Ahh....field day. I think we can all think of at least one year where we went outside and ran around doing various track and field activities. Well, get rid of that notion, because that is NOT field day. Like everything else, the Japanese take field day to a new extreme. For two weeks, lessons are all but stopped in order for students to prepare for field day.
Preparation consists of running through field day in its entirety EVERY SINGLE DAY! Then the week of field day, classes are shortened to 45 minutes, and each grade takes 2 classes a day to do nothing but prepare. Then for about an hour+ after school, kids continue to practice. For a while I was counting the number of kids that came into class bandaged, but around 30 I stopped counting. It is ridiculous how hard they run these kids (no wonder they sleep during class). So, what exactly are these kids preparing for? Some sort of tournament??? If you saw the "opening" ceremonies you might think they were preparing future Olympians. But no! field day is nothing more than the students competing against other classes in random "group" events. Somehow I got "volunteered"..."told"....who knows, somehow I got involved with helping the blue team. So one day I was sitting at my desk, minding my own damn business when another teacher comes up and tells me, "Crysti-sensei, please follow me." Ah, okay? I head outside, and then over to a huge group of kids, where I'm then asked, "Can you please say a few words to help inspire the kids for field day?" WHAT!@##!@ Not knowing anything more than "Ganbari" (work hard), I gave the world's shortest and least understood "inspirational" speech in English. Then I was told I would be in charge of helping some of the groups practice, which was damn interesting because I don't know any Japanese that would help me tell students to stop punching each other and start running.
I guess the purpose of field day is all about teaching Japanese kids to work together. Thus, every event is a group event (except the 100m and 1000/1500m events). The day kicked off with the 100m. Okay, yeaaa fun. Then a 150m 3-legged race. There were a couple of groups of boys who actually managed to run, in sync, extremely quickly (almost at normal speed). Followed by the 1000m/1500m race, again kids volunteer, so there's like 1 kid who laps the rest of the kids, not too exciting. After was the obstacle course relay (students hop over ridiculously tall boxes, slide under a balance beam, do a summersault on a mattress, hop 1 hurdle, slide under another balance beam, and then tie their legs together to hop to the finish). The nurse was very busy as the boy literally dove and slid under the balance beams and dove into a forward roll (sometimes off the mat). After the obstacle course was the mukade (centipede) race. Think 5-legged race, only students are in a row with their legs tied to the person in front of them (like a dog sled team). This was impressive as students had to "prance" to go quickly. Then another relay, then the 2nd years got into groups for the "flying" carpet race. Basically the entire class stands on top of a large blue tarp. Kids stand at each corner and the whole class jumps in unison as the kids in the corner pull the carpet forward. This was a hot mess! It was like watching jumping dominoes. One kid in the middle always fell on the next kid who...well you get the idea. Somewhere about this time we were allowed a 40 minute lunch break. It was damn near 1:30, we started at 8:30....I was grumpy.
After lunch was the 4x100 relay and 4x200 relay. Then the classes played tug-o-war, each team played 6 consecutive matches (I honestly think Japanese kids are powered by Energizer batteries). At this point, I was tired of sitting in a chair (trying to keep my head from rolling around as I slept with my eyes open) and got up to go and cheer. I think I freaked a bunch of the kids out :) Japanese people are extremely quiet. I often wonder if sound really comes out of their mouths or if they actually communicate through some sort of telepathy. So when I went out there and used my coaching voice to yell, "PULLL GIRLS PULL!!" loud enough to be heard across the track, those kids PULLED! It actually made me really miss coaching. Every time I'd get up next to a kid, I could see them start to smirk and then dig into the ground and try to pull harder. We won the first match, and the girls and boys were joking about how my loud voice scared them into pulling harder. Boy do I miss yelling at kids to work harder :) The class won the tug-of-war and then the teacher's asked me to cheer for the kids during the next 3 (no joke 3 more relays...and not just 3, there were 3 classes in each group and each class ran a relay, then a mix of each grade ran a relay, and then a mix of all 3 grades ran a relay). Needless to say I was really horse afterwards. BUT WE WON!!! DAMNIT!!! and we all know winning is all that matters!!! Huh, wait. No it doesn't. Apparently in Japan it really doesn't matter who wins. You should have heard how loudly the losing teams were cheering, even throwing their captains up into the air. No in Japan it's about learning how to work as a team. All that preparation and it doesn't matter who wins???!!! Okay, so maybe that's not such a bad thing, but seriously, did we really need to spend two whole weeks to teach them to work together?
Anyways, after all of this, there was a closing ceremony that seemed more like some sort of military award ceremony. Some of the kids were actually crying. Then the teams got together and "recapped" their amazing group efforts. I, wanting to get my ass out of there (it was 4:30 on a Saturday), started cleaning up. Suddenly a boy comes running over, "Jones...Jones...you need to come!" Ah? okay? So I run over to the group...Hey maybe they're going to applaud my amazing cheering abilities! HAHA!!! NO! What do I get?! "Please give the students a congratulations speech!" WHAT THE #)%! Sure enough as soon as I stand up the kids start going, "Eigo de (in English)" haha great, they're already preparing to be confused. Not knowing what to say, I pause to think of how to put together an easily understood English congratulatory speech...Just when I open my mouth to start, a bunch of 3rd years start going, "JONES! JONES! JONES!" I think my last name has now become some sort of greeting. I don't get hello's, I get " JOOOOOONNNESSS!!!! Which is better than the crispy donuts I was getting the first week. Wow, that felt nice! But then I forgot what I was going to say. So I just said, "Congratulations" Silence, kids looking around trying to figure out what that means. Um "Omedetou gozaimasu?" YEAAAA!!!! I go to leave and the teachers say, "is that all?" umm, crap, yes. Twiddling my thumbs, I finally just say, "W-A-Y T-O R-U-N F-A-S-T!" Um, silence...damn, come on now! So I mime it as I say it...YEAAA!!!! Haha, wow, so easily encouraged! I have to say, after 8 hours of running around in the humid heat (it was near 90 with about 50% humidity), these kids were still spirited! It was inspiring, but oh...look at the time 4:50, my time here is DONE! So being the party pooper I am, I ran home and hit the sack. Because unlike Japanese people, I only run on the cheap batteries.
Preparation consists of running through field day in its entirety EVERY SINGLE DAY! Then the week of field day, classes are shortened to 45 minutes, and each grade takes 2 classes a day to do nothing but prepare. Then for about an hour+ after school, kids continue to practice. For a while I was counting the number of kids that came into class bandaged, but around 30 I stopped counting. It is ridiculous how hard they run these kids (no wonder they sleep during class). So, what exactly are these kids preparing for? Some sort of tournament??? If you saw the "opening" ceremonies you might think they were preparing future Olympians. But no! field day is nothing more than the students competing against other classes in random "group" events. Somehow I got "volunteered"..."told"....who knows, somehow I got involved with helping the blue team. So one day I was sitting at my desk, minding my own damn business when another teacher comes up and tells me, "Crysti-sensei, please follow me." Ah, okay? I head outside, and then over to a huge group of kids, where I'm then asked, "Can you please say a few words to help inspire the kids for field day?" WHAT!@##!@ Not knowing anything more than "Ganbari" (work hard), I gave the world's shortest and least understood "inspirational" speech in English. Then I was told I would be in charge of helping some of the groups practice, which was damn interesting because I don't know any Japanese that would help me tell students to stop punching each other and start running.
I guess the purpose of field day is all about teaching Japanese kids to work together. Thus, every event is a group event (except the 100m and 1000/1500m events). The day kicked off with the 100m. Okay, yeaaa fun. Then a 150m 3-legged race. There were a couple of groups of boys who actually managed to run, in sync, extremely quickly (almost at normal speed). Followed by the 1000m/1500m race, again kids volunteer, so there's like 1 kid who laps the rest of the kids, not too exciting. After was the obstacle course relay (students hop over ridiculously tall boxes, slide under a balance beam, do a summersault on a mattress, hop 1 hurdle, slide under another balance beam, and then tie their legs together to hop to the finish). The nurse was very busy as the boy literally dove and slid under the balance beams and dove into a forward roll (sometimes off the mat). After the obstacle course was the mukade (centipede) race. Think 5-legged race, only students are in a row with their legs tied to the person in front of them (like a dog sled team). This was impressive as students had to "prance" to go quickly. Then another relay, then the 2nd years got into groups for the "flying" carpet race. Basically the entire class stands on top of a large blue tarp. Kids stand at each corner and the whole class jumps in unison as the kids in the corner pull the carpet forward. This was a hot mess! It was like watching jumping dominoes. One kid in the middle always fell on the next kid who...well you get the idea. Somewhere about this time we were allowed a 40 minute lunch break. It was damn near 1:30, we started at 8:30....I was grumpy.
After lunch was the 4x100 relay and 4x200 relay. Then the classes played tug-o-war, each team played 6 consecutive matches (I honestly think Japanese kids are powered by Energizer batteries). At this point, I was tired of sitting in a chair (trying to keep my head from rolling around as I slept with my eyes open) and got up to go and cheer. I think I freaked a bunch of the kids out :) Japanese people are extremely quiet. I often wonder if sound really comes out of their mouths or if they actually communicate through some sort of telepathy. So when I went out there and used my coaching voice to yell, "PULLL GIRLS PULL!!" loud enough to be heard across the track, those kids PULLED! It actually made me really miss coaching. Every time I'd get up next to a kid, I could see them start to smirk and then dig into the ground and try to pull harder. We won the first match, and the girls and boys were joking about how my loud voice scared them into pulling harder. Boy do I miss yelling at kids to work harder :) The class won the tug-of-war and then the teacher's asked me to cheer for the kids during the next 3 (no joke 3 more relays...and not just 3, there were 3 classes in each group and each class ran a relay, then a mix of each grade ran a relay, and then a mix of all 3 grades ran a relay). Needless to say I was really horse afterwards. BUT WE WON!!! DAMNIT!!! and we all know winning is all that matters!!! Huh, wait. No it doesn't. Apparently in Japan it really doesn't matter who wins. You should have heard how loudly the losing teams were cheering, even throwing their captains up into the air. No in Japan it's about learning how to work as a team. All that preparation and it doesn't matter who wins???!!! Okay, so maybe that's not such a bad thing, but seriously, did we really need to spend two whole weeks to teach them to work together?
Anyways, after all of this, there was a closing ceremony that seemed more like some sort of military award ceremony. Some of the kids were actually crying. Then the teams got together and "recapped" their amazing group efforts. I, wanting to get my ass out of there (it was 4:30 on a Saturday), started cleaning up. Suddenly a boy comes running over, "Jones...Jones...you need to come!" Ah? okay? So I run over to the group...Hey maybe they're going to applaud my amazing cheering abilities! HAHA!!! NO! What do I get?! "Please give the students a congratulations speech!" WHAT THE #)%! Sure enough as soon as I stand up the kids start going, "Eigo de (in English)" haha great, they're already preparing to be confused. Not knowing what to say, I pause to think of how to put together an easily understood English congratulatory speech...Just when I open my mouth to start, a bunch of 3rd years start going, "JONES! JONES! JONES!" I think my last name has now become some sort of greeting. I don't get hello's, I get " JOOOOOONNNESSS!!!! Which is better than the crispy donuts I was getting the first week. Wow, that felt nice! But then I forgot what I was going to say. So I just said, "Congratulations" Silence, kids looking around trying to figure out what that means. Um "Omedetou gozaimasu?" YEAAAA!!!! I go to leave and the teachers say, "is that all?" umm, crap, yes. Twiddling my thumbs, I finally just say, "W-A-Y T-O R-U-N F-A-S-T!" Um, silence...damn, come on now! So I mime it as I say it...YEAAA!!!! Haha, wow, so easily encouraged! I have to say, after 8 hours of running around in the humid heat (it was near 90 with about 50% humidity), these kids were still spirited! It was inspiring, but oh...look at the time 4:50, my time here is DONE! So being the party pooper I am, I ran home and hit the sack. Because unlike Japanese people, I only run on the cheap batteries.
That was great!! Way funny!! You should write more often!!! JJJOOOONNNNEEESSSSSSS!!!
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I should write more...but it's difficult. I'm not sure if you knew this, but time moves much quicker in this part of the world. It's like 1/2 of what I had back in America :-( It'd make me sad...but I'm too busy to notice :)
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