10-13-06 Friday "Junior High"

FRIDAY, Oct 13, 2006 “Junior High”

TOP SECRET MISSION PROFILE:
Arao City Daisan Junior High School
Hiroshi Koba, Principal
Keisuke Mitsugi, Vice Principal
700 Honide, Arao-shi, Kumamoto 864-0012
TEL: 0968-66-0462 FAX: 0968-66-0977
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Arao Third Junior High School’s motto is “Full of Green, Flowers and Energy” located north east of Arao city, the school is right next to Omuta City in the Fukuoka prefecture. Coincidentally enough, it is only two blocks or so behind our hotel – the illustrious pink and green -Hotel Verde.

At one time this school had over a thousand students, but now there are only 232 students. At one time Arao city was a big coal mining city, but about ten years ago the coal plant closed, due to a diminishing supply of fossil fuel. In 1955 there were 1,500 students at Arao Third.

When you mine, you take coal off the surface then go lower and lower. It eventually got to the point where they would have to go so low that operating the mine no longer became cost effective. Many people moved away and have since added to the declining birthrate of this once vibrant town. Many of The one who remained Therefore, Arao is now living primarily off of its agricultural resource as a source of citizen income, the pear.

I haven’t mentioned this yet, but Arao’s logo has a pear instead of an “O.” The pears are round and a peach color and taste like a juicy mild apple. They are also the size of a large grapefruit or cantaloupe.

…This just in… Coal & Pears as Arao income will be covered more in depth in tomorrow’s broadcast. Stay tuned.

The mayor mentioned a few days ago that some of the middle schools are endangered of being combined/closed. The declining birthrate will force them to soon make some decisions about the current educational layout of facilities across the town.

Today the principal met us in the library of Arao Third JHS along with all the staff. We exchanged introductions and finally, Deborah a principle of a middle school near Boston, MA got her introduction somewhat right, not fumbling and leaving out words as she has done in the past. Our group applauded as she blushed.

Next I made my speech, as “Speaker of the Day” was bestowed upon me on this fine and sunny Friday. Here it is:

First off, we would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for welcoming us into your honorable and prestigious school. Whether you know it or not, you are a big part in creating an experience that will last with us for the rest of our lives. We have already experienced so many wonderfully different things in Arao.

1) In America, my pant size is a 36… In Arao it is a 97.
2) In America, when we eat a pear it looks like this. (here I motioned picking up a small piece of fruit and biting it easily.)… In Arao when we eat a pear, it looks like this. (I then motioned picking up a huge and heavy beach ball sized pear, rubbed it off on my shirt and took an enormous bite.
3) And, in America we have a saying, “I am so hungry that I could eat a horse.” … In Arao, some of us last night did just that.”

(Though we haven’t had it yet, we plan on eating Basashi tonight, which is like sushi – but RAW HORSE MEAT! Kumamoto is one of the very few places in the worlds where the people eat horse. I will certainly report my findings on this in a later journal.)

We represent many of the states from all over The United States and you should take pride in hearing that your Shoudai pottery is among the best pottery in the world.

Aside from all our differences, we have a lot in common too. We all are here to do one thing –and that is to educated the people who hold the future in their hands; the children.

We thank you again for helping us to understand how to teach them in your land, our land and around the world.

After I read this speech, I gave the principle a gift bag and he gave us all a special chop stick and chop stick holder coincidentally made of Shoudai pottery.


We had a quick Q & A session and learned that this middle school practices a no-bell system to help get the students into a self reliant mindset.

Things seem a bit more rigid from the pedagogy that principal portrayed. He talked about the importance of class control and self discipline quite frequently. One goal of the school he said, “is to boost reading, therefore we have a silent reading time each morning for 20 minutes.” Another goal is to teach discipline. One example of this that he cited is a recent school-wide mountain climbing activity.

EVERYBODY OSAGI!!!!
All students participate in “Osagi” cleaning duties, quietly without talking. The kids worked diligently on cleaning the floors, as they did the in all the other schools. Others watered plants, washed windows and cleaned sinks. The principal stays active in all areas.

A funny moment was when I asked a tiny teacher for a picture wth her during class. She agreed and I gave her my Meishi (business card) which has a English on one side and Kanji Japanese on the other. It also has a goofy picture of me, designed to make kids laugh. She was thrilled to get it and went to pass it out. I then gave all the kids in the class my card and they jumped for joy.

Later in the day, kids followed me around chanting: “Me-ei-shi! Me-ei-shi!” as they would at a baseball game or wrestling show. I was out of cards so I gave them all altoids and let me explain something to you. Super strong mints are not a taste that the Japanese are accustomed to and some liked it, others faced shrunk up like green tea leaves in water.

Here in the final Q & A session, we learned that Kumamoto requires all new teachers after three years of service to teach at a rural school. After 14 years, all teachers have to move to a new area. Also, I learned that teachers seem to get like 24,000 a year – though this figure may be different as there was some discussion on whether the translation was correct or not –AND the teachers don’t get anything for extracurricular activities more than 10 bucks. (The scary part about that is many don’t get home until 7-8pm!)


For being a very “rigid school,” or so I thought, the principle was awesome. At the end of the day he hung out with is and laughed and told jokes – a real down to earth kind of guy. A funny thing was that the day before we had to sit through an entire hour and a half direct instruction assembly on why you shouldn’t smoke. This principle invited Tom, Virginia and myself into his office to light up a Marlboro.

Curfew hit us and we rushed to our us to see our friend “The Prime Minister” once again, dubbed as so because he shared the same family name as the current Prime Minister of Japan. (I mean our bus driver.)

The teachers of the Elementary school all lined up and waved goodbye as we drove away. This was a regular practice and in return we would wave and bow from the bus for as long as we were in sight of them, driving away, a business custom taught to us by our group coordinator Naoko Oguruma. (Naoko’s regular profession is interpreting for businesses who train American businessmen in Japan.)