Appetite for Instruction

After six weeks of morning language class in a nondescript room, I have gained a fresh appreciation for those rare breaks in scheduling that allow more involved methods of learning. One example would be our field trip to the Disaster Prevention Museum, where Tokyo kids can learn from several fun demonstrations that life is full of faceless threats like the earthquake being simulated below.


It was actually neat to walk through a darkened 'apartment' filling with simulated smoke and watch a 3-D movie about the aftermath of a potential nightmare on the Richter scale. But most impressive of all was the firefighting practice; everyone got to shoot water from a full extinguisher at a virtual fire on a large, high-resolution screen. It's good to hear Smokey say that we should prevent the next blaze, but I think California kids should be similarly ready to yell "Fire!" and not have to waste time reading the instructions on the can.

The following week, I went on another cultural outing, following the enjoyable times at the cooking class and tea ceremony. This one, however, was to an elementary school only half an hour's walk away from my future location on the west side of the city. All the participating exchange students were paired up, guy-girl as much as possible, and sent off to classrooms for an hour of not-super-demanding assistance with English instruction. I got to enter a 4th grade classroom, and after my partner and I gave simple self-introductions each kid came up and introduced themselves by name (all in simple English), ending with a high-five.

Our teacher proceeded to have everyone sing "Head & Shoulders..." together, pointing to the appropriate body parts, and I was very grateful for still remembering the lyrics from my grade school years. The tape of backing music quickly got faster and soon everyone was laughing while trying to keep up in double time. After this, we played a keep-away game (which is called "Fruit Basket," according to my partner) that involved recognition of basic animal and color words. It was great to be around kids again, even if we were only playing for about 45 minutes, and perhaps I'll get to come back occasionally in the future.

Finally, I got a taste of my coming campus life by taking a short orientation and dorm tour at Hitotsubashi. Unlike almost every other university I've heard about in Tokyo, there was actually enough room on the property for an international dorm; paying nothing for commuting costs will really add up in time and spare change, thankfully. Most of the other buildings are brick in a tasteful Ivy-League mold, but my favorite part is the pervasive greenery, which was given a clear boost by the mild shower that added atmosphere & wet socks to the visit.

Only two short weeks of free time before I plunge into the fall semester! I hope to spend the first on a solo vacation (details when I return) and the second on intense language review and kanji character memorization. Finally I can set my own classroom location...wherever I go.