The Content of Character

It was the first time in five years that I had seen her. I wanted to say, "I missed you so much, mom"; "I am so happy to see you again," but the sentences wouldn't come out of my mouth. They felt trapped, like a ball of cotton sticking in my teeth, making it hard to breathe.

Hey Nick, long time no e-.

That little snippet above is our entry from this year's free-speech contest. It's the introduction to the emotional crisis that we would spend the next four minutes trying to resolve. But, from that, if it's not obvious: we did not win, because, duh.

If you think about it too much

¹And I think maybe I do.

¹, writing the speech is probably the easiest part of preparing the students for a speech contest. Well, the actual writing, itself, is of course an unceasing labor, first in trying to understand the content, then in trying to understand the speaker because, ultimately, speech writing is about helping the student say what they want to say in the ways they want to say it if only their grasp of the English language were better. But once the speech has been sent to print, since the text supposedly speaks of their heart, it should be no extra work to get them to invest in performing the content.

In lots of ways, helping students pick materials for the Recitation and Reading divisions is much more challenging for me. And even once the material has been picked, I can't help but stress over whether or not the material is at the appropriate level for the speaker and for the contest.

That is why even before I begin, we get together to lay out a Map of Success for the students. The Critical Theorist in me requires that we clearly articulate objectives for the speech contest and define what we are going to consider a 'success' and what is a 'failure.'

For some of our students, merely participating is the target, so then 'participating well' is our goal. For other students, we have much more specific challenges, such as oral mechanics or level of difficulty of vocabulary or grammatical patterns that we would like for them to develop.

And while 'winning' is a definitely a consideration, I do not like making it a significant marker of success because there are so many variables to placing that are so far beyond our control. After all, though winning is 'the point' of the competition, what if we perform admirably but the level of competition happens to be unusually high that day? Was that a waste of time? Or, conversely, if we perform abysmally, but the level of competition is low and we win, do we consider our preparation and execution a 'success,' or anything more than just being really lucky? Or what if the judges are 'bad' and judge according to criteria that is beyond the scope of the rubric of the contest

²*[Cough, cough]*

²?

It becomes paramount to not only recognize that in judged competitions, sometimes it is not always what we do right or wrong, but about what the other contestants do and what the judges see or do not see.

All we can do is make sure that we produce a speech--in content and delivery--that is comprehensible and compelling.

So, with an eye towards our mutually negotiated terms of 'success,' in picking the material for our recitation and reading, there are a few key factors that I want to consider: in order for the student to want to spend hours and hours working on the minutia of mechanics, the text needs to be emotionally engaging and offer points of personal investment; likewise, in order for the time spent to be a worthwhile learning experience, the text should be sufficiently challenging.

Similarly, since I will have to listen to the student recite the speech for weeks on end, it has to be a text that I find worth listening to.

And yet, and yet, sometimes I don't know if the challenge is worth the risk. Maybe the text is too hard to memorize, let alone understand. Maybe the text does not accurately showcase the students' talents or strengths. Or maybe the text does not line up with what the judges expect or come prepared to hear.

One of our students is a girl from Peru: smart, charming, and a very competent English speaker. We did not particularly have any students in mind when trying to select who to ask to do the district speech contest, and so it was by great fortune that Naomi stepped up to the challenge. It was as if she fell into my nets, a giftwrapped treasure from the gods set afloat down the stream. And so when she drifted along she seemed to be the perfect pair to a text that had also, out-of-the-blue, jumped into my ship three months earlier.

Now, I'm perpetually on the lookout for new material, but it seemed to be a particularly divine turn of the Wheel that I stumbled upon a not-too distant episode of Radiolab that happened to feature a story from Cosmicomics.

"The Distance of the Moon" is a 1965, translated text written by Italian neo-mythologizer, Italo Calvino. It is a beautifully written tale based on the premise that at one time the earth and moon were much closer to each other than they are now: so close, in fact, that all you had to do was prop up a tall ladder and you could find yourself on the cool, cream-colored surface of the moon.

The text, written in an oral, folk-tale style, is challenging in its conversational tone, in addition to its advanced vocabulary.

On those nights the water was very calm, so silvery it looked like mercury, and the fish in it, violet-colored, unable to resist the Moon's attraction, rose to the surface, all of them, and so did the octopuses and the saffron medusas.

Despite being quite conversant in English, the text was hard for her to read aloud and its meaning obfuscated by the extremely casual structure. But that very tone and rhythm helped to create space for some strikingly beautiful prose:

...or else we contemplated the stars beyond the Moon, big as pieces of fruit, made of light, ripened on the curved branches of the sky, and everything exceeded my most luminous hopes, and yet, and yet, it was, instead, exile.

It is difficult to read. It is a bit lilting and heavy of heart. But its hopeful richness and wonder is a tone that matches Naomi to a tee.

It was a risk because I was not sure if Naomi would be able to master the text. But, most of all, it was a risk because I was not sure that the judges would understand the context of the presentation as a break from the stilted political stump form. Would they be open to a dynamic, oral interpretation inspired reading?

And, unfortunately

³As the Wheel is wont to turn

³, I am thinking that they did not.

It was, by far, the most technically complex text in the entire speech contest. It was also the most interesting, with its emotional depth and literary beauty. But it is hard to say if I set Naomi up for success with the piece that we picked.

However, I do know that I would have been disappointed with myself if I let us pick a 一年生英語 Reader level text

⁴Anyone interested in a fourth or fifth rendition of "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish," or "I Have a Dream"? No? Okay, how about "The History of Ice Cream," or an excerpt from the Disney Storybook Collection?

⁴ like everyone else.

Anyway, it appears that any text that asks the judges to listen to the content to understand changes in tone or emotion, let alone challenges them to listen to a student speak at near-native pace, is a little too much to ask for. I guess I will just have to dust off my old copies of Big Dipper or Mainstream if I want my kids to get past the district round.

For What It's Worth

A couple weeks ago Kashew and I realized that we had an extended weekend coming up. In September, we have a couple of Mondays and Tuesdays off, but these are no ordinary holidays. Rather, they are mid-week CTO for Saturday in-service for Junior High Open House and Bunkasai, which meant that, if we felt so inclined, we could prepare a trip almost anywhere in Japan and expect tourist crowds to be at a minimum.

For a long while we’ve been eyeing a trip to Yakushima (屋久島、鹿児島県、九州), the UNESCO nature preserve off the coast of Kagoshima that is home to some of the oldest trees in the world, as well as the inspiration for the setting of much of Mononoke Hime, only the best movie Japan has ever produced.

In August, we found some really cheap ticket prices

¹The influx of LCCs in Japan have really opened up domestic travel at around \$130 round trip.

¹ and were getting set to drop some dough and go for a four-day retreat and 温泉.

But I just wasn’t sure. By our estimation, we would fly into Kagoshima late in the weekend and catch the 4-hour ferry (or 3-hour foil) out to Yakushima. Theoretically, if we were to get back to Kagoshima in time to see anything in Kyushu before catching our flight back to Kanto, we’d most likely spend a mere two half-days on the island itself.

Admittedly, after perusing the suspiciously short list of things there are to do in Yakushima, two half-days would seem like an appropriate amount of time to see a good majority of the things there are to see there. Except that of the four things to do listed on the Japan-Guide.com website, only one of them did not use the words “multi-hour” and “hike” in any sort of combination.

This created a dilemma.

Would it be worth it to spend the hundreds and hundreds of dollars and half-dozen hours it would cost to fly down to Kagoshima and catch the ferry to Yakushima only to really be able to say, ‘Yeah, I’ve been there,’ but not be able to say, ‘Yeah, I’ve seen that’?

"Cost" is an interesting variable, and one whose aspects have changed for me over time. Having grown up in a somewhat affluent area of Southern California, there have only been two distinct periods in my life where public transportation has played an important role in my every day traveling.

Back in 2005 or so, I used the extensive network of Boston Public Transportation to my full advantage, running from one end of Downtown to the other and, back and forth across the Charles by ferry or bus or rail on a daily basis.

At that time, what mattered most to me was not particularly the financial cost: what mattered most to me was time, which combination of transportation modes would get me from point-A to point-B in the least amount of time, regardless of back-tracking or line-skirting.

Whether there was any actual reason to be in a hurry was inconsequential. The mere shaving of minutes off of regular travel routes was its own point of pride.

And now whether it is that I have just grown somnolent in the last 9 years, but all of that rushing now seems so senseless and particularly pointless to me. My metric of value has shifted: no longer do those 3 minutes “saved” mean much of anything, especially if it’s a matter of spending 3 minutes in the train or 3 minutes standing on the platform waiting for the next train. What matters most in how I plan my travel itineraries now is “total number of transfers”: the total number of times I have to stand up, walk up the stairs and across the pedestrian overpass, and board another car, hoping to find an open seat.

If time is money, I have decided to cash in on comfort.

The 常磐線, the train route that services the greater Kashiwa area, has two lines, the Rapid and the Local. The Rapid stops at 8 stations between Toride and Ueno, skipping minor stations like Kita-Kashiwa, where I happen to live.

And while the Joban Rapid gets from Ueno to Kashiwa 20 minutes faster than the local, because I would need to transfer from the Rapid to the Local at Kashiwa to get to Kita-Kashiwa, it always gives me pause

This brought about the discussion of ‘worth.’ What does it mean that it would be ‘worth’ doing something?

The negative way of thinking in this situation seemed to be along the lines of opportunity: “When will you ever again have the opportunity to go,” especially if this is my last year working in Japan. As an opportunist, it may be surprising to think that this approach could be classified as negative. But, ultimately, the question is asking, “How will you know if you will ever be able to have this chance again?” which, to me, is a negative way of looking at opportunities of agency. The counter question is, “Why do you assume that I would not be able to go if I no longer lived in Kashiwa?”

The true opportunity is one of convenience, not of availability. And while every opportunity must be weighed against its cost, opportunities of convenience must be weighed against future cost + potential inconvenience.

Presently, the convenience offered is exclusivity (being a small minority on holiday at the time) and assured proximity (traveling from Kanto to Kyushu is much closer than traveling from LA to Kyushu, though next year I may very well find myself in Kansai, which would be a decrease in potential inconvenience).

The necessarily incurred inconveniences by taking advantage of this opportunity are our time limitations and travel fees plus incidental costs, such as the fact that my MacBook Pro just died and will have to be replaced at great expense within the end of the year.

At this point, the variables have become confused. This begs me to clearly articulate my analytic metrics: the one we will use in this instance is cost versus potential enjoyment against the cost of deferment.

This geometric theory can be summed up by asking, “Will I enjoy[Ʃ]: X(activity) for Y(amount of time) at Z(cost) more than [Replacement Activity]?” It’s the VORP of travel planning.

In the Yakushima Intiative, it appears that the sole variable in question is that of Y: time. The amount of time we have allotted would likely diminish the amount of potential Ʃnjoyment of said experience. Or would it?

Could anybody guarantee the greater amount of fun Yakushima would be if I had 2, 3 or even 4 whole days on the island? Or, incidentally, could that risk be mitigated by increasing the amount of time we could spend hanging out in and around Kagoshima before or after?

Presently, I would be inclined to say that at the current expected cost, such an improved outcome would be likely with more time to relax. So it would seem that deferring the trip would be preferable, despite the potentially great possibility that no opportunity to go would arise the longer I wait

²Though as an actionable situation, the variable of Will will ostensibly tilt the equation. One of my Statistics pet-peeves is the tendency to treat actionable situations as if they were random occurrences, and therefore suggest that statistics are predictive rather than indicative.

².

However, even if Yakushima scores lowly with the present metric (Event[Experience; Opportunity; Company; &tc.] :: Cost[Time; Money; Energy; &tc.]), within the immediate context, is there anything better I would be doing with my time than going? Finally get around to touring 青森県? Maybe even 福島県? Four consecutive days of 焼き肉食放題? Four consecutive days of 柔道? Four consecutive days of sitting at home alone and watching TV?

Despite having an overall lower ceiling, all of these other activities also happen to have much lower costs and, therefore, much higher likelihood of satisfaction associated with it. Thusly, not going to Yakushima seems to have a greater likelihood of resulting in Ʃnjoyment.

However, this is only so if I actually make other plans.

備えあれば...

備えあれば憂いなし: if you are well prepared, it is said, you need not worry.


I know I've mentioned professional development in passing before, Nick, but it really is one the major platforms of my tenure here in the Teaching Exchange Program.

It has been a key issue ever since I first interviewed for the position, where I received a slightly less-than-inspiring response to the question of employee-support after the termination of the three-year contract. Now I understand this is of no fault of the committee: as a de facto hiring firm, their job is to recommend the best candidate to the hiring agency, not dictate the terms of the position. And as a volunteer organization, they can offer the support and interest of the community, but make no promises or guarantees of post-employment placement. However, as someone who had to leave a very stable position with plenty of upward-mobility potential, moving even laterally to a place whose only guarantee was negative-mobility was daunting.

In talking about this issue with other foreign workers in various education positions throughout Kashiwa, it has become more and more clear that I need to continue to work to ensure that when I leave Ichikashi I take with me much more than just fond memories.

And while the onus to pursue professional development always falls on the employee, because of the very finite nature of this position, an emphasis of this program should be on fostering an atmosphere that illuminates the value of and encourages participation in continuing education, both in terms of practical skills via on-the-job training as well as academic theory and practice.

This would seem attractive in two ways:

First, in supporting ongoing professional development for even its temporary employees, Ichikashi would be better served by instructors who are trained in the newest techniques, guaranteeing that the foreign language teaching at Ichikashi would remain current and progressive. Ichikashi would then be at the forefront of Language Education, attracting high-quality candidate-students interested in receiving the most up-to-date and effective foreign language instruction and training.

The second is that in pursuing professional development, the workers themselves are better prepared and much more competitive when they re-enter the candidate pool with not only years of practical, in-class experience, but also technical training and certification which also acts as proof of an interest in ongoing training. This, in and of itself, is an asset for any employer looking for proactive, conscientious workers.

Such a change, in addition to fighting for the distinction of 外国語講師 (Foreign Language Instructor) over the oft-pejorative "ALT" title, should elevate the desirability of the position. Not only is the institution, then, seen as actively interested in the well-being and development of its employees--which makes the institution a desirable place to work for--but the Foreign Language Instructor position at Ichikashi avoids the stigma of being a "dead-end job" for people who lack ambition or a "sabbatical-position"--the kind of job one has to take a "break" from a "real career" to pursue.

Earlier I was talking to a colleague who works at the Board of Education as the Foreign Language Education Coordinator about the plethora of options available to any teacher living in Japan, and yet how hard it often seems to get people at any level of administration interested in investing

¹Even just "time."

¹ in the professional development of their small army of "temporary workers." It is not surprising as they are just temporary; after three years they practically disappear.

And partly it is that sort of casual dismissive thinking that hurts language teachers in Japan as it theoretically limits their value after matriculating through such programs. If these employees are not worth any professional investment from their current employer, they are hardly worth more potential investment by future employers. And, realistically, the observability of this end-result affects the kinds of applicants that would find such teaching opportunities interesting but who would also be deterred by such a potential "gap" in their resume.

I am not proposing that Ichikashi mandate professional development courses into their Exchange Teaching Program, but make accommodations for those teachers interested in professional development to make it a reasonable career path to pursue.

As the list of resources (CELTA, CertTESOL, DipTESOL, &tc.²

²Or how about even a JLPT?

) on the above-mentioned kALTitude website notes, a number of 3-month distance learning certification programs are available to educators, as well as one-month long intensives specifically targeted at teachers in Japan by being scheduled in August, the one month in the calendar year that Japanese teachers don't have any scheduled classes.

My proposition is this: at Ichikashi, as a full-time member of the faculty, we are expected to be on campus even during non-academic days, available to do work as needed, such as lesson preparation. However, teachers are allowed to take non-academic days off by using vacation days. As it stands, if I want to take part in the one-month CELTA certification program, I would have to use more than 18 of my vacation days. Yet if we consider the professional development of the Foreign Language Instructor as a functional part of "lesson preparation," a special dispensation could be made to allow for off-campus non-instructional work hours, akin to "chaperoning" or "off-site business meetings."

Once such an allowance is made then funding options could be considered. Though that may be one bridge too far.

Anyway, I incessantly remind Kashew that we need to constantly be looking forward to the day that we are no longer employed at Ichikashi. Unlike so many other jobs, we have the advantage of knowing well and good that our contracts are finitely

³*infinitely?

³ terminal. That means that at the end of our three years here, if we are mindful of our position, we can maneuver ourselves to be better situated, more experienced, and therefore much more desirable as hirable commodities when we leave.

While Ichikashi provides us with excellent opportunities for personal growth, we also need to continually be aware that personal growth does not easily show through on a paper resume. Rather, with our time at Ichikashi we can both grow personally and professionally and really create resumes of distinction. And if Ichikashi will allow itself to be a conduit through which professional development is not just offered but encouraged and fostered, it may be impossible to imagine how much more educationally effective and professionally desirable the Teaching Exchange Program can become.

Tour Grounds

I’m sorry it’s been such a long time since I last posted. I know that no excuse of busyness is weighty enough to disabuse one’s blog-reading faithful, that perhaps only death is reason enough to miss a post or two. But let me tell you that gastroenteritis feels a lot like what I imagine death would feel like.

      
So, Nick, the Torrance Delegation has come and gone, blown in and out like the first spring winds¹

¹Note that Japan has a term for the first wind storm of the spring, 初風 (はつかぜ). This season's first wind with gusts up to 60kph over three days. With it came the season's first aerosol pollution and yellow sand from across the Japan Sea.

. Over that time there had been more than one long day of sightseeing, more than one high-stakes political dinner, and more than one parade of speeches (in two languages). But there was only one Ichikashi Presentation, and only one Ichikashi Campus Tour.

And while I feel like we did an admirable job, the gravity of the event, in terms of both the ELT-program’s

²New official title: 外国語講師.

² as well as Kashew and my own reputation, does warrant some reflection.

I will spare you the nitty-gritty of the specific review; rather, I want to talk about the pre-planning strategy.

Determining scope based on perceived needs.

Obviously, it was important for us when considering what kind of presentation to give to the delegation to determine what kind of information the delegation would find relevant and interesting. Of course all of the standard information had to be there (such as a brief history of the campus and curriculum), but it would be the inclusion of and emphasis on information that they would find unique or otherwise unexplained that would make the presentation feel like a worthwhile expenditure of their time.

Thusly, we were required to ask of ourselves some very basic questions: why did the delegation specifically request to see a Japanese school on this trip? what other places and cultural activities would they participate in before (and after) coming to Ichikashi, especially those regarding forums of education? and what expertise and interest would the delegates bring with them that would influence the types of questions they would have or need answered?

Such questions were used to better anticipate the types of information that would most likely be of interest as well as earmark what information would be redundant and, therefore, could be glossed.

In looking at their schedule, we realized two things: 1) they were going to be very busy and, 2) coming to Ichikashi would be their only opportunity to see a Japanese school first hand.

And while the first point allowed us to predict that fatigue would be a major factor in our presentation³

³Which was scheduled to occur in the late afternoon before a mayoral banquet.

, encouraging brevity, the second allowed us to tailor our presentation to spend a majority of our time illuminating what it means to be a high school student in Japan from the administrative/programmatic perspective as well as illustrate activities and events that define Ichikashi life.

This was particularly relevant after reviewing the list of attendees. We found out that most of the delegates were from the Torrance City Council (including the mayor and a former mayor), and a good number had spent many years of service in local public education (including a former member of the board of education as well as the first Ichikashi ALT). We would then have to make sure that our presentation spent a good amount of time on educational politics.

So, with that being said, we knew what they would most likely be interested in: information regarding the administrative and structural differences in education between Torrance and Kashiwa. We then knew we had to talk about things like Municipal v. Prefectural v. National funding, open enrollment, and 10-year teacher rotations, in addition to the local processes of homeroom and classroom construction (both literally and figuratively).

And as TSCA representatives, Kashew and I afforded an insider’s working knowledge of Japan, and would thusly be expected to act as a cultural conduit through which the delegates could ask cultural questions without any reservation or fear of offense.

Discerning the disparity among needs.

And yet, even with this information prepared in advance, we were met with a bit of reticence in our first committee meeting. And while I will spare you the grosser details, we should let it suffice to say that what was at odds between us, as presenters, and them, as administration, was an unstated gap of perceived needs. That is the administration had some concerns that were not satiated by the outline laid out before them.

And this is fair. But it also made some of the people on the presentation-side a little upset as they felt like their ideas were left ignored in favor of a pre-decided administration-derived plan. They felt it was a waste of time for us to go to an "ideation" meeting to discuss needs when in reality we ended up just being told what our needs needed to be by the administration.

But I see it like this: an open forum of discussion is not democratic, like we pretend democracy to be. It is, after all, autocratic when a boss is involved. The openness of the forum certainly allows for all needs to be aired and made known, but these needs are not equal but are hierarchical. And while a need brought up by one of lower standing may be elevated by those higher than him as previously unconsidered, no particular need can supplant those of the boss without first satiating that need.

That is to say, simply, such meetings are a sale pitches: one must distract the potential buyer from his present concerns before supplanting them with concerns of your own making, for which you can then sell your own solution.

Bridging the gap.

Especially as the presentation was going to be offered to local Kashiwa officials as well as the Torrance Delegation, it became quite clear early on that one of the most important needs of the administration was to affirm the many ways that Ichikashi is unique among it's "competitors" (the 県立, 国立 and 私立 schools in the 関東 area). This is a valid need that could not be ignored, and one that would probably be of passing interest to those involved with TSCA. So the whole second half of the presentation was dedicated to the accolades of the various educational and club programs on campus.

This was a felt need that was easily satisfied and should have been included from the beginning. But there were other issues that were closely tied into this.

For example, in the initially proposed itinerary, very little time was afforded to a campus tour as such a thing was considered very unnecessary. Rather, the bulk of the two hours the delegation would spend at Ichikashi was allocated to a presentation about Ichikashi.

The argument that was presented, repeatedly, was that the delegation did not travel 5000 miles to Tokyo and 40 minutes by bus to come to Ichikashi to be shown pictures of Ichikashi.

After this proposition's initial failure, I felt like continuing to repeat this was the wrong tact to take.

Essentially, the best approach to moving a buttressed wall is not to push against it, but to discern which direction the buttress leans and pull in agreement to that plane. What we had to do was discern why there was hesitance in offering a tour and satisfy that concern before we could replace it with our own.

The interesting story that came out of it was the story we led off with in the tour:

This classroom is 2I. You may be wondering why we decided to show you this room. After all, there are no decorations and so it is virtually indistinguishable from every other classroom that we just passed by. Actually, that is why we wanted to show you this room: every classroom at Ichikashi, from 一A組 to 三S組, from 鹿児島 to札幌, looks pretty much exactly like this. From the west-facing windows and the north-facing wall, all classrooms in Japan look just like this.

And, really, this is why we had to convince the administration that a tour would be interesting. "Why would they want a tour of the school," they asked. "Every room looks exactly the same everywhere in Japan! Wouldn't they much rather sit in the comfortable new Arena?"

The administration's concern was that in order to be a good host they would make sure that their guests were as comfortable as possible. That there was no reason to require that a delegation of 56 70-year-olds walk around campus under the assumption that every school looks exactly the same: what could they possibly learn from seeing all of the same?

What we, then, needed to do was show them that their concern was valid, but its application misplaced.

Rather than pursuing comfort and the distribution of information as the primary function of a good host, we had to show them that while this may work in hosting a team of Japanese delegates already familiar with a Japanese schoolhouse, when hosting American delegates one must have other considerations in mind, including a hands-on tour. In order to be a good host to the Torrance delegation, they had to reconsider what ‘hosting’ meant.

Once that assurance was made—that we all agreed that our foremost role would be to ensure that Ichikashi acted a good host to leave a lasting impression upon the delegates—we could then begin to negotiate the meaning of what, exactly, it meant to be a good host.

And it went off, more or less, without a hitch. Everyone had their charm turned up to 11, Kashew and I had gone over the Ichikashi-factbook with a fine-toothed comb, and were spouting off facts and figures to the astonishment of all: Ichikashi has around 200 members involved in 吹奏楽部, making it 1/5 the total student body; 93% of all of our students are involved in at least one club on campus; Ichikashi sees 400 students test annually to enter and accepts only 300; 87% of all students who enter Ichikashi go on to some form of tertiary education. The statistics are fractally endless.

      

      
Anyway, sorry for utter lack of posts, but I’ve been doing a lot of other-kinds-of-writing. I could post those, but I don’t think there’s much interest in half-edited lesson outlines, presentation speeches and schedule frameworks. Then again, there may be a budding market for erotic haikus and twitter reviews of leaked albums…