Treasures at the End of the School Year

It's finally time for the school year to end!

I've spent 2 out of the 3 semesters this school year teaching these students, and I've become much closer to certain groups of them than others. I didn't visit my big elementary schools enough for the kids to know much about me, but the kids at my small elementary school are already very used to my presence. I attended their graduation ceremony and watched them choke back tears. Afterwards, I went to their room to congratulate them and give them all hugs. I lifted some of the more excitable boys up in celebration, and then went around to gently hug the girls. One of the girls wasn't satisfied and demanded that I lift her in the air as well. I have a feeling it'll be easy teaching these kids next year in middle school.

In middle school, I didn't spend much time with the 3rd years. They spent most of the time studying for their high school entrance exams, so I was used mostly for 1st and 2nd years. The first years had teachers that didn't let me do much (for some reason or another), so they are all kinda awkward and nervous around me. They're at that awkward stage in life anyways.

The second years are the kids that have spent the most time with me. I feel a lot closer to them now, and some of them like to talk to me about anime. I always feel comfortable in the second year classes, and we sometimes mess around during P.E. and break time. I joined the girls for badminton on one P.E. session, and I ended up with a certificate for second place in doubles (I played with a girl named Nene, and we destroyed opponents together. I wasn't there for the second session, when the P.E. teacher took my place and lost some games, knocking us down to second =[ ).

At my other middle school, the second years always say hi to me with big smiles when they see me. One of the girls is particularly obsessed with American music, and she excitedly asks me about the songs I like (even though I'm a little behind on the popular stuff). The boys are really energetic in a foolish way, so I participate in their horseplay. I taught some of them the exploding fist bump, and now that's all they want to do. Everyone thinks that one of the boys, named Kirai, looks just like me, so they've nicknamed him Ki-Ryan. One of the kids I like to mess with is a bit of a bully, but in a gentle giant kind of way. He is quite a bit larger than me and has absolutely no English ability, but he seems to like to interacting with me. He sometimes goes around kneeing other boys in the belly. I saw him doing this once, and I trotted over to give him a nice dead-leg roundhouse knee to the thigh. The other boy said, "Ohh, thank you Ryan-sensei! You're a good guy!" Another time, he picked up my bag of candy and pretended to start walking away with it. I chuckled, and he asked if he could really take it. I said, "Sure! Go ahead!" while cracking my knuckles in a fist. He looked back at me with doubt, and I said with a broad smile, "It's been a while since I've had someone to play with!". He paused, slowly put the bag down, and walked out of the room. He turned back around and asked, "When are you coming back next time?" I smiled and said, "Two weeks," and he turned around with a nod. Dawwww you're so adorable.

For the last few days of school, I spent a lot of time with the second years. The final activity was a short speech on something we value the most: our "treasure". I wasn't sure what to use, since there are so many things that I value (hapkido belt, girlfriend, birthday watch, Wheatley keychain light, etc.). I decided to just make it simple, and used my bike for the example speech.

My treasure? Sure... it definitely falls in the price range...

I really enjoyed walking around to each student and helping them with their spelling/grammar while talking about their treasures. Some of the kids came up with some really interesting stuff. Several kids loved their pet tortoises, and one girl even chose her cactus as her treasure. Another boy chose to talk about his "thought", and even had an impressive set of existentialist supportive reasons written down in English. A few kids valued their watches, and I showed them the one I got from my mom for my birthday. One boy valued his Kyokushin Karate brown belt (called an obi), and he recoiled with a surprised "Ooh!" when I whipped my red belt out of my bag (I used it as my prop treasure for the first years earlier that day). One girl really liked an anime folder she got from her brother, and she told me the anime was very interesting. I'm now watching the anime she recommended, and it is indeed quite good!

After they had their speeches written and proofread, they then volunteered to come up to the front and speak. My favorite class had nearly everyone participate (24 out of around 30 people), and the teacher was really impressed. One of the girls originally chose to pass, but I was like, "Whaaaat? Come on, come on!" and waved her up. She called her teacher over to help her while the rest of the class finished their speeches, and she finally mustered the courage to go up at the end. She's a really quiet student, who I've bumped into at the 100-yen shop and tried to talk to before, so it's nice to see my encouragement having some impact. This class is my favorite because they are the most willing to use and improve their English (and the cute girl ratio is way higher than any other class =P).

As second year English classes came to a close, I went back to the teachers' room to wallow in loneliness and think about what will change when they become third years. Suddenly, pancakes started flowing into the teachers' room! I ran over to the home economics room, and there were my second years, making pancakes and sending extras to the teachers! I wanted to cook too, but right when they saw me, they yelled, "Ryan-sensei is here!" The home ec teacher saw me, and told someone to grab a plate and shove it in my hands. Apparently, they were all done cooking and were eating already, so I dug in. It was only one pancake, but it was smothered in all kinds of goodies: strawberries, banana, jam, crushed red bean, and lots of whipped cream! The boys were playing with the left over whipped cream, so I told them to lay some more on me. Then, as a girl scooped the last dollop out of the bowl and verbally wondered what to do with it, I opened my mouth with an "aaaaaaahhh" and she fed it to me. Best final day of classes ever!!

The last two days consisted of tests and ceremonies, so there were no classes held. I took the first day off to go fail my driving test, but I showed up the second day for the ceremonies. The first ceremony was the basic end-of-the-school-year ceremony. The second one was a farewell to the teachers who are transferring to different schools. The tears flowed freely, and even the third years (I though I'd never see them again) showed up to say goodbye.

After that, we had a short meeting to congratulate the departing teachers on their hard work, followed by a special bento lunch prepared by the Washington Hotel. It was massive:

A feast for a job well done. For scale, the textbook on the top left is about 8 inches wide.

Here's the contents, if you're curious.

It took me a while, but I managed to finish it all! Afterwards, I said my "thank you"s and "farewell"s to the leaving teachers, and departed back to my central office. It's finally over, and the schools will never feel quite the same.

Thanks for reading, and see you again!