Mask Update and School Changes

Hello!

A few changes happened this past week in Japan.

The first one was one I mentioned last time - from Monday, the government stopped formally recommending mask usage and is leaving it up to individuals to decide whether to wear a mask or not.

It seems like individual businesses can still require customers to wear masks. And, masks are still required in schools (until at least April 1st) and in medical institutions.

I would say that despite the change on Monday, the vast majority of people are still wearing masks. If I had to guess, about 90 percent of folks continue to wear them. It is more common now, though, to see people not wearing masks on the train or around town.

It will likely be a slow change in Japan. Probably more and more people will stop wearing masks over time. The next major COVID-related date in Japan comes on May 8th when Japan will start classifying COVID the same as other seasonal illnesses.

You can read more about the mask-change aftermath here - https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2023/03/e57c6e77ff25-covid-mask-rules-eased-in-japan-wearing-left-up-to-individual.html​

Aside from COVID, I mentioned last time that there will be some changes in store for me with the new school year.

From April, I will be switching schools to work at a senior high school in Kobe. I found out about two weeks ago but it was officially a "secret" until this past Friday when my current school informed all of the teachers about the changes.

The process for the change started around a year and a half ago, right after I came to Kobe. The vast majority of English teachers in Kobe are assigned to work at elementary schools. Aside from elementary, there are several Junior High Schools and only a few high schools that take English teachers from my program.

For high school positions, it is a bit more selective and you have to go through a process to get one. Also, the work load for a high school English teacher is higher as the school expects you to take the lead in most classes, decide curriculum, and make grades.

In my prior role at the elementary school, I was mostly just a "helper" - the Japanese teacher would take the lead and I would assist most of the time. In the 3rd semester (from January this year until now), I took on a bit more responsibility - coming up with lesson plans, worksheets and activities for the students to do.

The last few units of the 3rd and 4th grade English elementary curriculum are a bit abstract, so some Japanese teachers find it difficult to come up with things to do. I stepped in more to help in those situations.

While the workload for an English teacher at an elementary school is less, the downside for me was that there are no club activities (like baseball) at primary schools. And, one of the main reasons I came to Japan was to learn more about how baseball works within Japanese schools - I want to know how they manage the teams and what drills or activities the teams do.

I am also hoping to develop some contacts within the baseball community here.

To start out, though, I was glad to be at an elementary school. I learned a lot at my school and got experience with what it is like to be a teacher without being too overwhelmed. Also, like I mentioned in the past, working at the school was helpful for learning Japanese.

But, I had my eyes on trying to get to a school with club activities. Junior High schools have sports teams but the process for getting transferred to a junior high was a bit unclear to me - it takes a bit more luck.

For high school positions, our board of education asks foreign English teachers to express their interest and the selection process goes from there.

Within the first few months of getting to Kobe, I participated in an event at a high school not far from where I live. All levels of schools (elementary, junior high and high school) regularly host these kinds of events in which many english teachers from various schools will visit the school for a few hours to work with students.

These events give students at the schools exposure to different types of English as teachers from other English speaking countries (like the UK, the Phillipines, Australia, America etc) get the chance to work with the students.

At the time I attended my first high school event, I was not interested in high school. I was still getting used to life at my elementary school and was not sure if I wanted to take on the extra work load of working at a high school.

Over time, though, I completed a full school year at my school and wanted to make more progress towards learning more about Japanese club sports. So, I started working towards trying to get a high school position.

Turns out, that the English teachers at that school I visited my first year would be leaving the school from April 2023. And our board of education asked for applicants to express interest.

I first focused on building a relationship with the departing teachers at that high school because I felt that a recommendation from them would play a role in me getting the position. And then from there it was a matter of indicating my interest to the board of education.

I had a pretty good feeling I would get one of the spots but I knew there were other people interested.

Finally, a few weeks back, I had a meeting with my assistant principal and head principal at my school - they told me I would be transferring to the high school in the new school year in April.

The next few weeks will be busy. As part of my departure, I have to prepare for our school's closing ceremony, during which I need to give a few short speeches in Japanese. One is to the students and the other is to the teachers.

I also will be visiting my new high school this week to chat with the departing English teachers. They will give me some more information about how things worked at their school. Also, the English teacher replacing me at the elementary school will visit the week after next to get a feel for the school.

My new position officially starts from April 1st.

Outside of myself, a few other teachers and my assistant principal at the elementary school are switching to new schools. To announce the changes, the principal read through them all during a staff meeting on Friday. Everyone was pretty surprised that I was leaving.

It was a little overwhelming. I talked to some teachers about it after the meeting and I am sure I will talk to more this coming week.

Also, another teacher that I talk with quite a bit is moving on to become an assistant principal at another school. He was in charge of the discipline at our school. He did not have a specific classroom assignment but would handle lots of conversations with parents and children who caused issues.

I will write more about the changes and this coming week next time.

Until then,