Closing Ceremony, Graduation and WBC Final

Hello!

I hope that you are doing okay.

I might keep this one brief - it was my last week with students at my school. It ended up being pretty emotional.

On Thursday, we had our graduation ceremony for the 6th graders and closing ceremony with the remaining students was on Friday.

I probably shared this last week, but my post from this time last year talks about the graduation ceremony - here is a link to my post on that from last year.

Overall, though, the graduation ceremony seems fairly rigid, almost militaristic. The students stand up and walk around in straight lines and the words spoken by the administration are fairly formal.

Friday was our school's closing ceremony. This is the day on which all of the students come back to school for one more day and there is a school-wide assembly. During the assembly, the departing teachers offer some remarks to the student body.

As I was one of the departing teachers, I had to make a few remarks in Japanese. I also translated them to English.

The way schools here do the closing ceremony makes it pretty difficult emotionally. The departing teachers stand in front of the student body while each teacher gives his or her departure speech. And then you give your speech.

After all the speeches are done, the administration says some more words and then all of the departing teachers go through a "hanamichi" which essentially means a "flower road." The students form a human tunnel and the departing staff walks through the tunnel to wave goodbye.

Emotions from the kids are somewhat muted. You can tell that they are upset and some seem to be crying, but it seems like they are mostly trying to hold it in.

I am not certain where this comes from. I have noticed that kids here seem to really resist crying, even if they are physically injured. It also seems that in my year and a half working here, I only heard a kid cry possibly one time.

After the students leave for the day, the staff has a meeting in which all of the departing teachers give a few more remarks and other teachers come up to make remarks about the leaving staff.

That is all I will share for now about the closing ceremony. It is still fairly tough to process. Especially as a foreigner, who does not speak a lot of Japanese, it is difficult to communicate to coworkers and students your feelings.

Even though I believe changing schools is the right move for me, it is still difficult to say goodbye. Much more difficult than I thought it would be.

This is probably one of the tougher things about participating in this teaching program, is that someday you have to say goodbye. (The JET teaching program has a maximum term limit of 5 years, so you eventually have to leave.)

Outside of that, the final of the World Baseball Classic occurred earlier this week. In it, Japan defeated Team USA to win the championship.

Rather than re-write it, below is a post I shared to Facebook describing the lead-up, atmosphere and reaction of the school. Also, I recorded some audio of everyone's reaction in the staff room as the final out was made - you can hear that at this link.

WBC Final between USA and Japan started around 8am Japan time - around the time that students start arriving at school.

An older teacher tuned the staff room TV to the game.

It didn’t last long, though. The principal walked in after about an inning and told the assistant principal that the TV shouldn’t be on.

Japan schools can be somewhat strict about these types of things. There are windows all around the staff room, so any visitors or parents can look in and see what’s happening. Sometimes I think there’s a lot of concern here about what parents might think.

The assistant principal gave a stern look around the room - the TV was quickly shut off.

It was a half day for students.

Towards the end of the game, I noticed every teacher in the 3rd grade had the game on and were projecting it onto the big screens in their classrooms. I watched with one of the classrooms.

Almost every student asked me who I wanted to win. I said I was fine with either team winning.

Before this, students had mostly been cleaning the school to prepare for the end of the school year. Today is the last real school day of the school year here.

The 9th inning of the game conincided with the end of the school day, so students started heading out just as the last half inning began.

I went back to the staff room. The TV was back on and all the teachers were there watching.

The timing was somewhat unfortunate. The 6th graders had just received their school yearbooks and were trying to get teachers to sign them before leaving for the day. Graduation is tomorrow. The teachers were distracted.

Everyone cheered and clapped as Ohtani struck out Trout.

Until next time,

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