Casual Thursdays

AKA: I Just Can't Seem to Get Comfortable.

Walking into my elementary school feels completely different from walking into my middle school. In elementary, school is treated as a fun endeavor, an attitude reflected in the students and the teachers. Students are running and playing outside before class starts, and I usually am greeted with enthusiasm. Around half of the kids wear the uniform, while the other half wear regular clothes (I still haven't figured out the way this system of "who wears the uniform when" works). The teachers are all wearing some form of track suit. Most everyone, whether student or faculty, is decently willing to give English a shot in the classroom; the two exceptions I can think of are both students.

On the other hand, middle school is much more serious. All of the students always wear their uniform, and two-thirds of the teachers wear business casual clothing instead of track suits. A number students will avoid making eye contact with me so as to not have to say "hello" or "good morning," and they are always heading straight inside to their classrooms in the morning. Most of the faculty will tell me how they "just can't speak English in the slightest," and many students have given up on gaining English proficiency and are just hoping to get decent enough grades.

And yet, while my Thursdays at the elementary school are much more casual and laid back, I find that I cannot relax here.

I'd say a large portion of this is due to the difference in atmosphere of the staff rooms. There are 5 English teachers in my middle school, as well as several other teachers who are very proficient in English. Three of these teachers sit around me in the staff room. On the other hand, there are maybe three proficient English speakers all together in my elementary school, and they are much farther away from me. There is a lot of pressure on me to speak Japanese at the elementary school, therefore, and my improvements in the language still aren't enough for me to have an easy time bantering with or feeling close to my neighbors.

I'm also a weekly occurrence at the elementary school, a sort of regular interruption to their normal routine. As such, I don't know many of my 35 teachers' names, much less their general personalities. My middle school is my "base" school, meaning I stay there four days a week. I know my teachers' names, the subjects they teach, if they have homerooms and have, on the whole, had some sort of interaction with them such that I feel I know them to some extent.

I suppose elementary school is only casual on the outside. While I can wear a glorified sweat-suit to work and play nothing but games with the kids, I'll probably never be more than a stranger, an outsider.


[One thing I can recommend of my elementary school over my middle school is the office manager, Sasaki-sensei, who never fails to amuse me with his antics. Most of these fall under the category of "lunch," where he eats easily three times as much of our ample lunch portions as anyone else on staff, to the amazement of the teachers and students. It's a glorious sight to behold.]