Afternoon not in the office

One of my schools broke new ground today. On Friday's during lunch it's normal for a pair of grade 5/6s to interview a student over the PA system. It's seen as a way to entertain students over the lunch period. I don't see the problem with expecting students to talk to each other over the lunch period but that's just how it's done here. Today, for the first time in the program's history, they interviewed a teacher, Nakajima-sensei. And, from knowing the results, they picked the perfect student to lead the interview, Shodai-kun. Keep in mind this school has under 50 students and all the questions were prepared beforehand. Shodai is a polite, engaging grade 6 student that is a pleasure to teach. However, it can be said, he has his own way of doing things. From my comedy training, I'm use to thinking of off-the-wall questions, but Shodai, wheather purposely of not, raised it to an art form. Most of his questions were met my long puases as Nakajima-sensei struggled to put his thoughts togather. Shodai had a line of questioning about bananas, their history and what goes best with them. Lucky for Nakajima-sensei, he likes them. "How healthy!" Shodai noted. The teacher was asked to name something he is ambivalent toward, the more accurate Japanese translation being something that he neither likes nor hates. This was met by the longest puase of the interview because it's not everyday one is asked their opinion on something they are ambivalent toward. We teachers could hear Nakajima-sensei straining to answer. When asked which student he didn't like to teach, Nakajima-sensei deftly deflected the question. The only part of the interview to go off script was a number of probing questions about Nakajami-sensei's visits to the emergency room delivered with the force of a seasoned reporter. I was eating with the grade 1s at this was happen. They seemed to have forgotten I was coming that day which is odd for a country I find so detail oriented. They had split my potions, which they assumed to be extra, between the grade ones, given each an absurbly large portion of both salad and rice (only 3 students); more than they could possibly finish. This raised the level of confusion near the end of lunch because there are strong rules agasint not finishing one's lunch. They gave us that cute look where they tilt their head and give you an expression like they have no idea what's going on. Eventually some had to go to waste because, after knowning where their hands have been, there is no way I'm eating it.