Lessons Resume

For my first lesson after visiting home, I shared my pictures with everybody. To give them an idea of where exactly I went--nobody knows where Missouri is, and the only reason they're familiar with Georgia is because Japan has a "Georgia" brand of coffee--I used Google Earth. This pretty much blew their minds. Once I noticed how mesmerized they were by it, I made sure to zoom from the global view all the way down to my parents' house in Springfield. The fact that we have a pool made everybody think we're rich.

I showed the students pictures of some of the food I ate, and they were as taken aback by the portion sizes as by the strange food. They all gawked at a couple of pictures I took inside a Wal-Mart, since most of the people on Tsushima could fit inside one store.

The most enjoyable part of the presentation was the road trip. The students were blown away by the size and speed limit of the interstate, mostly because the majority have never been off Tsushima, with its two-lane 40mph roads. They couldn't believe the size of everybody's house. Gail's property in particular fascinated them--especially when I showed them the artificial pond she has. All my students are convinced that everybody in America is rich.

I also showed them the pictures from St. Louis, and they were again amazed when I found the Arch on Google Earth, then switched to my photos of it. They've all learned about the Mississippi in geography class, so they seemed to enjoy seeing it.

When I was home, I made sure to take lots of pictures, even of things I normally wouldn't find noteworthy. I did that because I tried to look for things the students would find interesting. Judging by the looks on the students' faces as I gave the presentation, I did a pretty good job of it. My teachers still laugh at me for taking pictures all the time, though. They actually told me I'm acting like a stereotypical Japanese tourist, taking pictures all the time.