Here are a couple of hams at the school marathon we had last week at the big Isahaya athletic park. Ichinensei and ninensei (10th & 11th graders) participated. Girls ran a 3K, and the boys a 10K. I didn't participate officially, but I did run for a bit with groups of students to cheer them on as they passed my station. These girls here are sannensei, and were helping to manage the event (when they weren't clowning around!).
5 comments:
3k no problem, 10k..hmm...little rough for me but I'm out of shape. I always thought it was great how much Japanese schools valued students staying healthy. I don't think we do nearly as much in P.E. here in the states. Wow I remember those colors for Ichi/ni/san nensei were so confusing, you are lucky you only work for one school. I used to work for 3 schools and every single school had different colors for ichi/ni/san nensei, it was confusing hehe.
Jon
In my art teacher life, I used different colors for different classes (in my computer gradebook, planbook, on folders, etc) to make it quick and easy to ID things. Here it's really nice to have students wear the different color shoes (because the rest of the reg. uniform is the same for all the grades) so I can see automatically whether they're ichinensei (red), ninnensei (blue), or sannensei (green). By the way, the purple jumpsuits are the ekidan's (track/running team) uniform.
As for working at only one school - I think I'm glad to be in one place, since I'm able to get to know the staff and students better (and they remember me!). If you were at different schools, Jon, you must have been working for the Nagasaki-shi Board of Ed, then? It seems that high school ALTs are hired by the prefecture and work for one(high) school, while the the individual city BOEs hire ALTs to work in the elementary and jr high schools. The other ALTs here are all better at Japanese, so I'm sure that's part of the reason they were put at the BOE - people more fluent would be able to navigate the various schools to which they're assigned. Thank goodness I only have to make my way to one now :)
For the record, I was at another campus on Thursdays - Takaki Bunko - a train ride away. However, that school is closing, so I don't go there anymore :( In fact, we Bunko peeps have an enkai tomorrow night...guess I should figure out when/where it is...
Tracey,
To answer your question, I worked for the prefecture for one year at a high school and then worked through a dispatch company for a BOE at a few junior high schools. The colors are fine, even great, but my point was working at multiple schools the colors can be confusing sometimes because not all schools use the same colors or not all of the same colors mean the same thing. One school could be 1- blue 2-teal 3-purple then the next school could be 1-purple 2-blue 3-teal. :P Jon
PS..I know how it works but thanks for explaining it anyway hehe..Then again you could be explaining it for your other readers which is a good thing because not everyone knows how it works in Japan.
About people who can understand/speak more Japanese working for the BOE's, it is an interesting idea but I'm pretty sure I knew some people at junior highs who's Japanese was not as good as mine. I really think it's luck of the draw but you never know I could be wrong. When I worked for the dispatch company for the BOE they did give me a Japanese test. Jon
Of course, I figured YOU understood, Jon! :)
I can imagine the different colors at the different schools would get confusing. I am a little surprised that with everything else so uniform and regulated and the SAME, that there isn't some rule that says ALL ichinensei are nani nani color, ALL ninensei are nani nani color, etc.
(I can tell the whole "nani nani" thing is going to stick with me. For those of you who don't know Japanese, "nani" is simply "thing." Sounds a lot cuter than "blah" or "blank")
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