Hello Humans? This is your teacher speaking.....

Hello all.

When I last blogged, we were in Seoul,  delightfully confused, overheated and full to bursting with incredible food.

I am happy to say that we made it back to Kyoto with nary a scratch, and have plodded our way back into the start of another autumn...not that you'd know it from the weather, which remains steaming hot with  sudden torrential downpours that appear and disappear with neither warning, rhyme nor reason.

I have spent the last few weeks shaking my head back and forth over the world's largely horrible hijinks...specifically the hijinks of my native land, but also the hijinks of other places on this weird planet of ours.  And I have come to the conclusion that adult humans, for the most part, seem to have completely forgotten the lessons they learned way back in elementary school.

Yes, I know this topic has been dragged out  ad infinitum, written and blogged about so many times and in so many varying ways that it is quite cliche for me to be writing about it now.

But it's true.

The lessons we teachers give our youngest students are meant to be the foundations for a life time of learning how to live among our fellow creatures.  These lessons take on different tones depending on the  philosophies and political beliefs of the community, school and individual teacher--sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.  But the intention is the same:  to help young people successfully grow  into adults.

For me--a self-confessed liberal Californian--I try to imbue my lessons with a sense of the big picture.  Even preschoolers and kindergarteners can grasp a bigger picture if it's presented just right....and nothing delights me more than giving a lesson and letting the kids discover the bigger ideas all by themselves.

Which they do, and often in very eloquent ways.

And of course, the backbone of the best lessons are positive messages.  People respond better to positive messages  rather than negatives.  "Do's" rather than"Don'ts".  "Do's" provide a path, a set of instructions to follow.  "Don'ts" leave you hanging, stranded--you've been told what NOT to do, but then left to figure out what TO do in confused isolation.

But for me it's more than just spouting off rules to live by.  I try to teach the rules that I live by.  How can I believably teach something that I don't believe for myself?  I can't.  So whether I'm teaching 1+1=2 or helping a student discover how amazing  a bug can be, I better believe that 1+1=2, and I better be willing to pick that bug up in my own hands  and share in that amazement.

What, you may ask, are my "big"lessons?  I'm glad you asked...


Christina's "Big" Lessons


1. Skin color is just pigment, beneath which we all have the same needs, and often very similar desires.

2. Respect=accepting that  each person is different, and being different is good.

3. Help others.  Always.

4. Humans do not own the planet earth.  This planet belongs to everything and everyone upon it, from the earthworm to the redwood, from the human to the elephant.

5. Even things you think are icky  deserve the chance to live.  (I can't tell you how many spiders/beetles/flies/moths/ants I have rescued in cups and toted out of my classrooms.  It got to the point that whenever any kid saw a bug in a classroom, I'd be called upon to rescue it)

6. If you have to say "I'm sorry", it's already too late.  You've already done the deed.  Instead try to make "thinking choices" so that the "sorry moment" never has to happen.

7. Live gently.

8. Hands of friendship.

9.  Always share (unless, that is, you have a peanut butter sandwich and your friend has a peanut allergy.)

10. True fun surpasses all differences. (Hey, try throwing a bunch of balloons into a group of kids who don't share the same language.  I've done it many times and after a minute or so, my friends, you've got magic.  And a lot of running, laughing, yelling and quite a few popped balloons)

11. Individually we can do great things.  Together we can do unbelievable things.

12. ASK QUESTIONS. There is no such thing as a silly question.

13. Use your words.

14. Learning happens for our entire lives.  Even teachers don't have all the answers. (The kids loved it when I wouldn't know the answer to some obscure science question because they got to watch me drag out a book or my ipad to look up the answer.  As a bonus lesson, they got to learn the words "Index"  "Appendix"  "Glossary" and "Wikipedia")

15. Try.  Try.  Try.  If you fail, try again.


I promise you that if you were a fly on the wall of my classroom at any point in the past 21 years, you would've heard me say these things, and would have seen  me teaching these things.

And I hope you would have seen me living these things.
As I still try to do.

Until next time...

Hello Charades--We're Back!

Hello all from Sinseol-Dong!

We are at the end of day 2 in Seoul.  And I am happy to say that we have learned some truths already which I feel will make us wiser:

1. When flying  on a low cost airline in Japan, it is a lot like flying on a regular airline in the states.  As far as I could tell, The only difference is that we don't get free sodas.

2. As a bonus we got the very Kwaj like experience of riding on a bus out to the plane, and then Actually walking up a set of outside stairs to board. (It should be noted that this was due to the discount airline terminal not yet being finished, and not due to some sort of discount airline "we can't afford a proper boarding gate" issue.  I still got a kick out of it)

3. Never underestimate the power of charades as a communication tool.

4. Incredible spiciness does NOT, in fact, always appear as a brilliant red chili color.  Spiciness can also be quite invisible.

5. Seoul is not appreciably cooler than Kyoto, but since it is so awesome, I forgive it. 

6. Confusingly, it is equally difficult to find a good antiperspirant/deodorant here as it is in Japan.  I can only assume that people on this side of the world have developed the happy ability to simply sweat less than I do.  If this is so. I am alarmingly envious.

7.  Dragons beard candy is possibly the most lovely thing to eat ever created. 


So I am sure we will learn more handy things as the days progress.  But for now, suffice it to say that Seoul is an incredibly vibrant, diverse, colorful, noisy and delightful place, and we have barely tiptoed into life here. 

What's next for the functionally illiterate Mooreheads in Seoul?  I haven't the foggiest idea, but I'm positive it will be unbelievable. 

Until next time....

   

Hot Hot Hanabi

It was well over 95 degrees on Saturday.

We went anyway.

The air was a 200 pound barbell of humidity.

We went anyway.

The train station was surging with people, politely jostling against each other, adding heat and friction to the already scorching day.

We went anyway.

Hanabi.

Fireworks (hanabi) are as much a part of the Japanese summer as rainbow colored yukata, waving fans and kakigori (shaved ice).

On Saturday Bob and I prodded the kids away from the delights of the air conditioner, loaded up our trusty Trader Joe's bags with plastic ground tarps, drinks, snacks and plenty of sunblock, and headed out towards one of the more popular summer firework displays, in the town of  Juso, near Osaka.

We had arranged to meet with one of the local groups whose goal was to bring together Japanese people and foreign residents.  A number of these groups were gathering in the same spot to enjoy the fireworks together.  It didn't take us long to find the group--a combination of the Japanese organizers, clad in yukata and holding signboards that read "WE ARE ONE" (the name of the group), along with a number of rather bewildered looking foreigners.

When we all got to the river, it was a vivid combination of organization and gentle chaos.  A huge swath of the river bank had been formally set up with vast and clearly marked areas for people to spread out tarps, rows of gray porta potties and evenly spaced tents of food vendors.  People--hundreds, perhaps thousands-- were a mass of activity, spreading out tarps, sharing snacks, or winding carefully on the narrow strips of grass between already established tarps.

Once we found the rest of our group we settled in, put on sunblock and hats, and resigned ourselves to sitting out in the blazing sun for the next 5 hours until nightfall, when the fireworks would start.

Aya quickly amused herself by snapping pictures of us with my iphone.  Amid sips of tepid water and nibbles of rice crackers,  we posed for Aya and chatted with the other members of the group, more of whom were arriving every few minutes and settling themselves on the large tarps with us.

Along with the people, however, we soon discovered one of the typical side-effects of sitting on formerly people-free areas of riverbank--insects.  There was a fascinating assortment of hopping, crawling and jumping critters using  the newly arrived arms, legs, heads and tarps as venues for new exploration:  praying mantises, small jumping spiders, gnats, ants, crickets, grasshoppers.  Probably many more that were either too small or too fast to see.  Unfortunately, while I didn't mind being used as an insectoid playground, Aya did not share my sentiments and clamored at Patrick every few seconds to shoo away some new critter.


At dusk we ventured out to find sustenance at some of the many food tents.  Bob snapped up skewers of steak along with chicken karage and fried potatoes.  I made a beeline for the kakigori.


We were pleased to note that the sun was setting by the time we got back to our group's tarp (a task which took a considerable amount of coordination and skill, as we had to maneuver in complex maze-like patterns to avoid stepping on other people's tarps.  This task was made a bit more challenging since Japanese people typically take off their shoes before walking on picnic tarps.  This is brilliant in that it keeps the tarp relatively clean, but it turns walking between the tarps into a ground-bound tightrope act).  

As we dug into our snacks, a newcomer showed up at the side of our tarp and introduced himself  and his girlfriend to us.  In short order we discovered that he was a 1975 graduate of UC Santa Cruz, which amused and amazed Bob and I since we, as you may recall, graduated from UC Santa Cruz as well, albeit 10 years later.

The sky  finally darkened into true night, and the first booms and towers of fire shot up into the air from the fenced off river's edge.

Finally, the fireworks began.

I must emphasize that Japanese fireworks shows are not like those in the United States.  Back at home fireworks shows are always frustratingly short.  Usually 20-30 minutes at most, sequestered to the Fourth of July (accompanied by patriotic music), sports events (accompanied invariably by "Celebrate") or, oddly, demolition derbys (some sort of indeterminate instrumental rock music).

But here, oh man, here, the fireworks shows can last one, two sometimes three hours.  And the fireworks are of a variety and power that I have yet to witness at home.  Shooting  flares that sparkle into looking like palm trees, or weeping willows.  Explosions that resolve themselves into Mickey Mouse heads, slices of watermelon and flowers.

This show did not disappoint.  Echoes of the explosions bounced off the buildings along the river's edge while a light breeze finally kicked up.  And with each new burst thousands of voices would gasp in unison.

Of course, at the end we had the unenviable task of actually getting back to the train station--along with thousands of other people.  Osaka police officers and back up security guards expertly siphoned the mob of cooked, tired and murmuring people into lines that lead neatly back to various train stations.

When we finally stumbled off the train in Kyoto--sweaty, tired, grubby, our ears still ringing with echoing explosions-- we opted for a taxi rather than another train ride and 15 minute trek back to our house.

Just another summer day in Japan...

Until Next time.