Coming Home

I am the first to arrive this week to work, as it is my turn to take the early shift.  Myself and the other foreign teachers rotate weekly with coming in a half hour before the kids arrive.  After going home to America for two weeks, it is the first time in almost a month that it has been my turn to take this shift.  Although I love my sleep and sometimes it feels like every minute counts, I have found that I really enjoy coming in early to work.  It is the only time of the day in which the school is still silent, with the exception of the occasional phone ringing down the hall in the principal's office. As I enter the school, I stop in the foray and slip off my outdoor shoes and exchange them for my indoor sandals. I walk into the dark hallway and into the principal's office, and flip on the power board, illuminating the entire building. The day is beginning.

Arriving early in the morning gives me time to prepare for the day. To get papers in order, art projects ready, lessons put together, or just time to think about how I'd like the day to run. As much as this small slice of silence is appreciated, I can't help but feel the total emptiness of the school. The classrooms still all look the same, everything is here. Nothing is missing from any of the rooms, or from the library, playroom or music room, but yet, without the children it feels overwhelmingly empty. This space doesn't truly come alive and become the preschool I love until the kids arrive. They fill it with energy, with excitement. 

As previously mentioned, I took two weeks off from work to return home and visit my family and friends.  More than a year had passed since I had seen the people that I love and I wanted to get a chance to spend time with them before the major Western holidays arrived and I wouldn't be able to afford to make the trip. While it was nice to have fifteen days to myself in beautiful San Diego, I couldn't help feeling like something was missing. 

Every time I flipped through the photos on my phone, smiling back at me were the adorable faces from the children in Aurora.  When catching up with friends, I made them watch countless videos of my class singing and dancing and being silly.  My family and friends didn't admit it, but I probably drove them crazy with how many stories I told about my working life in Japan. 

There is no denying that while I was home in California I realized how homesick I was for the place I grew up in. Being around my family and friends was incredible and I felt guilty for forgetting how amazing these people are. I miss the familiarity of my city, of my neighborhood streets, the smell of the morning beach air. I miss the Mexican food San Diego is known for, and the ease of being able to communicate something as simple as a food order. I miss that the most; the ease of communication. You don't realize how hard living abroad is until you can't talk to anyone in your native tongue. The wall I face everyday with language makes the simplest tasks unbelievably challenging. 

But more than those things mentioned about, I realized while I was home that I am attached to Aurroa in a very real way. Working at The World has become a huge part of my life, that I will always remember. Part of the way I define my identity is by the job I do, and I am happy to be able to tell people that I am a preschool teacher in Japan. 

I have been working with Aurora since April, and the progress I've seen from my class is remarkable.  Most of my class can speak to me in English, even if on the most basic level. Everyday kids are learning new vocabulary and are becoming more independent in completing tasks themselves. Of course we still have our ups and downs but the ups are becoming so much higher, and the downs are becoming smoother to pass through. My class is incredibly intelligent, and seeing their growth in less than half a year is beyond rewarding for me.  I have a lot of pride in the work that my partner and I do, and I am grateful that we are able to work so well together. 

More than being proud of them for their improvement as ESL students, I realized that I love them for the unique and adorable kids that they are. They are each so different from one another, and so different than any of the children I have worked with over the past ten years. I missed them while I was home, and returning to The World after two weeks of absence felt like an adrenaline rush. As they came in the door and saw me in the classroom they charger towards me, jumping on me and hugging me, while screaming, "Allie Sensei!!!!" One student grabbed my leg and wrapped his body around me and wouldn't let go, no matter how much I tried to shake him off . They were just as happy to see me as I was to see them, and it was good to see the strength in the relationship I have formed with them. 

Najimu

I recently learned the Japanese word Najimu, which translates into English as to be attached to or familiar with. When I heard this word I couldn't help but think of my relationship with my Aurora class, who I have become incredibly attached to.

Tonight as I talked with a friend from back home we caught up on the past month's worth of events and news. Finally he asked me, "So, hows the job?"

"It's good," I replied. "Actually, it's really good. Everyday I go home and am happy about the way I spent my day."

When we finished talking, I thought about this, and I realized how true it is.

I expected to like my job, but I had never anticipated to love it as much as I do. I've never been so attached to a group of kids before, or cared so much for how I am impacting them. I love being in their presence, and they add so much happiness to my life that I haven't found in other jobs. During lunch one day Miss. Yuki and I were talking about why we enjoy working at The World, and especially with our group of kids. The greatest aspect of teaching preschool is that it makes you feel alive. To be with such young excited kids everyday reminds you of what its like to live. To find joy in the tiny details. To be curious about things you've never seen, heard, tasted or felt. Everyday of work is different and that's what makes it exciting. The kids keep us on our toes and keep smiles on our faces. I have never laughed as much in my life as I have these past three months in my classroom. The kids in Aurora have added this huge glowing presence to my life, and I can't imagine living without them.

Not a day goes by that they don't make me smile and laugh, and I know how lucky I am to have a job where I arrive in a good mood, and leave in a good mood. I enjoy coming to work in the mornings, and I like planning projects and activities for them while I'm at home. Often when the school day is over I will hang out in my classroom for ten to fifteen minutes and sit on the ground near their lockers and talk to a few kids who are taking a really long time to pack up. I will either play with them or ask them simple questions, and enjoy the moment where I am able to interact with a student one on one, without the hectic distractions of the day. In these moments I really am able to connect with my students and it's so rewarding for me to see how comfortable they have become in my presence. After sharing more personal moments with the students, I often leave wishing there was a way I could spend more time one on one with all of them. It's an opportunity for me to really give them the attention they need, as well as see what they have learned from me, and what they are comfortable talking about with me.

There is something really special and unique about my class at Aurora and I can't believe that I have been so fortunate to be paired with them. I find myself telling friends and family back home all about my stories from the week and describing all of my students to them. This job is such a big part of my experience in Japan that I want to share all the details of it with the people I love who aren't here with me. No matter how many stories or pictures I share with people back home, they will never understand how fun and special it is to be around these kids everyday.

It amazes me how quickly relationships, bonds and trust can be formed between people who don't speak the same language. While I am seeing improvements in their ability to communicate in English, and I have picked up some Japanese, we still don't have the ability to communicate freely in one language. But it's almost as if it doesn't matter. Through interacting with them all day and watching them behave and interact with one another I've started to get a pretty good idea of all their amazing and unique personalities and I am impressed with what a cool class I have.

They are sweet kids who are really caring towards one another, always holding each others hands or comforting their friends when upset. Often, when I am leading morning routine I will scan the group of kids before me and notice them with their arms around each other or their fingers interlocked. When we play musical chairs and a kid is eliminated, they will pat him or her on the back and tell them "it's ok," to make them feel better about not winning. Last week when my bike was stolen I told the class and told them how sad I was, and one of my students told me he was going to buy a new bike for me. It almost made my heart melt. Everyday they tell Miss. Yuki and I that they love us, they hug us and they come to us to be picked up. They are the most loving group of little kids.

I adore my Aurora class, and I know that my partner feels the same way. We have been given a class that is creative, adventurous, observant and intelligent.

They are my little sunshines.

Densha Otaku

For the past few weeks the Aurora class has been learning English through the topic of trains. Previously, Miss. Yuki and I had been introducing a new theme each week, but for the month of June we decided to try something different. We decided to focus on trains, and under the topic teach sentence building, vocabulary and understanding opposites. The children are obsessed with trains and always get so excited when we see them at the park, so we thought it would be fun to make them the main focus of the academic day. 

We turned an entire wall of our classroom into the train wall, and covered it in photographs of trains and artwork the children did of trains. It was a gradual progression that we added to every few days, until we had a completed wall that featured multiple projects and so many photographs of trains from around the world.

The vocabulary words that we chose to focus on are long/short, big/small, fast/slow, and colors. To help the children understand these words, we used photographs of Shinkansen for fast trains and old American steam engines to demonstrate slow trains. For each vocabulary word we had multiple visual aids, and we paired them with the written words as well. Although the children can't read yet, they can learn to recognize sight words and so we hope that the two work together to achieve our goals.

Since the kids love Thomas the Train we also used different pictures of him to teach emotions, and then added another train for "angry."

One of the train art projects we did was making a name train. For the name train the children colored a picture of a steam engine, drew a rail road track on a black piece of construction paper, and and then wrote the letters of their name on colored pieces of cut origami that acted as the train cars. Many of the children are just learning to write their own names, and this was good practice in both letter recognition as well as practicing their fine motor skills.

The children in Aurora love playing in brown cardboard boxes, so we decided to collect a few and make them into trains. They were able to rip up different sizes of construction paper as well as origami, and paste them onto the side of the box. We made wheels and a front light and when completed we pretended that they were real trains. The kids loved in and laughed and screamed as I puled the boxes around the room while they sat in them. I had them make train noises or call out, "All aboard!"

Our favorite activity was making an Aurora train, which was Miss. Yuki's idea. The activity focused on dialog, motor skills, and social skills, and was so much fun. The first thing we did was have the children color pictures of train engines and train cars. The next step was arranging all of their colored pictures to make a complete train. We hung the finished train up on the white board, and had the students come up one by one and pull a photograph our of a paper bag. As their pictures were pulled they would tape them onto a seat on the train, and then pull a picture of their classmate. They would have to hand the picture to their friend, say, "here you go," that student would reply, "thank you," and then as they put their own picture up they would say, "I'm on the train." The children were very excited as each of their photos were picked and they got to go up in front of the class and pick their seat on the train. The finished product of the Aurora Train was adorable when finished, and Miss. Yuki and I even added pictures of ourselves when we were in preschool. We hung the train up outside of our classroom so that the students could show their parents and find their friends on the train. 

We've also used our free creative time to learn about trains, both through blocks and wooden train sets. The children built their own trains and railroads, and worked with classmates to build rail road tracks with the wooden train sets.

We also introduced the song, "I've been working on the railroad," and let the children make a train and dance around the classroom.

Focusing on trains as the main topic has been very successful for us for multiple reasons. The first being that trains are something all of the children are interested in and passionate about. Until I moved to Japan i had no idea how popular trains are and how fascinated by them kids would be. In America, and especially in California, we don't have a system of transportation by train like Japan does. In San Diego we have one main train that runs along the coast, but it isn't cost or time efficient. Kids play with toy trains, but its not the same obsession that I find here. You can see even at age three how excited the kids are by the Shinkansen trains, and how many of them are eager to tell stories about their experiences on trains. In Japan I am finding that riding trains is a way of life, even from the earliest ages.