Today I learned an interesting word I’d like to share. 臨機応変 (Rinkiouhen). It’s meaning is “to adapt oneself to the requirements of the moment”; “to play it by ear.”

I believe Elementary teachers work to come up with, “Excellent Plans.” I really do. However, no matter how many eyes have glanced over these plans, they often require non-native Japanese speakers to implement them. This is a bottle neck in an otherwise perfect Japanese system.

The plans I’ve seen typically read out like scripts. Something you would practice for a skit or a play. I’ve seen some well done ones, as well as some that were left blank. I find most of them to be idealistic in the objectives they want completed for that particular class.

This is where Rinkiouhen comes in. Thinking on my feet to come up with an activity that’s fun, stimulating, but unplanned for. Rinkiouhen has to be well thought out, prepped, and executed in less then 3-5 minutes before chaos erupts. The ALT (me) needs to be coherent enough to dictate, in Japanese, things he needs to burn time, till the bell rings, to the teacher and the students. Typically, if it works out, the kids are laughing and the teacher is happy when the bell goes off.

This seems like common sense stuff, however because I’m in Japan there’s always a layer of complexity to it. I’m learning that it’s easier to not reveal what you really thought about each class, its kids, or the teacher. Just mentioning rinkiouhen to the teacher next to me was enough for him to lecture me on why being extemporaneous isn’t necessarily a part of my job, and that he regretted that I felt compelled to do so.

I think I’ve found one piece of Japanese honne here. The truth might be that the objective of staff and faculty is to make it look like everything was well scripted and polished. Something so finished that you could hand it off to anyone (like a principal, or someone at the Board of Education, or a curriculum coordinator)  and be merited for such fine work. However, in practice, everything is different. I need to give prompts to teachers to keep on them on their game sometimes. And despite what I was told, I just might need to bust out a little rinkiouhen to make it to the next bell.

Confucius once said, “The superior man, in the world, does not set his mind either for anything, or against anything; what is right he will follow.” Chapter 4;14 Analects of Confucius.

~J out

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