During the holiday season I’ve been given an excellent opportunity to come home for Christmas. So with this time I think it would only be fair to reflect, with my cat sleeping on my lap, how the past four months have gone.

I arrived in Aomori Prefecture with a wide smile on my face. Not more then an hour ago had I boarded a plane in Japan’s great metropolis, Tokyo. I remember the flight vividly as I watched, through the clouds, as city centers gave way to rice fields and then into forest. I watched as the plane descended into the sky towards a small two story, one corridor, Airport located in what some would call… “just north of nowhere.”

Over the days and months I found that nowhere in Japan carries a unique and fascinating charm. It may not be lonely planet’s depiction of Japan, but it’s real Japan nonetheless. The greatest thing about this particular experience has been just  working there.

As an English teacher in my small town of Mutsu I still can’t believe how far up in the frontlines I am teaching directly to Japan’s future generation.  A day doesn’t go by that I don’t feel thankful for the trust Mutsu has in me to teach something to kids as young as 6 years old. Granted, the “privilage” did take nearly a year to apply for.

So what of teaching? Do I feel that I’ve made progress? In essence, I believe I am making small progress, but perhaps not in an emperial test-based way. Bruce Feiler writes in his account of teaching English in Japan nearly 10 years ago, “…During a year of teaching English in Sano, I had learned to measure progress not by lists of words or flights of rhetoric, but by the simple magic of call-and-response.” (Learning to Bow, Pg. 276) By that Mr. Feiler goes on to explain it as like a game of tennis, where he, or in this case I, serve an English phrase and if it’s returned properly I’ve made progress.

Additionally, having to work in Elementary Schools, I’ve learned a great deal about how to have fun learning something, and how to do it with great humility. As an English teacher, while English is important– it’s just as important to excite kids into learning it. I’m proud of my kids who are learning something, but am humbled by how many different learning styles there are in all seven of my schools.

Overall, I don’t feel overly challenged or feel my job is impossible. Rather, I feel my duty as a teacher to learn from my students as to what works and what does not. I mean, shoot, I’ve only been teaching in an Japanese Elementary school classroom for four months now…

~J

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