Graduation

That classic song

Since the academic calendar is a little different here in Japan and other Asian countries, graduation for the elementary school kids was the past week. Graduation ceremonies are a big deal here in Japan. According to Roya, the other PiAer in Yakage, who works at the nursery level, even kindergarten schools have formal ceremonies to honor the children moving just next door to elementary school. The whole school attends, parents take a day off from work, and I was wearing a white tie to go with my suit. As you might expect in Japanese culture, there is a set way of doing everything. Every year, the graduating students become robots and enter the auditorium in lines of two before turning at right angles to their seats. When it comes time to receive their diplomas, one by one the children step up in front of the principal, bow, extend right hand then left and grasp the diploma, step back, pull diploma in and bow. Then they must fold the diploma in half without creasing, step back with the right foot and do a 180 spin before returning to their seats. Graduation from Dickinson wasn’t too long ago so during the whole ceremony I wondered if the kids were feeling at all like I had. The moment that I received my diploma was a bit of a blur as I just tried to walk at a reasonable pace down the stairs and not trip in front of the thousands of people watching. Of course, the kids here in Yakage were practicing the whole routine for a week leading up to graduation, so I’m sure they more relieved to just finally be done with it.

Roll out the red carpet

                Something I like about the schools here in Yakage is the camaraderie between the different grades. Of course the schools here are smaller. Every school has fewer than 100 kids enrolled. So the schools will create events to force kids from different grades to interact with one another. This mandatory fun time probably isn’t needed. After all, thanks to random chance of when they were born, they are now going to be sharing a classroom with the same 15 or so other students for six years. They problem welcome the chance to hang out with some other grades during school time.

                Because of this camaraderie, the younger students really look up to the sixth graders. Whenever the sixth grade went on a field trip, the first and second graders would come running out to wish them a safe trip with the Japanese phrase “Itterasshai” and of course on a day the first and second graders had a field trip, the sixth graders couldn’t be bothered. I thought it was touching that the rest of the school joins the graduation ceremony. Once again there is a set script of things for these younger students to say. Things like “Thank you for taking care of us,” and “Good luck,” and so on. The voices of the kids who volunteered for this role can be heard bouncing around in the crowd. The sixth grade then replies back with each student having a prepared line for the different grades. And since singing is such an engrained part of school life here, it’s also a big thing during the ceremony. I got a little choked up listening to the song the younger students sang wishing the sixth graders farewell. Several parents were crying throughout the graduation.

                Now, it’s two weeks of vacation until the new school year starts in April. During this time teachers find out where they will be working for the coming year. The Board of Education doesn't let a teacher remain at one school for too long, so I look forward to seeing where the reshuffling sends them all in a few weeks.