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I haven’t posted anything recent lately, because last week was first full week of school for the children. It was a rocky week, especially with my 5 year old crying every morning as he went off to class. In Japan, the parents do not coddle their children. I am still getting used to this. The parents walk their children to the gate of the school building, dropping them off, but there isn’t a teacher to take them to their classes, rather, they have to walk by themselves to their respective classrooms, and independently find their teacher and classmates, which many times they are not inside the class.
I don’t quite understand fully the routine in the morning for Micah’s class (K class) yet. School starts at 8.20, but most of the children are there between 7.30-8.20. If your child trickles in around 8.15, it feels like your child is late since the children are expected to help the teachers to set up in the morning. In the beginning, I was dropping off Micah around 7.45, and the kids and the teachers were not in the classrooms, rather busily setting up and playing outside. Micah was expected (all by himself, while no one is around) to change into his play/PE uniform, change his shoes, put away all his gears (there are a lot of them!) and come downstairs and help set up outside, including watering the plants, tending and feeding the school pets, etc… No one was giving him any guidance, and the teacher is definitely not helping him along. So, lately, I’ve been bringing him around 10 minutes before school starts so he wouldn’t have so much unstructured time by himself, but today, the teacher and the class was no where to be found, and Micah was crying, and I had to leave and help another grandparent translate English. So, I grabbed someone from the administration to find his teacher and classmates, only to find his class was outside in the playground practicing for their big event, Sports Day, before school even started. I told the teacher Micah was looking for her and that he was crying, so she assured me she would get him, but there was no urgency. She continued to do whatever she was doing-setting up, and not even looking for Micah. I left a little confused, but knowing he would be fine since he was with another administrator. This has been very typical at the school. Unlike American schools where you have a set time when school starts and ends, In Japan, you have a window of time to drop your child off. Even the after school times for my older two are confusing. They are in second and third grades, but they are dismissed at different times, because the older you are, the later you stay for special projects and classroom time.
Also, when they state school gets out at 3.30, expect another 30-40 min over that time because they need to get ready to leave: cleaning, and socializing. This freaked me out the first day I had to pick them up from school. They weren’t coming out right at 2.50, only to find them in the library after frantically looking for them. IT was 3.30, and they were studying with their friends. This was also very interesting., when school lets out, the teachers do not have any accountability for the kids and they can do whatever they please. They can go home, take the bus, stay at the school, etc… But the teachers would not know where they are after the school bell rings.
In any case, I know Micah’s teacher thinks I am coddling him by walking him to his classroom, and watching him get ready (last week she told me to drop him off), but I have a hard time just leaving him when there is no adult there to receive him. Perhaps it’s my phobia, but I find the whole culture very different from what I am conditioned to. I understand Japan is very safe, but I still cannot bring myself to leave him wandering in the school crying looking for his teacher either.
