April 23-24: Ensoku time!

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Japanese vocab
ensoku: school field trip
shuugakuryokou: school excursion
kofun: Ancient Japanese burial mounds

So in Japanese public schools, they have two types of school trips: ensoku and shuugakuryokou. Every grade from elementary to high school does ensoku, which is usually a day trip to a somewhat local place. The youngest of the bunch, maybe 1-4 graders, visit someplace local within their own town and usually go by foot. The older kids often take buses or ride the train to a slightly farther local place of interest. The destination usually has some cultural value about Japanese history or heritage, or has something to do with a local product or specialty or craft of the area.

Shuugakuryokou however is usually reserved for older students and is done sometime after the ensoku, maybe the following month or semester. It's usually an overnight trip, lasting 2 to 3 days and kids and teacher chaperons take either a chartered bus or trains. It's usually all the grades above 4th grade who go, maybe starting with the 5th or 6th graders, who often go together on the same trip. They often go to famous places in Japan, larger cultural centers, such as Kyoto, but highschoolers (9-12th grades) get to go as far as Hokkaido and Tokyo and stay maybe or 3 nights. These trips involve more recreation, along with the usual sightseeing.

This year, I was invited to go to 2 ensoku: Naga Chugakkou's Ichinensei (Junior High School First Year's...aka 7th graders) ensoku and Nate Shogakkou's Rokunensei (Elementary School 6th graders) ensoku. It's kind of ironic because I'm not particularly fond of either grade, but I need to kind of buddy it up with them, especially the 6th graders since they'll be moving over to my Junior High School next spring...so I have to start working on them early before they leave elementary school and become sullen and acutely prone to fits of shyness and embarrassment.

For Naga, the first years had a garbage pickup all over town and then a picnic and recreation at the local Flower Hill park on the site of Seishuu no Sato, the birthplace of that first man in Japan to develop local anesthesia or something like that. The Rokunensei took the train to a nearby site that hosts several kofun that you can walk into as well as a museum and model village on the way of life of the Japanese people who used to live there between the 3rd and 7th century.

It was alright- the kids are much more lively outside of class and more friendly and good natured and it was great weather...but still, I kind of wanted to go on different trips, say with the Elementary first graders and the JHS Second years...sigh....oh well!

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Photos

The school courtyard
Naga Junior High school, pre ensoku assembly...the head students outlined the course and told all the students where they were to go and where they were to stop for checkpoints.

my checkpoint
Here kids could drop off their trash, get new bags and drink some water before they set off to their next checkpoint.

Flower hill assembly
All the groups, after picking up garbage on their seperate paths, met up at the final destination and had a little debriefing- the groups presented where they went, what was the most numerous place where garbage was found, what kind of garbage and the pros and cons of their group effort.

flower hill park
lunch!

Ichinensei
First year, the 2nd class

Ichi no Ichi
The first class of the first years

ewwwwwwwww
a huge, writhing spiderweb of caterpillars and other bugs in the crook of a tree

Kemushi!
hair bug, aka, a caterpillar

Nate Elementary School Ensoku
walking from the train station, this is Oohigashi Sensei, on of the 6th grade teachers. He studied a bit in America and his English is pretty good. He likes to cycle and goes on weekend trips to places like Mt. Fuji and bikes to the top!

Taniguchi Sensei's class
The 6th graders are split into two classes

Oohigashi Sensei's class
with me! I really like the 6th grader teachers...just not the 6th graders so much...that's when they start getting all dull and sullen....

sakura lined street
I watched the back of the line with Ueda Sensei

The pow-wow
The teachers pretty much let the kids roam free as long as they fill out the work packet they all brought and as long as they meet up after lunch

old style Japanese thatched roof
See how thick it is? I think it's all made of thin bamboo reeds or something...

Ueda Sensei and the girls
I paired up with this group to hike around the mountain...Ueda Sensei is really good with kids. He was a 5th grade teacher last year and it was one of my favorite classes to teach...now he's a class scheduler so he doesn't teach classes and I think it makes him sad. But he was happy to go on the ensoku with his old students!

bye bye!
Ueda sensei heading into one of the kofun tombs.

some of the girls
some of the nicer girls, stopping for a lunch break.

little tarps
All the kids had a beautifully prepared bentou box lunch, with a variety of different little foods, dessert and rice. They also all had little square tarps so they don't get dirty as well as TONS of snacks.

boys
I'm not very fond of these three boys. The one in the center (who unfortunately lives in my building) is a little punk who throws tantrums and is just a pain in the butt in general...brings the whole attitude of the class down...