School

After lunch, we went to visit KTC, the school that Ana's working at. We were ushered in to visit the President of the school very much unexpectedly, and so didn't have the expected present for him. During the meeting, he mentioned the fact that I am the first female engineering teacher here. Ever. So not only am I representing America, but I am representing all of female kind as engineers here. My brain kind of shut down at that point.

The high school here has a bit more of a college format. There's seven periods in a day, fifty minutes per period, and a half hour lunch break. Engineering classes tend to be more than one period long, but only one day per week. I'm in class in the machine shop five days per week, but a different year level per day. I also can't wear a skirt to work, unless I want to change for class, since I'm in the machine shop. The only girl in Mechanical Engineering in the school is a third year student, so she has to run and change from her uniform skirt to pants between classes when she has shop class. The school has five different year levels in it, going from about sophomore year in high school to second year in college. The first through third year students are required to wear uniforms, but the fourth and fifth year students can wear whatever they want.

Each class starts with a greeting where the students stand and then bow to the teacher. It's kind of weird. Most classes end this way too, except for shop classes where the students are allowed to just go off once they've cleaned their areas. They're also meticulously clean about their machine shop - students put everything back the way it was, taking vises off of the mills and turning off power to the machines. Another odd thing - they only have two holes in their paper, not three. Their folders and binders are made for two holes and their punches have only two holes. Weird. Apparently it's that way in New Zealand also, as I learned from the other English speaking ME professor.

I currently have almost nothing to do, as I have no computer, no classes to prepare for, and no other projects or anything going on. I suppose on Monday I'll have students' posters to work on. I'll be helping them to translate them into English. They'll be giving me rough drafts and I'll be helping them with grammar and vocabulary. I've been using my non-class time to study Japanese and get to know the building. I've also been helping Jamie use Inventor. He got the Japanese version, since if he takes on teaching it, that's what it will be, and hadn't ever used it before. Since I have used it in the past, I've been helping him find things. I can't understand it either, but the commands are all in the same places in the drop-down menus, so I can kind of figure it out. A little.

My classes mostly involve walking around the machine shop, looking at students' projects and speaking to them in English about their techniques/projects/anything else that comes up. My role is to get them to hear English words, especially engineering terms, so they can interact with English engineers in the future. This is why there's minimal prep - I'm supposed to just speak with them about projects they're already in the middle of, not actually lecture or teach anything. Yet.

I also was supposed to get a uniform, since they all have uniforms for the machine shop. The students get jackets to wear over their shirts, and the faculty get shirts and pants. The shirts have pockets for pens on the arms. I will feel like such a nerd wearing them. Though I suppose that since I'm in Japan and teaching Engineering, I probably am one. I'm going to say that the evidence is not yet conclusive and keep on believing I'm not. Anyway, I won't be getting a uniform quite yet as the uniform guys didn't realize that I'm a female, so they only brought male uniforms. I'm not even sure if they'll stock a size for me in female sizes. Doreen, who's been a major help to us here, is much smaller than I and can't generally get clothes here. We'll see next week.