It has been an interesting week! Monday to Wednesday I went to Akabane Elementary school. At Akabane they now have the system of doing the same lesson plan for every class. That's fine, but I definitely have to tweak it to make it fun and appropriate for 1st through 6th graders! This week they wanted ABC song, a color dice game and color "karuta." Instead of the "traditional" ABC song, for instance, I did the march version with the older kids. I had them marching around the room and chanting after me... lots of fun. Lots of smiles. Much better than the sense of dread that filled their eyes when they first heard that we were going to sing an ABC song. Karuta, although simple, seems to be a favorite for many of the kids. Basically they listen to me and hit the card that I say. The fastest one wins or they do "jan-ken" (rock, paper, scissors) to break ties. It would be too boring not to play little tricks, so I'd throw in random words like "hippopotamus" or "banana" to throw them off. With the older kids I had them say something that is the appropriate color before they could hit the card. Very funny to watch. My favorite Karuta moment has to be from the 1st grade class. One little boy was so elated when he finally won a card [white] that he suddenly had to pee. He ran out of the room, card in tow, and the teacher ran after him to rescue it... When she came back the card was wet [with water, she assured us]. I love second graders! Another interesting moment was with the dice game. There was a huge colorful die made from a box, and I rolled it and had the kids cheer for a color. If they guessed it they got to sit down. Well all week it had landed disproportionately on the brown side. The teacher assigned each row in this class to a particular color. One little boy in "the brown row" was really not happy with his assignment and kept complaining and frowning. I thought "Well, soon enough he'll see that he's lucky." However, apparently his gloom was powerful, and the other kids' cheers and ostensibly prayers even more so. Roll after roll, the other colors came up, even colors that almost NEVER were rolled in all the other classes. I was stupified. Finally there was only the brown row still standing, and still it took a few rolls before brown came up. I wish I had a picture of the kids cheering and praying for their colors to come up. SO CUTE! But most of all it was a reminder to me that attitude really does have power to affect a situation. Maybe that was a lesson that I needed to be reminded of, albeit in a silly way. Two more exceptional things took place at Akabane this week. Now for the most bizarre/ surprising thing of the week... At lunch we all got slices of melon. Granted in the US this would not be so exceptional, but here, where melons regularly cost at LEAST $10 [much much higher in big cities]. Well we all ate our melon slices happily. This particular type was a honeydew with a thin yellow skin. I had just finished mine when I noticed that one little boy at our table seemed to be chewing much harder than should be necessary to chew the soft melon that we had been eating. Then I noticed that a chunk of the rind was missing. Yes, he was eating the WHOLE slice of melon. Some others followed along, and talked about how delicious it was. Others looked at them like they were crazy, and still others gave it a try and made horrible faces before spitting it back out. In what other job can you have working lunches like this?? I will miss these schools, the teachers, the kids, the crazy/ fun experiences that I have day by day. I feel blessed to have been an ALT in Tahara for almost 3 years! So unforgettable!