Oh goodness. I was on a roll and writing daily, but my string of daily blogs was broken thanks to working so hard on my virtual classroom. It's kind of the norm these days for teachers. You have your classroom at school, your makeshift classroom at home, and your cute little virtual classroom on your computer. Even though Japan is currently experiencing a surge in the number of positive COVID-19 cases and despite areas such as Tokyo and Kanagawa being in a State of Emergency, I am now only dealing with my classroom at school. There is a possibility that we could go back to remote learning so at least I'll have some backgrounds and virtual classrooms ready.
Monday was a national holiday in Japan to celebrate the Coming of Age Day for people turning 20 years old. It's a pretty big event for young people as they wear beautiful kimono or stylish formal clothes to mark the occasion. Towns and cities host a big ceremony to honor the new adults and it's a time to reunite with old classmates and friends. Well, unfortunately, due to the risk of spreading infections, many of these ceremonies and special events to mark the Coming of Age had to be canceled. You can imagine the disappointment and the frustration for many of these young people who were looking forward to celebrating (and being able to legally drink and smoke.) However, Yokohama decided to go ahead with their event taking special precautions and measures to prevent the risk of infections. I was probably one of many people who felt the event should not have taken place under the circumstances, but at this point, people seem to be doing whatever they feel like doing regardless of being in a State of Emergency. Let's hope we don't see a huge rise of case numbers within the next few weeks. Although I can empathize with these young adults wanting to celebrate, putting family members and others at risk is a selfish decision at the moment. Is it really worth it?
I spent most of the day working on school stuff. One of the most important things I did was to write an email to the entire staff suggesting that our staff meeting be held online. Our staff meeting was scheduled for Tuesday the 12th from 4:00 in the cafeteria. Prior to winter vacation, we held our meetings in the cafeteria making sure we were safely distanced. There were also acrylic dividers in between seats. It is not the most ideal because it is often hard to hear speakers so they usually bring a microphone for the speaker. There is also not an adequate circulation of air so the windows need to be opened. I sit in the very back right next to the window and out of all range of speakers for my own peace of mind. But some of the nearby teachers politely complain about it being so cold that the windows are open. Geez...go grab a sweater! During the summer months, these same people complained of mosquitoes. My sarcastic answer was "Would you rather have a mosquito bite or Covid?!" Under the suggested requests of the State of Emergency, large gatherings should not be happening and since our staff meetings consist of about 40 people, I didn't think it was a good idea to assemble in the cafeteria. We also still do not know the full after-effects of the New Year holidays. This is probably the crucial week to find out whether the number of cases will rise drastically due to the New Year Holidays. So once again, I didn't feel comfortable assembling in the cafeteria. The third reason I felt we needed to change the meeting to an online meeting was because of the cold temperatures in the evening. Not only should we be protecting our health from Covid, but we should also be protecting our health from the flu or a cold. Frankly, I was a little surprised that the meeting wasn't going to be online. With the support of my teaching partner, I drafted my letter in English, used Google Translate to help me write it in Japanese, and sent it off to everyone. I lack confidence when it comes to having to express myself in Japanese especially not knowing how it will be received. I had previously written a long email in Japanese to express my anxieties and concerns about things that were going on at school in regards to Covid. Although several teachers came up to thank me and also to support what I wrote, the administration did not respond at all to my email. I didn't even receive a "thank you for voicing your opinion" from them. I felt like I was put on mute.
If it is one thing I've learned and one thing I would encourage anyone and everyone to do is to voice your concern and express your thoughts if it is an issue which concerns your mental or physical health, your ethics, your integrity or something you believe strongly about. In this case, I felt that I had a right to speak up for the sake of my mental and physical health. After I sent out the email, within a few hours, we all received the reply that the meeting would be held online and it credited me with prompting them to do that. Well, it made me feel great. At least the admin FINALLY took something I said into consideration.
I also spent Monday preparing a short self-introduction for one of the 1st grade classes. My teaching partner and I teach half of the class for each lesson. We keep our half for the entire term and then switch for the next term. So this will be the half that I haven't taught yet. We have planned out our 15 lessons for the third and final term, but there is one lesson at each class that will have an extra lesson. We decided that for the extra lesson, we will do a self-introduction and allow the kids to ask us questions about our home country, our life, our family, etc. I'll share a few of those slides with you below, but unfortunately, the gifs I made aren't animated here because I had to share them as an image. Huge thanks to LingoTeca from Teachers Pay Teachers for the free virtual bitmoji classroom templates!
Tuesday's lessons were successful and because it's a new half of the class, it felt like the first day of school again. The staff meeting was not so bad because for an introvert like me, being able to stay alone in my classroom with my computer for the staff meeting is so much more desirable and bearable.
Today was my usual day off so I tried to get some teaching things in order and catch up on social media. I'm still behind but we'll hopefully get caught up little by little. Hope everyone is doing well. Sending love and blessings to you and your loved ones. We all could use a little cheer and comfort during rough and challenging times. xox
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