Reports from the Frontline in Japan on the War on CoViD-19.
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As the name suggests, I am posting this from Japan, my home and place of business for…I don’t want to admit how long, but for quite a while. In fact, I recently passed a milestone: I’ve lived more of my life in Japan than in any other country, including the one that issues my passport.
That’s not just because it’s my meal ticket: I love it here. The people are great. If you’re old enough to remember an America where teachers were respected and honored, well, this is like that. Allow me to give you a small culture lesson.
Japanese has two words for “teacher”: the first is kyōshi (教師) which loosely translates as “humble teacher”, while the more recognizable sensei (先生) denotes “honorable teacher”. My entire time here, when I meet a new friend and am asked how I make a living, I respond that I am “kyōshi (a mere teacher)”. The inevitable response, which always warms my heart, is “O, sensei desu ka? (Really? An honorable teacher?)” Once you understand that, maybe you can appreciate why I’ve spent so much of my life here.
The downside, if there is one, is the proximity to the bio-weapons lab that is the Chinese mainland. (I’m aware that this sounds like xenophobia, but historically, China has been the source for some of the world’s deadliest epidemics, and almost all of its bloodiest wars.) Remember that cruise ship quarantined in Japan? It was only an hour from my house by bike.
You might have heard that Japan closed all the schools a week ago, and for the foreseeable future. My company, an after-school program designed to help kids improve their test scores (yes, one of the infamous “cram schools”) followed suit, in order to keep the kids out of circulation until the virus runs its course. If you think that represents an excess of caution on their part, well, okay then. Better too safe than the alternative.
However, if you thought it meant that I was getting an unexpected holiday, you definitely don’t know Japan. It means I have to work twice as hard because my school scrambled to put together a videoconferencing application, and BINGO: since Wednesday, I’ve been teaching online. I had no idea what that was even going to look like. I’ve always been a 19th century sort of educator: very hands on, Socratic method; in a word, pedantic. Now they expect me to teach into a little screen?
I’m sure those who do videoconferencing for a living are familiar with the drill. A website run by Cisco (I don’t normally plug corporations, at least not without sponsorship, but it’s actually a good system) connects us to our students, who are sitting at home in front of the PC. During the time we should be in class, talking face to face, I’m talking into my headset, and they’re listening in their living rooms.
Good system, sure, but that doesn’t mean I like it. It’s not just the technology, either. As I said, I’m very old school when it comes to, ummm…school. I take great pride in “taking the temperature” of the class, looking for the squirms, frowns and sighs that signal, to a teacher in the know, who’s digging the class, and who’s not.
That’s hard enough in person, especially for someone lacking in natural empathy such as me. Now I have to do that for somebody who’s not even in the room? My eyesight and hearing are not what they once were, either, which makes it really hard to pick up facial cues and body language from tiny little figures on my monitor.
None of this, of course, takes into account the real victims here: the kids themselves. You may have been the victim, in the course of your career, of The Meeting from Hell, but you’re a grownup. My students are between kindergarten and ninth grade. One refrain I’ve heard all week is how sick they are of this quarantine. Japan is only one week into this crisis, and already the kids have cabin fever. Come on, medical science. Find that cure!
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