The changing of the guard

The last couple of weeks contained the official end of one school year, and we are coming up on the beginning of the new school year next week. This has meant lots of changes for me and danielle as things shuffle before the next school year.

The biggest change for me was the loss of two of my team teachers and best friends at my school. Making the switch even more difficult is that the two teachers were also my supervisors.

In fact only one of them is really my “supervisor”, as only one teacher can hold that position at any one time. She, (who I will try to refer to as my old supervisor in future posts), was my supervisor in title. As a result she handled all of my paperwork as it came in. She was also a co-teacher, and she had more classes with me than any other teacher. And so she taught me more than any other teacher. On a couple of occasions in the last few months she had invited us to her house. I really enjoyed working with her. I am happy however, that she has moved to a school where she can be closer to her family.

One of the biggest things that I liked about her was this. While her english is not perfect, and few Japanese teachers of english in japan are perfect, she honestly gave it her all. She really tried to communicate through her doubts about her ability. Her speech at times was broken and peculiar. But almost always effectively communicative. This has been very encouraging for me, both in my ability to work in the class room, and in my studies of japanese. I feel I can honestly aim to become as good at japanese, both in ability and in bravery, as she is at english. If I could get there, I would be super happy with my studies.

My other “supervisor” is not really my supervisor, except maybe socially. He told me my first week, or maybe even my first day in Kano High School, “She is your supervisor. So, go to her when you need help with paperwork. But I am also your supervisor, so feel free to come to me if you have any questions. We can talk and have tea.” This is such a wonderful contrast to many other ALT’s in Gifu. He was super generous with his time, (perhaps to his own detriment, as I believe he often spent so much time chatting with me, that he became behind in his own work.

The plus side with this second supervisor is that, as he left the school by retiring, he has a lot of free time. Somehow, we have managed to rope him into taking family around the sites in kyoto, and he has agreed to become my one on one japanese teacher. So, I will still get to see him weekly. Yay!

It was a heavy loss for me, to lose these teachers in the classroom, and their help around the school. However, I remain optimistic for the new year and I hope to retain these friendships while building new ones.

Posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 5:49 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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