Graduation

Graduation was on March 1. I started writing a blog entry a long time ago about it, but then lost the passion to do so. I thought I should probably just finish this entry before I go to Seoul this week or I will never do so.

Graduation here is different and the same, and rather than the traditional post, I thought I would post a list of the differences and the similarities.

Differences:

• No caps and gowns. Students wear the same school uniform they have worn for the last 3 years. In a few weeks is a ceremony for teachers who will be transferring to other schools or retiring, and at that ceremony the students come back and will wear their suits...and many will don recently acquired piercings and dyed hair to show they have broken free of the high school conformity.
• All the students names are called and stand up as the roll is called, but only one student from each homeroom goes onto the stage to receive the stack of certificates. See the picture below.
  
• The ceremony is in the morning on a school day, so all underclassmen have to go. The section for parents is smaller than in America; it appeared that each student probably only had one parent there to watch them and no brothers, sisters, grandmothers, etc.
  
• The ceremony isn't really run by the students as it often is in America. There aren't speeches from students, picture slide shows, etc. Of course, being from such a small school in America, that's bound to be different in a larger school.
  

Similarities:

• The school song, graduation song (a different one than Pomp and Circumstance), and the national anthem is played. But, everyone has to sing along which is a bit different.
  
• Students are recognized by the calling out of their name and the top students and students with perfect attendance are recognized.
• The ceremony is long and a little bit boring unless you're directly involved.

Highlights for the ALT:

• Being asked to sign yearbooks.
  
• An amazing lunch bento box.
• Seeing the happy look in each student's eye and remembering what it was like to feel that way.

Watching the practice and the real event really made me think back to my own high school graduation. I thought back to the speech I gave with the theme of Oh, the Places You'll Go! and the disappointment in being second in the class instead of valedictorian. I thought about the accomplishments that I made in high school and how all of those things just don't matter so much anymore, both the great accomplishments and that disappointment. I thought about how I never in a million years would have seen myself visiting the countries I have now, especially living in Japan. How I had never considered so many possibilities and how little I had known was missing from my dreams. The more places I go, the more people I meet and the more experiences I have, the more the ceiling to my dreams grows. I hope the same happens for this new group of students that move on to the next chapter in their lives!

Karuta Day

Today at school was karuta day. It's only for an hour of the day, but it was interesting to watch and most of the kids had fun since they'll be studying the next few weeks for finals. "So what happens on karuta day?" you ask...well, let me show you :)

All the kids pile into the gym and are divided into different games. I have no clue as to the rhyme or reason of the groups, but I'm sure there was some as it was a tournament. There are some kids who are scorekeepers, time keepers and announcers on stage.

The kids sit in a circle and there are a bunch of cards laying on the floor. The cards have one half a Japanese poem on them. I believe the poems are taken from some old traditional book and are known as "The Hundred Verses" (it's in the name of the game in Japanese). The announcer reads off the first half of the poem and the kids have to race to put their finger or hand on the card that has the second half of the poem. See the video below to hear the announcer read/sing the poem.

The video above doesn't show it all that well, so see the picture and the video below as to how the kids choose the right card.

This isn't a game just played by kids. In fact, I have a friend here who plays it competitively at weekend tournaments. There are all sorts of strict rules to that, but the way the kids play was mostly just for fun. Each homeroom is a team, so it was a contest to see which homeroom could get the most points. Here, some students are keeping the tally to see who won.

It was fun to check out the kids playing the game, as I use a version of it in some of my classes with English vocabulary and phrases. The gym was freezing, however! It's been raining the past two days nonstop, so the sun hasn't been out to help warm it up! It doesn't help that in the gym you can't wear your shoes, so I was walking around stocking footed!

Will be back soon with an update from marathon day and a Mexican dinner with friends! Be sure to check out the videos on my blog if you receive this by email!