Typical Day at Shimosuwa Junior High

A typical day... I bike to school at about 7:45, which takes ~10 min. Then I greet everyone in the teacher's room and look at my schedules (I have like a million of them, haha) for the day/week. There are 6 periods in a day but so far I've only had up to 2 classes in one day (today being one of those days). Today was my first time actually teaching using the method I was trained on, called PLS, but it was still pretty basic, so I can't really say how a normal class will go. Plus my actual "teaching" time (when I'm not assisting) is only 15 minutes each class, and only for 1 out of the 3 grades.

Then lunch time is from approx. 12:45-1:15. I arrive at the classroom (I'll rotate every month to a new room) as the students are dishing out food to all the desks. Usually the lunches have some kind of vegetable soup, salad (what we would call a pile o' vegetables), protein (chicken, fish, etc.), and carbohydrates (most commonly rice, but sometimes a roll or noodles). It's very good and I haven't really had anything I didn't like yet. I say yet... because it's bound to happen, haha.

The last few school days we've done the cleaning in the morning, but normally it will be done about 2:30. Cleaning lasts about 15 minutes and everyone in the school helps out. The students have specific roles, like sweep, wipe down the floors, clean the chalkboards, etc. I usually don't do much except move the desks back and forth. Lol.

At 4:50 I head for home. Sometimes I stop at a supermarket or the 100 yen store on my way back. And that's pretty much it! At the moment I'm spending a lot of time at school sitting at my desk bored, but as classes pick up, I know I'll get busier (in a good way).