The New Job

In keeping my promise to write three entries in three days, here's number two: The New Job.

I now work for the Kozagawa Board of Education, which is just across the street from my house.  The local board of education in Kinokawa was my employer when I worked there, but I always felt like I worked for the two schools I stayed at during the week.  In Kozagawa, I feel much more like an employee of the BOE instead of individual schools.  I work at a total of seven schools, so the BOE feels like my base; I can drop by there anytime and make copies and take care of whatever business I've got, and then head off to my school assignment for the day.

My co-workers at the BOE are great, even though I really don't spend much time with them.  At least I actually see them now.  In Kinokawa, I saw my supervisor maybe once every two months.  And speaking of supervisors, I have a great one now.  He's a year older than me, and he's really into hardcore and punk music.  He even abides by the "straight edge" lifestyle that's popular with hardcore musicians: no drugs (that's not unusual at all in Japan), no alcohol (that's extremely unusual in Japan), and occasional self-rolled cigarettes (not sure how usual/unusual that is here).  Sometimes I drop by the BOE just to talk to him and the other folks there, and I never imagined doing that in Kinokawa.  It's nice.

To be such a small town, Kozagawa has a whole bunch of schools, seven in all.  One reason for this is the physical size of the town, which is pretty big and spread out into the mountains and wilderness.  None of the schools has very many students at all (one elementary school has just 11 students in all), but they stay open out of a sense of duty for kids who live in the middle of nowhere.  With the decreasing birthrate, these little pockets of population treasure every kid they've got.

This is how the seven schools break down: two nursery schools, three elementary schools, and two junior high schools (there's also a high school, but because of redistricting that took place a few years ago, it now falls under the jurisdiction of Kushimoto, the neighboring town).  I have to teach at all of them.

When I first started working here, I wasn't sure how teaching at seven schools, ages 0-15, was going to pan out.  I taught at only two junior high schools in Kinokawa, so nursery and elementary schools were a completely new challenge for me.  I slipped right into the junior high schools like nothing had changed, but the younger schools were a new experience for me.  I'll write more about the kids tomorrow, but I honestly have never, ever seen myself as an elementary school teacher, much less a nursery school teacher.  I don't mind young kids, but I had never really spent much time to feel comfortable around them.  Also, just trying to stay organized and remember what I did the week before at any particular school was difficult.  But, it's worked out, as things usually do.  I feel comfortable going to all the schools now and have gotten organized enough to keep a notebook of lesson plans of each day.

Overall, things are more laid-back here, but then, they're not.  All of the teachers and administrators and atmosphere are laid-back, but I'm A LOT more busy here than I ever was in Kinokawa.  In fact, one major theme of this blog was how bored I was at one of my schools.  That's definitely not the case here, but I don't mind it.  I would much rather be working my butt off and feel like I have a purpose rather than sitting on that said butt all day long without any purpose.  And on most days, if nothing's going on after my classes, I can go home early.  That's not a bad perk at all.

Tomorrow: the kids.