Private schools
There are many, many private schools around Japan. Cram schools are probably most common but there are also many primary and secondary schools here. I often wonder how they are regulated, because many of them are made up of a single room in an office building. After I had the opportunity to teach at one the other week, I only wondered more.
The school I taught at was an international school. The kids had been born or had lived for a period in an English-speaking country, and now that they were home with their families in Japan, they were sent to international school so that they wouldn’t lose their English skills.
So, the first thing you notice is that you are not teaching them English. They already speak it as fluently as a 7-year-old could. You actually teach them things like math and spelling.
Which is a slight moral dilemma for me….I don’t have an Education degree, I’ve never been trained to teach primary school kids. Heck, I hadn’t even been trained for Kids Classes by my eikaiwa!
But apparently I was deemed qualified enough to teach them just this one time. I taught spelling and math, we played a few games…and then I taught them about the U.N. Security Council.
Yes, you read it right. I had to teach a bunch of seven and eight years olds about the U.N. Security Council, UNICEF and the WHO. Why? I have no idea. It’s just the curriculum for this month at the school.
I don’t think I did too badly teaching them that, but I still wonder why someone felt that it needed to be taught to these kids. Most adults would have trouble understanding the intricacies of the United Nations. These kids just weren’t interested, and I can understand why.
Especially since I let slip that I watch Naruto every week, and then that’s all they wanted to talk about.
Oops.
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