Tokyo ESD

Today our school visits began. Our large group was divided into 3 and my group visited a high school called Tokyo Gakugei International Secondary School. This is a school that follows the International Bacculaurete program. The students are taught in Japanese, but many are Japanese children who have lived abroad and speak English.

After we were welcomed to the school by the students, principle and a Japanese ESD teacher that we had met back in San Francisco, we were treated with a tea ceremony. The tea ceremony is part of the student curriculum.

We then participated in a calligraphy class. The teacher instructed the students on the meanings of the kanji, then proceeded to show them on the board the steps and placement of the strokes. The student I sat next to explained to me that the kanji we were going to write meant “thinking”. After the student had practiced, the American teachers were given a chance to write.

We were then taken to a social studies class. The teacher was helping the students make a connection between the world cup soccer currently being played in South Africa to international cooperation and efforts to address world hunger. The American teachers were asked to make presentation to an English class. I showed the Japanese students pictures of the activities that I do with my students. I showed pictures of the chickens that my students and I are raising. They had just finished a unit on animal rights and I explained to them that we had studied cruelty to animals in the production of food and that raising chickens in our class room was an attempt to show that food can be produced more humanely. One student asked if we were planning on eating the chickens! Good question – one I do not yet have the answer to. We had lunch with some Japanese students. The girl I ate with had lived in the States for several years, so her English was excellent. Her father was a brain surgeon and had worked in three different states. She said that she was lucky as she had a short commute to school, only 40 minutes. Most students, she told me commuted about 2 hours to school one way!

Upon leaving the school, I noticed a large chicken coop, rabbit hutch and garden plot. These belonged to the affiliated elementary school. Perhaps one day, I will have such an operation at Albuquerque Academy.

Our afternoon was spent at the Tokyo Water Science Museum. The highlight of this experience was the video we saw on the water cycle. We entered a room with large bean-bag like chairs which encouraged the sitter to recline and relax. The room was darkened and very cool. The movie was projected onto three walls to emulate a 3-D image. No words, only music and images. The theme: reverence for water. Charming panels and posters decorated the walls of the museum accompanied by some more interactive exhibits, all helping the viewer to understand the connection between nature and human consumption.