ‘but I phoned you’ “erm yeah I don’t answer my home phone much” ‘ but lunch was prepared for you, it’s on your desk’ “oh well I guess I’ll eat it for my dinner”.

Later when I eventually get back to the teacher’s room I check my mobile phone and I have over 6 mixed calls from over lunch time from the teachers. By this point I’ve also had several teacher’s coming up to me ‘Helen sensei, where were you?’ “at home” ‘but… maybe … lunch was prepared for you’

Right, I think I’ve got it. Lunch was prepared, there’s a bento box waiting for me, no harm done they’re cold anyway and I can eat it for dinner. Please, I don’t need 6 different people to tell me!!! I like how EVERYONE feels the need to inform me that I wasn’t there to eat my prepared lunch when not one person had previously told me that lunch was going to provided today or you know told me anything about it being sports day, or about the students visiting from Palau which other ALTs from other schools have been invited to and I had to be told by them, or about the Saturday I was supposed to work but you didn't tell me until the day before or anything about me going home etc etc etc …

Anyway here are the pics from sports day …

The teachers skipping - ha ha ha

3A - They won best dance performance

Each homeroom class also makes a banner which I think is really cool and a great deal of effort seems to have gone into some of them. They parade them at the start and then they’re on display for the rest of the day.

The students also design their own T Shirts. Fiona - the female form seems to have been the in thing this year ...