I can't think of a title for this post

I was pretty busy last week, so I didn't get around to updating this. On Tuesday I arrived at my first school to surprised faces and remarks that I shouldn't be there (or, more correctly, that I didn't have to be there). My schedule said I had no classes, but it didn't go beyond that. As it turned out all the 5th and 6th graders in my town were competing in a track and field competition at the biggest middle school. I went to that instead.

Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera. I wish I had because there was a stark contrast in the size of the elementary schools. Clearly the largest was Sonobe. The next biggest was Sonobe Daini (literally Sonobe #2), one of my schools that has perhaps 50-60 kids per grade, or 100+ at competition. Sonobe had perhaps 40-50% more than this, and the next two biggest schools (both of which I go to) had maybe half of Sonobe Daini, or 20-30 kids per grade. There was maybe one or two more that had almost as many students, but several schools must have had less than 10 kids per grade. There were about 17 schools total and the smallest has only 3 students in a combined 5th and 6th grade.

I ate lunch at a different school and stayed around to do some planning rather than watching the end of the track contest. I had a meeting with the 5th grade teacher at that school about a very important lesson we had the next day. Before that lesson, I had three classes at my morning school. One of these was a 4th grade lesson, which is a little unusual, but I also ate lunch with that class.

Lunches at the elementary schools have generally been okay. They're really cheap, maybe $2-2.50, and pretty filling. The students talk about the nutritious value of their meal at the end and maybe some cultural point if the dish is a regional specialty. On that particular day was perhaps the worst lunch I've ever had. I don't remember most of it but one thing in particular sticks out: an entire fish. Maybe somewhere around 4-5 inches long, 1/2 an inch wide, and completely whole with head, eyes, and tail. I've seen these before typically grilled or fried, but was never inclined to eat them.

At school lunch students are supposed to eat everything on their tray and teachers set an example. Typically I eat with the office staff so I get my lunch from them instead of with the students. Maybe because I'm something of a guest, or young, or not on a diet, or because they don't particularly like certain foods, I tend to get the extra food. Not only did I have to eat this fish, but I had to eat three of them.

And I had to eat them quickly because I had a very important lesson to get to at a different school in a very narrow time gap. The class wasn't any different from a normal class except there were about as many adults watching it as there were students participating in it. Literally every teacher at that school was there (it's not clear who was watching the students, though I'm told they were reading), plus all the English teachers from my middle school, the high school, and Board of Education members. There were no less than two video cameras and an indeterminate number of digital cameras. The purpose was to show team teaching with an English and Japanese teacher, and also perhaps to demonstrate the smart board (like a blackboard on a computer). Our class was generally well received, which meant I got to sit through a long discussion that was in Japanese and mostly incomprehensible to me.