Every year members of the Board of Education visit all of the junior high and elementary schools in my city. And everyone proceeds to freak out.
Last year my junior high was the very first school visited, and they were in a frenzy. The day before the BOE people came, all of the teachers and students spent an extra hour cleaning the school trying to make everything spotless and perfect. Now the school is not normally dirty. We have cleaning time every day after lunch. But this was a big enough deal to require using what could have been class time to prepare for it. We washed windows, dusted, took stuff off of bulletin boards that was old, moved stuff around, pulled weeds, and all sorts of things. All of the teachers were super nervous and we spent the afternoon compiling packets for the visitors. The packets had all sorts of information about the students and their achievements. It was probably close to 100 pages. And the school only had about 45 students.
Later, the Board of Education came to one of my elementary schools. I didn’t know they were coming, but I knew something was up when I got to school. In the teachers’ room, the desks were all unnaturally clear. Few people even had their computers hooked up. I had a feeling we were getting some sort of visit at that point. But it seemed silly. Does the Board of Education really think that that is how the school looks every day? Do they really care if the teachers have books or papers on their desks, proof that they do in fact work there? It just seemed so sterile and fake to me, like I had wandered into a movie set. It didn’t feel real. Also, most of my teachers were wearing suits. If you’ve ever worked with elementary school kids you know that most days a suit just ain’t gonna fly. It’s going to get dirty and gross and won’t be easy for you to move in. They all put their suit jackets on just for the intro, and I guess if they had one of the demo classes. It was icky humid and I would have died in long sleeves.
When the representatives of the BOE arrived after lunch, we all gathered in the teachers’ room. They had to come get me because I was busy playing with my fourth graders. We all stood in a little line more or less by rank (I was last). The visitors were in the principal’s office and, once we were all assembled and lined up, the vice principal (who stood over on the side away from the rest of us, as sort of a master of ceremony) went and told them we were ready. Then the visitors all lined up facing us (with one of their own off to the side as well). Our principal joined our line, at the front, and the vice principal began the exciting task of introducing all of us. He went down the line saying each person’s job and name. Once you name was said you took a small step forward, bowed and said “Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.”
That is a really difficult phrase to translate. You will often see it as “Nice to meet you.” It is commonly used upon first meetings in order to start off the relationship right, so that isn’t a bad translation; there is just a lot more to it than that. Many things you say in Japanese are kind of shorthand for a whole bunch of feelings and polite expressions that the situation calls for. When you say “yoroshiku onegaishimasu” to someone you are telling them that you value your future relationship and you will work hard to maintain a strong bond and you hope they will help you and guide you (if you are a lower rank) and you appreciate all of the work they have already done and are thanking them in advance for all of the things that they will do for you during your time together and so on and so forth. It has different meanings in other situations, such as “thank you in advance,” making it even more complicated to translate.
Anyway, as each of us bowed and said it, their whole line bowed and said it back. Once we finished going down the line and the vice principal introduced himself, the visitors did the same thing. Then the head visitor made a short speech. And then they went to observe some classes and I’m guessing tour the school or something. I’m not sure since I wasn’t included in that part.
A few weeks later I was surprised to find out that I had a class at my other elementary school during a BOE visit. They had to move my schedule around because it was on a day when I don’t normally go to that school. I was pleased by this, because I know other schools have just done the lesson themselves in the past and not invited me to be part of it. It’s nice that they feel comfortable leading the class alone, but it isn’t a very good representation of what our classes are usually like.
I know the teacher was really nervous as the head of the English department from the BOE would be observing the class. But that fifth and sixth grade class we were teaching is amazing and one of my favorite classes ever. I was never worried at all. I knew they would do great. There are a few classes that I might worry about making me look like I don’t know what I’m doing, but this class is always excited and engaged in the lesson.
As I thought, the lesson went fine. The kids were pretty nervous too, as there were extra people staring at them, but after a while I think they forgot that the observers were there and just had fun with the lesson. Now I’m assuming that at some point the teacher received some feedback about the lesson we did, but I never heard anything. I was mostly just happy that it was over so that my teachers could stop freaking out.
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