A Story from the End of the School Year

I spent the morning at Sasagawa Sho Gakko and that normally includes spending time at the near-by kindergarten as well. This would be the last time I saw everyone until the new school year starts in April. I just thought I would pass on a story that reflects this time of year in Shikaoi schools.

The last thing I did before I left the kindergarten was to identify next year's grade ones. There are five boys (all aged five) that will be starting at Sasagawa Sho Gakko in Apirl. All the boys are buckets and buckets of fun and I cannot stress enough how excited they are to start grade one and have me as their English teacher. (The cultural signicance of this may not completely translate, but little Ui-kun kept on bowing, politely asking for me to be his teacher and promising to do his best.) Sadly, one of the younger boys, just aged four, really wanted to start school with his older friends. He didn't take the news particularly well that he would have to stay at the Yochen for kindergarten next year. (I'm sure the news was not knew to him, nor is it worth lementing that you must go to kindergarten. Who wouldn't want to do kindergarten again?). He was well aware that I would be coming back in April for more fun and games but he still insisited on a small sit-down protest. The whole thing made me very comflicted as I will explain; he started to sit down to block my exit, and then he started to cry. Very touching. But what made it so comical was that four other smaller students sat down unexpectedly too (although it should be made clear they probably didn't know why). It must have been quite a sight of me trying to console one student, while trying not to step on the other three year olds splayed out on the floor. I should probably also add that while this is going on everything other student is trying to hug me and say "thank-you". Eventually the teachers and I were able untangle everyone and I got on my way.