The end of the school year in Japan brings along the parting of ways for many within the school system. If you’re a teacher in Japan, you can’t get too comfortable with one school because the Japanese education leaders believe that teachers should be transitioned from school to school every 4-8 years. If you’re a part-time teacher, you may be moved every 1-4 years.
Within the teaching profession, there are two types of teachers… those that have passed the teaching exam, and those who still try every year to defeat this close-to-impossible test. To give you an idea of just how difficult this exam is, every year over 100 applicants take the test but only a handful pass. It is definitely a frustration among the teachers in my school, and it is discouraging for those who fail because no real explanation is given as to why they didn’t make the cut. It is a common belief in this area that the Akita exam is so difficult because there are so few children to teach in the Akita prefecture. This assumption makes sense because the decreasing population in this part of rural Japan has caused many schools to close in recent years. Part-time teachers are a steal because they are paid less, and they can have a lighter course load than full-time teachers. What is the saying? “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”… or at least at a discounted price. I think that could apply here if the rumors a true.
But I digress… the point of this entry is to discuss the goodbyes I have had to say in the past week. At my base school, I will say farewell to one of my favorite co-workers, Midori-sensei. She is being moved to an office job in Akita city, which is about 1 hour from my town. The city is actually two hours from this school, so her commute will not be the most ideal situation. I will personally miss the sweets she so often brings me in attempts to expose me to Japanese culture! Within this school, I have also lost another English teacher and the business teacher who has become a friend to me. Luckily, both of them are moving to Nishime High School where I also work, but I won’t see them as often as I work there far less than this school.
For the most part, teachers are moved within an hour commute of their home, but a few of the unlucky teachers are moved farther within the prefecture. For example, a science teacher at my school has to move his home because he was transferred to Yuzawa, a town that is about 2 hours from here. Given that they just found out their transfer information last week and the new year starts next week, they have little time to uproot their lives and get settled again. Can you imagine going through this every few years?
Along with the transfers come farewell ceremonies and enkais. Over the past few days my school has had their formal goodbye through a ceremony with all of the students. The strangest sight was seeing all of my manly baseball boys crying during the baseball coach’s goodbye speech. Yet even more shocking was the fact that the baseball coach cried and had to stop his speech. If you take a step back, you can understand the emotions that may be running through both teachers and students. In Japan, teachers are like parents. Students are at school from 7 in the morning until 8 or 9 at night. (If they’re in a club.) The baseball team is no exception to this as they are often the last students at school, practicing in the dark. The coach has the upmost respect from his players, and the players have a mixture of fear and love for their coach. Katsuta-sensei, often referred to as “scary” by his students, is definitely an intimidating man, but he is also very friendly. Watching him choke up on stage almost jerked a few tears from my eyes as well as he is one of the few non-English speaking teachers who tries to communicate with me.
Just this past Friday we said our informal goodbye with a farewell enkai. Again, each transferred teacher gave a goodbye speech, and drinks were poured for him or her all night. We thanked them for their efforts, wished them luck in the future, and toasted their accomplishments.
As I walk into work this morning, I find empty desks and gifts on my desk thanking me for my time teaching with the ones that are leaving. It is sad to see so many people leave, and I am of course nervous to see whom I will be working with in the future. I guess it’s all up in the air for now, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed that the new teachers are half as good as the ones that I’ve lost.
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