I've found that I quite like teaching. It feels good to help people understand, and you can see the kids getting better all the time. However, it really bugs me when a student doesn't even want to try. I feel so frustrated, because I'll often walk them through a sentence or exercise step by step if they need that much help. But if they won't even repeat one word, then what can you do? I find it particularly frustrating in Japan, because there is no way for kids to catch up when they fall behind. All the kids will pass English I and go onto English II, even if they got a 0 in English I. This means the kids who don't try now can never really have a chance to try later on, even if they should change their minds.

Last Saturday I went to my elementary school's school festival. Horikawa (my junior high school) doesn't have a school festival, but most other schools do. Often they include crafts, food, singing, and presentations. Some of the technical high schools have things like fighting sumo robots, from what I hear. My elementary school is quite small (90 students), so they didn't have anything that fancy. First 5 of the 7 classes made presentations simultaneously. I visited the special class, which only has two students for about 20 minutes. They two girls were really embarrassed, because there were three teachers there watching. I was sad that the girls' parents didn't come. Almost every other student in the school had a parent who came to watch. After awhile I went to the other classes, grades 1, 3, 4, and 5. I caused quite a commotion in some of the classes, because the students didn't know I was coming. I tried to sneak in, so as to not interrupt their presentations, but I was always spotted. The presentations often included a song, a story, and a quiz. The first year students went around interviewing the parents (and me).

The second part of the festival was held in the gym. They have a stage in the gym, too. The 2nd graders put on a presentation for everyone about going around the neighborhood and interviewing local workers. They interviewed someone from the train station, a shoe store, and the castle. I couldn't understand everything they said. The 6th graders put on a play for us, called Melos. It seemed to be Greek or Roman, but I didn't know the story. All I know is that it involved crucifying two of the students (they were cut down later), so that was interesting. For a finale, all the students sang some songs together. They were pretty good, actually. It was a lot of fun, and makes me wonder why Horikawa doesn't do it, too. The only thing we have at my junior high school is a choral competition, which is this Friday. However, the whole school doesn't come to the competition. It's done one grade at a time, and the other students have class.