Monday, March 10, 2003

What I did today Today, I... Went to Tsukumo Elementary School; Chaired a long and fraught meeting of the International Club; Went to Mejiro for dinner with Todaka-san, Ueda-san, and Okamoto-san.

I've known from the very beginning that I am constrained as to what I can write in my articles for the town magazine, precisely because it is the town magazine and so anything published on its pages effectively becomes the opinion of the town. I accept this, which is why (unfortunately) I cannot write articles about such subjects as the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. However, I never thought I'd manage to create such waves with a one-line throwaway comment about bean-jam-filled bread! All I said was that, although I like an-pan very much, I didn't think most British people would. It was meant as a joke because I get asked so often whether I can eat this 'bean-jam', and while the editor acknowledged it as such, he nevertheless requested (no, decided) that it couldn't be allowed... because of the risk of offending the bread-makers in the town!

I had my final visit of the academic year to Tsukumo Elementary School today. With the first- to third-years, we reviewed the numbers from one to 99. The teachers had obviously taken the time to coach the children, because the difference from the previous lesson was astounding. This sort of cooperation from the school to supplement the content of my lessons is just how things should be. I had intended to play bingo with the children, but I made the decision that before we started playing, I would have them all sit in a circle and count up to 100. This went well, so I decided to introduce the gestures for 'carry on', 'change direction' and 'skip one person', and make it into a fully-fledged counting game. The children enjoyed this, I think, and it went well... but it did mean that in the end, there was no time for bingo (not that I think that anyone was overly bothered). With the upper years, on the other hand, I continued with my Powerpoint presentation about the UK, which had been requested by the teachers even though it had, shall we say, fallen rather flat the previous lesson. This time I showed the children pictures of London and Oxford, and the difference from the previous lesson was amazing. Whereas last time they'd sat in glum silence, this time they seemed interested, and asked questions about nearly every slide I showed. While I'm really glad about this, I would still like to know just what makes fundamentally the same lesson a flop one time and a success the next...

Word of the week me-no-doku This phrase literally means 'poison to the eyes', which comes to mean something tempting, or too attractive for one's good.