Thursday, April 12, 2007

Starting school




Today my daughter officially entered her new Japanese primary school..... yet another day of ceremonies! After being taken to their classroom and instructed on how they should reply when their name was called they were escorted to the gymnasium where all the other children in the school (a whole 47 in total - including the 11 in the first grade), the teachers and all the other VIPs were waiting. Next came the speeches... about 30 minutes of boring old men all saying the same thing... Next some singing and then it was all over. I have been to enough now that I shouldn't be surprised by them, but I can't believe why they have such ceremonies here! I always think they should make them lots of fun for the little 6 year olds to encourage them to come back again the following day rather than putting them to sleep! What I also can't believe is how the children all sit still through the whole thing. Not one child grizzled, picked their nose or even moved their feet...... I'm not convinced it is a good thing, but it is impressive!
After looking at the textbooks they were issued with today I can see that I will be complaining a little more about Japanese education in the near future.... nothing like squashing creativity!

After such an exciting morning we decided to add to the excitement by climbing a tree to get some more bees... or at least my husband did! The other ones seem to have stayed around for the time being anyway... here's hoping these ones do too!

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous1:27 am

    Congratulation, Emily!

    The school bag suits you well.

    Unfortunately, the main event of many Japanese ceremony is long speech of VIPs.
    It is always so boring.

    And then, congratulation that your Christmas present for Tom san went far toward.

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