Hey readers, before today’s blog post I want to make a
quick announcement about my blog and the several missing days’ worth of posts.
Since I am now far behind and every time I try to catch up I fall even further
behind. In light of this I’ve decided that I will now continue posting blog
updates from today. I will still post the missing days but I will be doing them
during free times. As for YouTube videos, I will be beginning to edit this
weekend though at the moment I am unwell so it may end up being next weekend.
Evening guys! Today has been an absolutely amazing day in
terms of work. Recently more and more so I have been filling so happy with the
way my life is going right now. Today we were to start in Honcho Nursery and
Kazzeko after school club. Both of these places were in the town of Abuta which
was a 15 minute or so drive from our home in Lake Toya. Erika-san picked us up
at 9am and we drove to the nursery first.
We arrived just in time to see all the children grabbing
their hats and shoes as they were about to go on a walk. We quickly put our
stuff away and got ready ourselves and I have to say: the yellow caps the kids
wear are so adorable! The way they all have to hold hands while walking is also
so cute and there’s always some disagreement on who should hold mine.
I should express now that the Japanese attitude towards
health and safety is so different to in the UK and even USA. Whilst they still
have their own health and safety laws, I have come to learn that risk assessments
are either non-existent or aren’t scaring teachers from taking children outside
of the school grounds. We’ve been on so many spontaneous walks with a variety
of locations and not once has anyone started screaming about pieces of paper.
It’s really refreshing to be given a large degree of freedom in working with
children.
The other thing that is very different is the attitudes
towards contact with children. Back home when I was working in schools it was
always a no no to hug a child, even if they were crying their eyes out and
tried to hug me themselves. Playing also had to be safe and running around,
climbing up things was always frowned heavily upon. HOWEVER! In Japan, the
staff will happily sit and watch an army of 5 and 6 year olds beat us to death
with paper swords and tackle our legs and all I can say is that it is
absolutely brilliant!
Children can be children and it makes me so happy to be able to witness it. I’ve come to describe Japan as a 1950’s setting with updated technology because that’s how it feels. No one’s terrified of each other, communities work and know each other as well as attend events. Children play outside without fear and people stop in the street to talk to each other. It reminds me a lot of the stories my grandma back home tells me about and I am so glad that I have been able to witness something so similar to how it was for her when growing up.
But anyway! We went on a massive long walk up to the
observation lookouts where you could see the Volcanos. It was the same place
Taka-san took us during the first week of us being in Toya. The journey was
very long and tiring but I was smiling the entire way. We would mess around
slightly as we walked by running to catch up to the group, getting tangled up
since we were holding hands with the children and also see if they could hi-5
us from a height of 5ft. It was brilliant and so much fun.
The highlight of my day has to be the Kazeko after school
club. When I first went to visit Kazekko I was surprised by how many girls
there was. The number was along the lines of 19 girls and 5 boys. However, I
was a fool to believe that this place would be calm and quiet just because it
was mostly girls because oh man,.. they can be very energetic. For the most
part we just ran around and did keepy uppy with these strange inflatable paper
cubes and then played Othello which it would seem my partner hates.
The most amusing part of the day was a little girl called
Azumi-chan. When I first met her (before I knew her name and we’d just arrived
at the after school club) she was crawling around on all fours and meowing to
me. I wasn’t really sure what to do so I played a long and knelt down and
patted her head smiling. She was really adorable and really small for a 7 year
old. For the rest of the night she was very clingy and tried constantly to be
with me which I didn’t really mind as she was very funny to watch.
From what I can tell she has some extra support from the
staff for whatever reason and they’ll often hold her meaning she couldn’t run
around freely but every time they did that she would look at me and start
stretching her arms towards me. It was really adorable. When I asked her name
she wouldn’t tell me so I asked the sensei who was with us and when she told me
it was Azumi, the little girl went bright red and hid in the teacher’s arms.
The most embarrassing part came when it was time for her
to leave. She waved and shouted good-bye to me from the other end of the hall
which made all the teachers laugh and they kept making comments that she had a
little crush on me and that it was strange because she wasn’t usually fond of
strangers or even other people. At that moment we were all going back into the
main room anyway but as soon as I walked in, she ran up to me, grabbed my arm
and dragged me over to low and behold.. her mother.
I stood there awkwardly as the teachers burst out
laughing making me feel very embarrassed as I was not sure what to do as there
I was with this little girl who is obsessed with me, showing me off to her
mother who speaks 0 English and has never met me before. I managed to muster up
a greeting in Japanese of ‘hajimemashite and douzo yoroshiku’. Once she did
leave she continued waving all the way down the drive to me through the window.
She seriously is the cutest kid I’ve met and I’ve worked with a lot of children
so far.
So all in all, today was brilliant and I am loving every
moment out here in Japan. Thanks for reading and make sure to check back tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment