First first-year lessons

Having attended the entrance ceremony and spent the better part of two weeks in awe of how tiny and cute the new freshmen are, I've finally started teaching them. As with the previous two groups, I used the first lesson to introduce myself. When I use the projector and screen, I'm usually at the mercy of the weather: the classroom we use has crummy drapes, so sunlight streams in easily. This is great on frigid winter days, but not when I'm trying to show pictures. We got a new projector recently, with a stronger bulb, but that's still not enough to overcome full-on sunny days.

Sniffing around, I heard about the audio-visual room. Usually only used by the brass band for after-school practice, it has beautiful thick black drapes, a screen, and a full complement of VCRs, DVD players, and a fancy-pants projector bolted to the ceiling. I found out who was in charge of the room, and made all the necessary arrangements.

It worked brilliantly. The drapes made the room pitch black (as drapes tend to do), rendering all my pictures completely visible. I built my introduction around Google Earth, which remains the single most successful element of my classes. The students go nuts the first time they see it. I'm not even using it to the fullest extent of its capabilities: I just use zoom and the occasional downloaded 3D model. The students, however, are simply mesmermized by it.

I've noticed that my lessons go much more smoothly than when I started. I have to pause less often for help from the teacher, either because I've learned how slowly to speak or I've learned how to detect confusion on their faces in time to slow down. They all get a kick out of my ability to speak Japanese, so much so that I kind of wish I'd kept it a secret a little bit longer. Some classes literally collectively gasp when I unthinkingly slip into Japanese--even if it's something simple, and even if I make a mistake.

This year's Tsushima High freshmen are on the whole smarter than last year's. However, last year seemed to have more standout personalities, most of whom were in one of my classes with Satomi-sensei. (The girls outnumbered the boys 2:1 in that class, and they totally knew it: the boys sort of huddled in a corner while the girls giggled their way through class.) I can't decide which I like better, and I've learned a valuable lesson about the difference in students from one year to the next.

Toyotama High has helped me learn that lesson very well. Last year's freshmen were, on the whole, bad. Yoshida-sensei warned me of this going in. It wasn't just in English, either: this was the group that included the boys who threw things at a teacher, and at least three of the students couldn't write in Japanese, much less English. There were a few bright kids, like Sayaka and Koji, and most of them were harmless, but on the whole, their ability level was abysmal.

This year is drastically different. One of the two groups of freshmen is awful, with nobody saying a thing during class. The six boys in the class keep mostly to themselves, and only a couple of the girls say anything. The other group, meanwhile, is almost the exact opposite. I've never seen a group of students more irrepressibly enthusiastic. I don't think it's a coincidence that only two of the 23 students are boys; it's almost as if the girls have consciously united and resolved to study hard. This is one of the groups that gasped in unison when I spoke to them in Japanese for the first time.

I absolutely love my kids. Even the bad classes aren't awful; if nothing else, they make me appreciate the good ones that much more. I'm well aware that I have precious few weeks with them, and I'm certain this is a large part of why I'm having so much fun with them.