Appreciation of Saint Stephen's

****IMPORTANT-READ BEFORE READING THIS POST*** I wrote this on the airplane on the way to Japan, but I wanted to wait to bookend it with reflections at the end of my trip-coming later today. It's not meant to be disparaging towards public schools, just reflections on the public school system based on what I've heard from other teachers, and an honest appreciation for the Saint Stephen's community.

Even though I’m on the plane and haven’t yet set foot in Japan, I’ve learned so much from my colleagues at schools across the United States. Over 90% of the teachers in this program are public school teachers. Since I attended and worked at Catholic schools before my job at Saint Stephen’s, I hadn’t realized just how broken, in many ways, our public school system is. When caught up in the daily grind of life at Saint Stephen’s, it can be easy to forget that we are, in many ways, an academic bubble. In the first 5 hours of meeting my colleagues in San Francisco, I began to feel like I wasn’t worthy of this fellowship. I love my job and my school, and I feel that I’m supported in pursuing what is best for the library. I already bought into the notion that teachers are great people who are passionate about sharing knowledge with young people. But I didn’t realize the adversity that many of them encounter in order to do the work that they love. Here are some comments that I heard on day one:

1. “We strive for around 30 (students) per class, but frequently it's around 35.” –Elementary school teacher
2. “No one asked me for lesson plans, and I know they don’t have the budget for a sub, but I’m hoping they’ll (the students) be supervised by a para. I also left Halloween coloring sheets and crayons. That’s probably what will happen.” –Elementary school art teacher
3. “We have lcd projectors in every classroom. My bulb burned out. I put in a request last fall. I still haven’t heard back.” –High school teacher
4. “We teach to the TAKS!”-Texas middle school teacher
5. “Over 75% of my students are obese. None have ever left the country. I don’t know if any have left the state. They can’t even picture Japan.” High school teacher
6. “All our principal cares about is pursuing the Assistant Principal and test scores.” Intermediate school teacher.
7. “I’ve got it pretty good. Every other year, my kids are scoring at a second grade level. This year, they’re coming to me at 4.” -5th grade teacher
8. “Everything’s about the FCATs.” –Florida high school teacher
9. “We had to cut gifted classes. They’re (the gifted students) already fine.” –Middle school teacher
10. “Why don’t they (the parents) care? Can’t they see they’re hurting their kids when they shoot up!” –Special Education teacher

Two teachers had to drop out because their schools wouldn’t support this once-in-a-lifetime professional development opportunity. Two are here on unpaid leave. One of those two said that she’s been assured that her position won’t be eliminated while she’s away. When I asked Mr. Lisk and Mr. Snodgress about applying for the program last fall, when they had only known me for three months, both immediately responded, “Go for it!” and wrote recommendation letters. Having been at the school almost another full year, I can’t believe how little they must have known about me when they agreed to write the letters. I want to give the Saint Stephen’s administration a heartfelt thank you for supporting professional development in general and my participation in this program in particular. I can’t wait, figuratively speaking (I definitely want to experience the Japan portion of my travel!), to return to Saint Stephen’s and teach our students and teachers. One of my main goals as a librarian is to serve as a resource to students and faculty in the school, and I am excited to think about the potential impact of this program on the Saint Stephen’s community.

One girl in this program is working on her PhD thesis on community-school relations. She described her ideal school environment as one in which the parents trusted the administrators’ expertise in running the school and in which families would use the school on nights and weekends. This is far from the case at her school. I immediately thought to the volleyball games late in the evenings, Boy Scout meetings after school, Mr. Yanelli’s study skills program, the booster club car washes on Saturdays, and the Sunday AP review sessions. I know that it’s easy to lose perspective; we’re experiencing an unstable economy, have the need for an honor council, and sometimes have to track students down for mandatory community service. Yet, we are so so fortunate to have the strong, intentional, Saint Stephen’s community. Every family has made the choice to send their child to Saint Stephen’s and every teacher has made the choice to make this their home away from home. Other teachers in this country are dealing with a 50% drop out rate, authoritarian principals, metal detectors at the doorways, daily false fire alarms, and 5th graders writing curse words across the school hallways. The one girl I’ve spoken with in-depth who works for an independent school is the school’s curriculum coordinator and teaches an environmentality/sustainability class that she created to fourth through sixth graders. It’s highlighted at the end of each year by a trip to Yosemite (4th), Catalina Island (5th), and a working farm (6th). Teachers in inner city schools are struggling to find outdated textbooks for all of their students. I don’t think it’s a difference in teaching ability but in facilities and opportunities to connect with students and share our passions. Let us continue to strive for the best for our students and for ourselves.

One person said, in response to my feeling like the spoiled little rich kid in comparison to others that she was glad I was here because the kids I teach are going to be the ones creating the policy one day. I can’t argue with her; she’s right. Even though we must continually strive to improve Saint Stephen’s, it is a successful school environment. Our students have a wide range of intellectual abilities, but everyone has a family support structure and the ability to use the school support structures. “We’re not just teaching reading and writing. We have to teach them how to be human beings. We have to teach them to say please and thank you. All they know at home is being yelled at.” This was said by an inner city elementary teacher. We also are concerned with educating and nurturing the “whole child,” but I believe that our bar is raised a bit higher right from the start. I don’t think of my job as just a job and I certainly don’t think of this as a vacation. I think of all of the teachers I work with in the middle and upper divisions (I’m sure it’s true in the intermediate and lower divisions as well; I just don’t know you well enough enough yet!) and I’m motivated by their intensity, challenged by their scholarship, and in awe of their knowledge. We were all hired as teachers and administrators, but we’re not just passing along subject material, we’re also sharing ourselves. Some teachers were saying that they can’t hire people from the same family in the same district, let alone the same school. I can see how this could be an issue for concern but I think our school benefits so much from trust it entails; the entire lives of some of our teachers are tied to the school. We all have a vested interest in improving the Saint Stephen’s experience.

And whether or not you are connected with Saint Stephen’s, you have a vested interest in the US educational system. Remember the 80’s song, “I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the future they possess inside. Give them a sense of pride.” As a group of 158 teachers coming together from all states in America, we have a wide range of political opinions represented. Yet, I haven’t heard one teacher who believes that No Child Left Behind is reaching all children. The elections are coming up soon…

Here’s a brief addition to my earlier writings. (There’s also going to be a long ending reflection piece posted tonight.) When we visited the schools, I kept hearing from the other teachers about how respectful and welcoming the students were. I’ll agree; as you know from my earlier posts, I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with Tomigusuku students. I did not think that their behavior, however, was out of the ordinary. Saint Stephen’s students greet visitors politely, smile, and include them in their school day when appropriate. We had an incredible all school welcome for our Chinese guests last year! Students (and some parents) volunteer to come to school early to meet with students at the Lugalo School! Other teachers said that their students would ignore (best case scenario) or curse at, spit at, or mock school guests. Thankfully, I have no point of reference for that. I have always been very impressed with the public behavior of Saint Stephen’s students, and that’s one of the reasons I think it was necessary to start the Ambassador program. I’m proud of our students and think that they do an excellent job of representing the school. I know we all get worn down by the daily grind, but we need to count our blessings!

Arts Education in Japan

There was an Arts Education seminar on Tuesday morning that I didn't attend because I attended the environmental education seminar instead. The arts education seminar was led by Mr. Chihiro Tada, the Arts Education Institute Director. I kept hearing compliments about his presentation all morning, so I got notes from an art teacher who attended his presentation. Art teachers, this one's for you!

Tada believes that art education should be conducted when children are very young because art enhances creativity and imagination. Art produces the ability to express and becomes the sensibility of a person. "To know is not even half as valuable as learning to sense." But, Japanese education stresses learning by knowledge and memorization, and more emphasis is placed on science and math education than on arts education. In part, this is the tradition of Japanese education, but in part it's because industry and engineering respect knowledge more than creativity. Tada thinks that this needs to change and worries that if it doesn't, the arts will become an elective course of study in Japan. He also cited research on scientists who have won the Nobel Prize in Physics; the research showed that the winners spent a lot of time drawing as children. Drawing teaches you to see details. Tada has also created the Tokyo Toy Museum this past year. It sounds like a fascinating place, and I've included a link to the article at the end of this post. And let the comments begin with creativity, brainpower, toys, and car navigation systems....

"Children are ingenious players by nature. They can easily be excited by playing with a mere stone or sandbox," said Chihiro Tada, 47-year-old head of the Tokyo-based nonprofit association. "But nowadays, high-tech games and toys offer children little opportunity for being creative, and those high-tech games have significantly undercut their ability to play." "It is just like a car-navigation system. Once you start using it, you won't use the atlas anymore to find where you are," he said.

Here's the link to the May 15th Japan Times article.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080515f1.html

English as a second language

Before I left, Ms. Mishkin and Mr. Calleja asked me about English language instruction in Japanese schools. We're spending about 30 hours this week on school visits. Since I don't understand Japanese, there's only so much I can learn from classes conducted in Japanese. (Although, you pay more attention to contextual clues like body language and the responses of the class when you can't just half-listen from the back of the room and get the gist of what's going on.) So far, I've been very impressed with the first two English teachers whose classes I watched. Schools officially begin English instruction in 7th grade, but schools are able to offer English once a week in the elementary grades if they want. The school I visited offered English on a rotation with art and music classes. In the past 10 years, the Japanese ministry of education changed from a rote grammar translation method to more active methods. (The teachers backed up what you observed in the past, Mr. Calleja. Due to this method, students had vastly disparate reading and speaking abilities.) Now, sometimes immersion methods are used, but it's at the discretion of the school. At Iraha Elementary School, one teacher teaches all subjects except the 'special' once a week classes. (The teacher attends these classes with her students; it's not prep time!) In the grade 3 class I observed, the English teacher spoke no Japanese but the classroom teacher sometimes translated when the students were having trouble understanding. The class was playing a fruit, animal, and sport identification game on the day I attended. The students sat in a circle, divided into two teams. About 30 laminated cards with English words and pictures lay in a pile on the floor in front of them. The teacher said, for example, "I'm thinking of a fruit" to prepare them. Then she'd say, "I'm thinking of a strawberry." The students then dove into the pile, hoping to be the first to find the correct picture. This was complete controlled chaos! The person who matched the picture to the item requested got to pin it to the board under her team's name.

At the junior high level, the best class that I observed all day was also the English class. The junior high has at least one master teacher! He doesn't speak any Japanese in the classroom, and he makes the students participate and practice their speaking. When I entered, there were 4 signs on the board. They read, "Q: Who is s/he?" "A: S/he is..." "Q:What does s/he do?" "A: S/he is a..." He'd hold up a picture and another teacher would point to the appropriate sign as he asked them to identify the person as they practiced their vocabulary words. By including people like Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Beyonce (they responded Cameron Diaz-haha), and Rosa Parks, he also got a little culture and history into the lesson as well. When he held up a photo of George W. Bush, students struggled with his job name. Several shouted "King" and, my favorite, one said "princess," which I guess vocab-wise is close, but it's got an entirely different meaning. This led to an impromtu Q and A session when the teacher asked if I could help. I got asked, "Where do you live?" (Disney is an excellent landmark for this culture!), "Do you like Japanese food?" (most of what I've tried) and "Do you like Chris?" (I then found out that Chris was the teacher's name---I do like Chris.) :) among other questions. Sometimes, the female teacher translated my responses, but most often she pantomimed. Then the class played a "relay race." The student in front (all of the desks in all of the schools were in straight lines!) was given a new card with a famous person and all in the row had to practice the 4 questions from the board by asking one of the questions or responding appropriately. Everytime someone got the English right, he passed the card to the person behind him, repeating questions and answers until the end of the line.

During the class, I was marvelling over Chris's mastery of English. It turns out that he's a Hawaiin native, here on the JET teacher exchange program. His time is split between 5 schools, and he spends two weeks at a time in each. The quieter female teacher I mentioned is actually the students main English teacher. (I briefly saw another JET teacher in the high school. She also had them working in groups and speaking, and was willing to change up her class when a group of English speakers came in willing to talk to her students. I was thinking that JET must have a great training program, but they actually don't train much at all, except Japanese language skills. I'm wondering if the reason that the other teachers and I were so impressed is because these are the "modern Western" ways we're trying to model in our own classrooms.)

Onto high school, which is slightly out of context without a longer post about the day at the school. In short, it is a poorer high-school and has low-to-middle-achieving students. We were given only one period to explore on our own, but one of the two classes we were scheduled to watch was English. This meant that 15 of us, plus the guide, the translator, and the principal, were crammed in the back of a classroom wtih 40 students and one teacher. This isn't an ideal set-up, so we were already a little on edge, especially because the students were completing a worksheet. When the teacher spoke, he read the worksheet aloud, then they practiced the problems. During this time, we started to talk to the students. We were under the impression that he really didn't like that because he called the class back to order and said firmly, "This is my class." A few people got pretty upset. I think he actually meant, "This is my class-class, back to order" because he began calling students to write their answers on the board. He spoke in a mix of Japanese and English, and seemed inflexible in what he wanted to get done during the period. He came to our administrator and teacher meeting in the afternoon, and it appears that we misjudged him. He's actually a very nice man, and he got us copies of the English exam students have to take before university. (Language teachers, it will be at school next Friday.) He apologized that he could not change the schedule more, but said that we had observed a difficult class for the most advanced students. It was an English grammar course, not a speaking course. They were behind in their studies, and he needed to get through some material before the standardized test of English language ability that's part of the university entrance process. Still, I think it's sad that his students were unable to practice their English. Those who did speak to us while we were roaming the aisles spoke only a few words at a time and didn't seem more comfortable speaking than the 7th graders or the elementary students. Perhaps they were shy, or perhaps speaking had to be tossed aside in favor of reading ability for this test.

At the university level, courses refine grammar study and also read (what they defined as) American Literature. This includes A Christmas Carol, Pygmalion, and Tuesdays with Morrie. They practice conversational English in class. Still, the Japanese never admit that they are fluent in English. Even when they can emulate American colloquialisms perfectly, they say, "a little" or "maybe I can help" when you ask if they speak English. The Japanese don't seem eager to practice their English speaking skills, nor do they seem particularly interested in learning English, even people who work in the tourist profession.

Take this post and run with it! Language instruction at young grades, teachers from foreign countries, immersion methods, teaching to the tests---the floor is yours!

Elementary School Amazingness

I just spent the most phenomenal day at Iraha Elementary School in Tomigusuku City. I never thought that Saint Stephen's could be shown up in terms of hospitality, but it just might have happened. We were met at the gate by a team of students and administrators. Throughout the school, there were professional, printed, and handmade signs welcoming us. The teachers had studied our pictures ahead of time, so they knew who was who. They taught each students to say, "Hello, my name is... Nice to meet you, while extending his hand to shake hello. At our welcome assembly, we walked through flower arches as the students stood and clapped. All students sang for us, and we heard welcome speeches from student leaders and administrators, and we were treated to (surprisingly good) karate and dance performances. JFMF did not plan for a kindergarten visit. Kindergarten in Japan is separate from elementary school, and the school organized a guided tour and playtime session at a nearby kindergarten for the mid-morning. During our observation time, we were given a list of classes and told we were welcome to stop by any that looked interesting and to stay as little or as long as we wanted. This way, we could each watch classes that would be helpful for our own teaching. It showed a tremendous amount of trust and faith on the part of the school that all classes met their expectations of quality instruction. Our one required class was calligraphy with the 5th graders, where we were each given a special helper. For lunch, we were picked up by a delegation of students from the classroom to which we were assigned. Many made signs and necklaces. (I got both!) Because all students eat the same lunch, the city of Tomigusuku wasn't sure it would be enough food or that the food would be to our liking, so they'd sent over sandwiches for us. (The school had also set up a spread of coffee, tea, candies, and Okinawan sweets, which was available throughout the day. Before our meeting with administration after school, a mom brought, in a woven basket on a bed of leaves, traditional Okinawan bread that was still warm from the oven.)

In the afternoon we attended what we thought was a drum dance demonstration for us, but after 15 minutes of the demonstration, we were offered the chance to participate. Parent volunteers were ready to help us dress in costumes they had waiting for us, and we spent the next 15 minutes learning one of the dances we had just seen. After school, we took part in an hour Q and A with school administrators before heading out for the day. Even if we hadn't been welcomed so graciously, we would have spent the day amazed. Little kids are just cute and curious, and they love showing off for guests. But, as I said above, we were given freedom to roam the school. This time was broken into chunks, but the time totaled more than three hours of the school day! We were not the only ones unsupervised; the students have 15 minutes between classes and 30 minutes of recess when they can be anywhere in the school buildings or on school property outside and where teachers are not required to supervise them. They also go to the bathroom on their own during these breaks. These are students age 6-11!

Gardening is a class activity because the school believes it fosters "moral development" to care for plants. Students seemed to value the vegetable gardens, and a number chose to spend their free time outside watering and weeding. Others used the playground or rode around on the (school-owned) unicycles. My favorite students were the first graders. Immediately after lunch, they practiced pom-pom dancing with their teacher. When the teacher left, they turned on a cassette and danced together (like macarena or electric slide together, coordinated - not paired together). These kids are coordinated and definitely able to work well together. Whether anyone was watching them didn't influence their behavior. Two girls completely won me over when they grabbed me, and, in halting English exclaimed, "Let's play!" We decided to dance, not surprisingly, since that was the activity of choice for these kids. I know that this is just what young kids do, but not my kids in the middle and upper school. :) (Not that I want any of you dancing in the library...) They were adorable!

Around this time, the kids started mobbing us for our autographs. We were like rock stars - they kept mobbing us with pens and paper shouting, "Sensai!" Ms. Heap, I decided to give the Saint Stephen's post-it notes to my grade three lunch class (because pens and chapstick seemed better suited to the junior and senior high school students), and the students with the post-its started using these as autograph books. I loved this. Where were the teachers during all this time? Well, since they teach class during the day, attend "special" classes with their students, and eat lunch with the kids in their classrooms, I assume they were regrouping in the teachers' room. As several other American teachers noted, we're relatively certain this is a poorer school. The building overall showed wear, children didn't have the nicest clothes, and many children were overweight (unfortunately, a sign of poverty). Yet, they still had respect for school, for authority and seemed intrinsically motivated to behave well.

***Because of new privacy laws (discussed in a previous post) I can't post close-ups of students without written permission. We have oral but not written permission. Believe me, it's hard enough to get young students to continue what they're doing and not start posing as soon as they see your camera. You had to get it ready and sneak it out last second. :) Or you got lots of "peace" and "wishes" signs and a clump of heads right next to the camera lens. Getting only group shots from a distance would have been very difficult. Instead, I can post these on a site only open to the people who receive the site information. I'm sending that to Saint Stephen's all school list and others who I know read the blog. Please do not repost the pictures elsewhere on the Internet. The close-ups are some of my favorites, but I also want to respect the laws of Japan! Parents and students reading this site, if you ask any Saint Stephen's employee, you will also be able to see the pictures. It's a long slideshow, but there are lots of excellent candids. I encourage you to take the extra step and check it out. (This is a first for me. If this method doesn't work immediately, I'll adapt it until it does. Technical feedback is appreciated.) Thanks!***