Don't.
As noted before, I'm currently attempting to learn how to read Japanese, or rather, read one of the four writing systems used by the Japanese. The general idea is for me to complete about one lesson per day, say about 20 to 40 kanji or so. So far, weekdays have been generally pretty good. While I'm busy at school, I usually have some downtime that allows me to chew through most of them, although sometimes they follow me home.
Weekends however... Oh boy. Try 5 minute interruptions from the boys, usually alternating. The first one will almost always be Hikaru who comes tearing into my office in tears. Why, you may ask, is my youngest in tears? Because big brother did something, usually attempt to take a toy. So, comfort toddler, yell at 5 year-old, kick both out of office, go back to kanji.
5 minutes later and Makoto is coming through the door, this time to complain that Hikaru won't do what he, Makoto, told him to do and since last time I yelled at him for hitting Hikaru, he wants me to get the toy this time. Tell Makoto he needs to share, tell Hikaru to share with Makoto, kick both out of office, go back to kanji.
Again Hikaru shows up, this time because Makoto, trying to color, kicked him out of the room so he decides to bring the toy that makes noise into Daddy's office to play. Physically remove toddler from office, yell at small boy to let his brother play in the room, go back to office, close the door, go back to kanji.
Makoto opens the door to tell me Hikaru pushed him and now he hit his arm on something. Comfort 5-year-old, yell at two-year-old, kick both out of office, go back to kanji... what kanji was I on again? I don't know! Too bad it's not annoyance, because I'm sure I'd remember that!
Makoto and Hikaru this time demanding things to color. Growl at my beloved children, print out something, threaten to ship them both to Timbuktu in a cheese crate, go back to kanji.
Finally towards evening, having gotten through half of what I needed to do, Beloved calls me downstairs. It seems that Makoto is falling asleep so she wants me to play with him so he doesn't nap right before dinner (Once Makoto is asleep, it's impossible to wake him up without having a temper tantrum). "But," says she, "Only if you're done with your kanji, but I'd really like it if you could."
*sigh* "Of course."
"Are you done?" says Beloved.
"No"
"But, you had so much time!"
Resolved, remove the baby-gate from Beloved's hidy hole where she retreats to get away from her children and install it in my office, making sure to ducktape the latch so that Makoto can't open it.
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Monday, November 12, 2012
Friday, November 2, 2012
It's Time for Me to Get Learned
I have a confession to make. I'm functionally illiterate.
8 years in Japan and I have what could be termed as a 1st grade reading level (Literally, I know all the first grade kanji, beyond that things go downhill).
Oh, sure, I have excuses. I wasn't supposed to stay in Japan. I've been busy with school, wife, kids, life and just don't have the hours needed per day to devote to learning the four difference scripts of Japanese (Yes, you read that right, the Japanese use four different systems... interchangeably). And of course the old standby, three of the scripts are easy, the fourth, kanji, the Chinese characters that were adopted in Japan for their main writing system is hell.
The list needed to be considered literate is over 2,000 separate character long. Normally Japanese are even literate until they get through junior high and even then, that list is just the start. It's not enough for understanding other more specialized kanji that one might use if he happens to normally be college educated. And it gets worse of course, not only are the kanji a mishmash of random lines, but they have multiple meanings and multiple readings depending on if they are read in Japanese or their original Chinese pronunciation that has been changed into Japanese.
It's enough to conclude that the best thing to do is forget the bloody kanji and just stick with English, problematic as that language is.
The thing is though... Japan is now my home. And yes, you can say all you want about immigrants needing to learn the language and I will be more than happy to come back with all sorts of facts for you, but honestly... where I have been, being able to hold a basic conversation about daily events is not enough. It's not enough that I am reliant on Beloved to this extent (And indeed it is not, in many ways, Beloved doesn't have two small children, she has three). It's not enough that very quickly both my sons will surpass my ability to read as they already have in speaking Japanese.
So, I swallowed my pride and for my birthday asked that I be given "Remembering the Kanji" which is a study guide that people either swear by or at. So far, I'm a swear by guy. The damn thing works. It breaks down the kanji into what the author calls primitives and then helps you assign keywords and a memory aid in terms of a story or image to help you recall and write. It also helped that I ended up finding a website with a community devoted to this model and when I can't come up with my own story or dislike the one in the book, I can borrow (Read steal) a host of others.
And yes, it is working in 11 days I've managed to memorize over 200 kanji. Not bad at all.
It helps to keep my eye on the prize, the idea of being able to read the printed material around me and using that to help improve my Japanese. To be able to converse with my in-laws without Beloved translating, and to be able to help my sons with their school work, beyond English.
The other thing that helps is, well, Beloved and the boys. Although probably not in ways that they really know about, or would like. Yes, they got me the books, but I admit that I have been making free use of them to make up stories. The kanji for 'Child' for example 子 becomes Makoto or Hikaru on Beloved's back. Another kanji that means "But of course" and is made up of the kanji for water and elder brother invokes me asking Hikaru "Did you need to pour water on your elder brother?!" "But of course, Daddy!".
Even one I just learned today, portent works with the story of "When big hairs grow on my wife's legs, it's a bad portent".
And if she ever reads this, it will be a self-fulfilling one.
8 years in Japan and I have what could be termed as a 1st grade reading level (Literally, I know all the first grade kanji, beyond that things go downhill).
Oh, sure, I have excuses. I wasn't supposed to stay in Japan. I've been busy with school, wife, kids, life and just don't have the hours needed per day to devote to learning the four difference scripts of Japanese (Yes, you read that right, the Japanese use four different systems... interchangeably). And of course the old standby, three of the scripts are easy, the fourth, kanji, the Chinese characters that were adopted in Japan for their main writing system is hell.
The list needed to be considered literate is over 2,000 separate character long. Normally Japanese are even literate until they get through junior high and even then, that list is just the start. It's not enough for understanding other more specialized kanji that one might use if he happens to normally be college educated. And it gets worse of course, not only are the kanji a mishmash of random lines, but they have multiple meanings and multiple readings depending on if they are read in Japanese or their original Chinese pronunciation that has been changed into Japanese.
It's enough to conclude that the best thing to do is forget the bloody kanji and just stick with English, problematic as that language is.
The thing is though... Japan is now my home. And yes, you can say all you want about immigrants needing to learn the language and I will be more than happy to come back with all sorts of facts for you, but honestly... where I have been, being able to hold a basic conversation about daily events is not enough. It's not enough that I am reliant on Beloved to this extent (And indeed it is not, in many ways, Beloved doesn't have two small children, she has three). It's not enough that very quickly both my sons will surpass my ability to read as they already have in speaking Japanese.
So, I swallowed my pride and for my birthday asked that I be given "Remembering the Kanji" which is a study guide that people either swear by or at. So far, I'm a swear by guy. The damn thing works. It breaks down the kanji into what the author calls primitives and then helps you assign keywords and a memory aid in terms of a story or image to help you recall and write. It also helped that I ended up finding a website with a community devoted to this model and when I can't come up with my own story or dislike the one in the book, I can borrow (Read steal) a host of others.
And yes, it is working in 11 days I've managed to memorize over 200 kanji. Not bad at all.
It helps to keep my eye on the prize, the idea of being able to read the printed material around me and using that to help improve my Japanese. To be able to converse with my in-laws without Beloved translating, and to be able to help my sons with their school work, beyond English.
The other thing that helps is, well, Beloved and the boys. Although probably not in ways that they really know about, or would like. Yes, they got me the books, but I admit that I have been making free use of them to make up stories. The kanji for 'Child' for example 子 becomes Makoto or Hikaru on Beloved's back. Another kanji that means "But of course" and is made up of the kanji for water and elder brother invokes me asking Hikaru "Did you need to pour water on your elder brother?!" "But of course, Daddy!".
Even one I just learned today, portent works with the story of "When big hairs grow on my wife's legs, it's a bad portent".
And if she ever reads this, it will be a self-fulfilling one.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Explaining When the Towers, and the Bombs, Fell
So last month was the 11th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. It passed without much notice by my students. To be fair of course, it did happen in another country and happened when they were two. Like my sons, they have no memory of anytime when the towers were up.
This week my third year students also finished a unit entitled "A Mother's Lullaby", which takes place in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Given that I was silly enough to open my mouth and suggest a challenge to my teaching partner, I ended up presenting the American takes on the bombings to a class full of Japanese junior high school kids, in English.
Awkward it was, yes, but I want to think it was an important lesson. In my speech I noted that my family is both the beginning, and ending, of World War II. My step-grandfather was at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. The sub he was on was damaged and he was trapped on board for three days before he was rescued. On the other end, Beloved's grandfather was a survivor of Hiroshima. He had taken his family, including Jiji, to shelter in a cave outside of the city. While they were protected from the bombing, he went into it afterwards to help and find out information. There he was caught in the Black Rain.
Like most Americans, my family fought in WWII, and like most Japanese, Beloved's family was also involved. All of this history did make it a bit delicate when Beloved and I started to date. I remember her telling me just how scared she was when I brought her to my grandparents' house for the first time as my grandfather was a WWII Navy vet (Just for the record, my grandfather adored her, thought she was a wonderful woman, a great addition to the family, and (probably why he liked her so much) just so much fun to tease the hell out of). I, on the other hand, was more than a bit nervous to meet her family given the above.
That was before I found out that her family not only had no qualms about having an American son-in-law, but proceeded to do their level best to make sure this happened.
But all of it does mean that my sons have it, in a way, both coming and going and one day we will have to explain to them the stories of their family, both sides. It's something that I have been thinking about since I went ahead and conducted a lesson about Hiroshima for my students.
How do I approach this? What can I say to them to help them understand when the times comes? And when is that time?
I think that last part is gonna be the really tricky one. Beloved took me to the Peace Museum at Hiroshima once. Once, and she has made it clear that due to the memories that it invokes, she will not be taking me back a second time. If my family comes over, I get to play tour guide, she'll wait for us on Miyajima while snacking on oysters. In Beloved's opinion, there will be just one final trip to the Peace Park and Ground Zero, and that is when we take our children to it so she can explain about their great-grandfather and what happened to him and how this is a part of their history.
I feel that we should also, in the same year, make the trip to Hawai'i and Pearl Harbor to explain about their set-grandfather's father and about both their blood great-grandfathers and why their father's country dropped the bomb on their mother's. Hopefully we can impress upon them that their very existence shows that hatred can be overcome and nations can be at peace.
Maybe.
Maybe I can also come up with a way to explain 9/11 to them and why there is still hate in the world.
And, maybe, I can also state that there will never be another Hiroshima, or Pearl Harbor, or 9/11.
This week my third year students also finished a unit entitled "A Mother's Lullaby", which takes place in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Given that I was silly enough to open my mouth and suggest a challenge to my teaching partner, I ended up presenting the American takes on the bombings to a class full of Japanese junior high school kids, in English.
Awkward it was, yes, but I want to think it was an important lesson. In my speech I noted that my family is both the beginning, and ending, of World War II. My step-grandfather was at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. The sub he was on was damaged and he was trapped on board for three days before he was rescued. On the other end, Beloved's grandfather was a survivor of Hiroshima. He had taken his family, including Jiji, to shelter in a cave outside of the city. While they were protected from the bombing, he went into it afterwards to help and find out information. There he was caught in the Black Rain.
Like most Americans, my family fought in WWII, and like most Japanese, Beloved's family was also involved. All of this history did make it a bit delicate when Beloved and I started to date. I remember her telling me just how scared she was when I brought her to my grandparents' house for the first time as my grandfather was a WWII Navy vet (Just for the record, my grandfather adored her, thought she was a wonderful woman, a great addition to the family, and (probably why he liked her so much) just so much fun to tease the hell out of). I, on the other hand, was more than a bit nervous to meet her family given the above.
That was before I found out that her family not only had no qualms about having an American son-in-law, but proceeded to do their level best to make sure this happened.
But all of it does mean that my sons have it, in a way, both coming and going and one day we will have to explain to them the stories of their family, both sides. It's something that I have been thinking about since I went ahead and conducted a lesson about Hiroshima for my students.
How do I approach this? What can I say to them to help them understand when the times comes? And when is that time?
I think that last part is gonna be the really tricky one. Beloved took me to the Peace Museum at Hiroshima once. Once, and she has made it clear that due to the memories that it invokes, she will not be taking me back a second time. If my family comes over, I get to play tour guide, she'll wait for us on Miyajima while snacking on oysters. In Beloved's opinion, there will be just one final trip to the Peace Park and Ground Zero, and that is when we take our children to it so she can explain about their great-grandfather and what happened to him and how this is a part of their history.
I feel that we should also, in the same year, make the trip to Hawai'i and Pearl Harbor to explain about their set-grandfather's father and about both their blood great-grandfathers and why their father's country dropped the bomb on their mother's. Hopefully we can impress upon them that their very existence shows that hatred can be overcome and nations can be at peace.
Maybe.
Maybe I can also come up with a way to explain 9/11 to them and why there is still hate in the world.
And, maybe, I can also state that there will never be another Hiroshima, or Pearl Harbor, or 9/11.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
It's Festival Time Again!
Not my town's festival, or anything to do with the boys, no, this is my school's festival.
My students' school year revolves around certain events, the biggest, by far, is the culture festival that takes place at the tail end of September, or the beginning of October, every year. It's two days of the kids showing off, well... showing off. The school is opened to the public (I.e. the parents and a few city worthies that got roped into showing up) and the up-coming 7th graders who get to wander in from their 6th grade classes to see what they'll be doing next year.
All joking aside, it is an amazing event. Each of my students participates in some aspect of the festival, many in multiple. They show off their artwork, they show off their clubs, their sports, their class projects and trips. They show off their school work, they preform various stage shows ranging from my group's rendition of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, to the dance club's hip hop. They compete in an all school chorus contest that is judged by a professional voice trainer, they compete in an all school sports event (Mainly races, though they also enjoy jump rope), and best of all, they set up everything themselves.
While we teachers help, it's the kids who plan the events, set the stage, run the lights, the sound, and what not. They do the whole program, dividing up multiple jobs among the students so, again, everyone has something to do, but they also have a chance to shine and enjoy the festival.
It's also stressful as all heck with the day before dedicated to set-up so the school is filled with students running everywhere in a panic trying to get everything set up on time and where things are supposed to be. I admit, it's a little worrying to see them attempt to assemble an arch above the school gate (The Keystone Cops comes to mind).
But... it will be a fun time and once it's all finished and we teachers see our now exhausted students out the door to the arms of their families... We get to go out and drink that we survived another year.
In that at least, it does have something to do with the other festival.
My students' school year revolves around certain events, the biggest, by far, is the culture festival that takes place at the tail end of September, or the beginning of October, every year. It's two days of the kids showing off, well... showing off. The school is opened to the public (I.e. the parents and a few city worthies that got roped into showing up) and the up-coming 7th graders who get to wander in from their 6th grade classes to see what they'll be doing next year.
All joking aside, it is an amazing event. Each of my students participates in some aspect of the festival, many in multiple. They show off their artwork, they show off their clubs, their sports, their class projects and trips. They show off their school work, they preform various stage shows ranging from my group's rendition of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, to the dance club's hip hop. They compete in an all school chorus contest that is judged by a professional voice trainer, they compete in an all school sports event (Mainly races, though they also enjoy jump rope), and best of all, they set up everything themselves.
While we teachers help, it's the kids who plan the events, set the stage, run the lights, the sound, and what not. They do the whole program, dividing up multiple jobs among the students so, again, everyone has something to do, but they also have a chance to shine and enjoy the festival.
It's also stressful as all heck with the day before dedicated to set-up so the school is filled with students running everywhere in a panic trying to get everything set up on time and where things are supposed to be. I admit, it's a little worrying to see them attempt to assemble an arch above the school gate (The Keystone Cops comes to mind).
But... it will be a fun time and once it's all finished and we teachers see our now exhausted students out the door to the arms of their families... We get to go out and drink that we survived another year.
In that at least, it does have something to do with the other festival.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Following the Leader
In Nagano the soba is in bloom, the dragonflies crowd the sky, the apples ripen on the trees, and the matsuri kick off. It's fall in other words.
And winter is coming.
Unlike Game of Thrones, my Iron Throne wouldn't be swords but axes and chainsaws. When we built the house, we made the decision, or rather I made the demand, that we would have a wood burning stove. Said stove would be from America, not a tiny little Japanese one, but a nice sized American one that would put out enough heat to make the winter comfortable.
And boy did it, last winter was the first time I spent the bulk of the cold season happy. The stove kept the house at about 72'ish most of the time (Which doesn't sound like much, except that one must understand that our previous house was lucky to get about 10 degrees C warmer than the outside air and it gets COLD in Nagano, and that was with the electric and kerosene heaters going full bore. At night we might be 2 to 3 degrees warmer than the below freezing temps outside) and we discovered, much to Beloved's pleasure, that laundry placed up on the second floor would be bone dry by the end of the day, no longer did we have to take a week to dry the laundry during the winter, no longer was I slapped in the face by wet clothing in the morning after taking a shower.
The only issue was... wood. Back in the States we did have a wood stove, but it wasn't used as the primary (Actually in our case, only) source of heat for the house so I didn't really get just how much wood a family could go through. It doesn't help that while I'm thinking cords of wood, Japan sells them in bundles. We thought a hundred bundles would be ok, until we learned that we would go through about 4 or 5 of them a day during the coldest part of winter, which lasted a month.
The cost was... annoying to say the very least, though I have to admit that it worked out far cheaper than paying for either the power or the kerosene. This summer however I had been on the hunt for cheaper wood, i.e. stuff that I would have to cut and split myself. And yeah, I got it alright. A friend of mine who owns an apple orchard gave me a few truckloads of apple and pear wood and then another friend got a neighbor of his who was getting rid of his garage to give me all of that wood. Finally, our neighbor, the farmer who always gives us stuff, cut down a pine tree in his yard and gave us that as well.
Yes, I KNOW you're not supposed to burn pine as the majority fuel, but it don't hurt as a starter.
For most of the summer as the days got too hot, the wood more or less lived under blue tarps that I had staked down to protect it from the rains. This holiday weekend though... well, it was time to get that wood cut, the dry stuff stacked for this winter and the wet, new wood, stacked for next winter.
For two days I've been entertaining myself with both my chainsaw and splitting ax, picking up some lovely blisters and some killer sore muscles in the process.
But of course, Daddy cannot possibly be outside playing the warm sunshine without having little boys to play along with him, right?
Day one was just Makoto as Daddy was doing a lot of work with the chainsaw (Yeah, two-year-old and a chainsaw, what could possible go wrong with that combination?) so Hikaru spent most of the day screaming from inside as he saw big brother and Daddy outside 'playing' and he wasn't allowed to do so. Still, even though I got a lot of wood cut, I also had some fun with Makoto. Makoto started off trying to help me by stacking wood (He wasn't too bad) but very quickly we ran into the problem of the wood pile got to be over his head and he couldn't reach. So instead Makoto just got to play, which as I kept turning over stacks of wood meant that he got a nature show right in front of his eyes. He met slugs (slimy things are always a big hit with little boys), ants, frogs, termites, crickets (Jumping Jiminy, now I know why our backyard is so bloody noisy at night), and earthworms. Pretty much anything creepy and crawly that would delight a small boy was there right in front of him. He also got to meet some centipedes, which was a problem. Mukade are not to be trifled with. They aren't dangerous, but as anyone who lives in rural Japan knows, being bitten by one hurts. I have never been, thankfully, but Beloved's stories, plus stories of friends who have, lead me to state that the bites feel something between "Oh my merciful God in heaven!" and "Bleeping beep of a beep!", if not inventing new curses on the spot.
Given that I don't want Makoto to get started on more colorful language just yet, we had a quick lesson as to why he should leave the mukade alone.
I forgot however that if you make something sound dangerous, you make it irresistible to little boys. To distract Makoto from hunting mukade, I told him about earthworms and how they eat and poop out dirt (Yes, I know that's not technically true), which worked. Makoto spent the rest of the afternoon harassing earthworms and gleefully announcing that it had pooped dirt on his shoe.
It doesn't take much to entertain a young boy.
The second day was more ax work than saw work and with Beloved off napping, Makoto and Hikaru came out. This ended up with Makoto taking Hikaru around to see all the friends he made yesterday, Mr. Slugs, the crickets, and of course the earthworms. Both boys spent about an hour outside playing with the frogs (Hikaru: "Frog! Frog! Frog! Frog! Frog! Frog! Frog!"), and the earthworms. Actually it got to the point where I looked up from my splitting to find both boys hunkered down in the dirt, cheerfully waving bye to a pair or frantic earthworms they managed to dig up, both coated liberally with mud and dirt.
They were very happy young boys, and since I was still armed with an ax, I didn't have to face too much wrath of Mommy when they came in and showed Beloved just how dirty they got.
I meanwhile just picked up another log to split and stack, after all, winter is coming.
And winter is coming.
And boy did it, last winter was the first time I spent the bulk of the cold season happy. The stove kept the house at about 72'ish most of the time (Which doesn't sound like much, except that one must understand that our previous house was lucky to get about 10 degrees C warmer than the outside air and it gets COLD in Nagano, and that was with the electric and kerosene heaters going full bore. At night we might be 2 to 3 degrees warmer than the below freezing temps outside) and we discovered, much to Beloved's pleasure, that laundry placed up on the second floor would be bone dry by the end of the day, no longer did we have to take a week to dry the laundry during the winter, no longer was I slapped in the face by wet clothing in the morning after taking a shower.
The only issue was... wood. Back in the States we did have a wood stove, but it wasn't used as the primary (Actually in our case, only) source of heat for the house so I didn't really get just how much wood a family could go through. It doesn't help that while I'm thinking cords of wood, Japan sells them in bundles. We thought a hundred bundles would be ok, until we learned that we would go through about 4 or 5 of them a day during the coldest part of winter, which lasted a month.
The cost was... annoying to say the very least, though I have to admit that it worked out far cheaper than paying for either the power or the kerosene. This summer however I had been on the hunt for cheaper wood, i.e. stuff that I would have to cut and split myself. And yeah, I got it alright. A friend of mine who owns an apple orchard gave me a few truckloads of apple and pear wood and then another friend got a neighbor of his who was getting rid of his garage to give me all of that wood. Finally, our neighbor, the farmer who always gives us stuff, cut down a pine tree in his yard and gave us that as well.
Yes, I KNOW you're not supposed to burn pine as the majority fuel, but it don't hurt as a starter.
For most of the summer as the days got too hot, the wood more or less lived under blue tarps that I had staked down to protect it from the rains. This holiday weekend though... well, it was time to get that wood cut, the dry stuff stacked for this winter and the wet, new wood, stacked for next winter.
For two days I've been entertaining myself with both my chainsaw and splitting ax, picking up some lovely blisters and some killer sore muscles in the process.
But of course, Daddy cannot possibly be outside playing the warm sunshine without having little boys to play along with him, right?
 |
| You do NOT play with these |
Given that I don't want Makoto to get started on more colorful language just yet, we had a quick lesson as to why he should leave the mukade alone.
I forgot however that if you make something sound dangerous, you make it irresistible to little boys. To distract Makoto from hunting mukade, I told him about earthworms and how they eat and poop out dirt (Yes, I know that's not technically true), which worked. Makoto spent the rest of the afternoon harassing earthworms and gleefully announcing that it had pooped dirt on his shoe.
It doesn't take much to entertain a young boy.
The second day was more ax work than saw work and with Beloved off napping, Makoto and Hikaru came out. This ended up with Makoto taking Hikaru around to see all the friends he made yesterday, Mr. Slugs, the crickets, and of course the earthworms. Both boys spent about an hour outside playing with the frogs (Hikaru: "Frog! Frog! Frog! Frog! Frog! Frog! Frog!"), and the earthworms. Actually it got to the point where I looked up from my splitting to find both boys hunkered down in the dirt, cheerfully waving bye to a pair or frantic earthworms they managed to dig up, both coated liberally with mud and dirt.
They were very happy young boys, and since I was still armed with an ax, I didn't have to face too much wrath of Mommy when they came in and showed Beloved just how dirty they got.
I meanwhile just picked up another log to split and stack, after all, winter is coming.
 |
| And two days worth of work later |
Monday, September 3, 2012
The Good Doctor Cures All Ills
This actually happened before the drill, but I wanted to save talking about it till after.
So the major education project with Makoto is learning how to read. Going slow, very slow, and working on things like letter recognition and phonics. It's been, a bit stressful.
Part of the problem is that, teacher I am, but I always expected to be teaching at the secondary level. I like teaching small kids, but I usually don't handle education of children as young as Makoto. The other problem is that while I have taught reading (And in fact teach it every year), I'm dealing with those said older kids. Yes, it's quite a bit of a jump for my junior high students to go from Japanese and its four different writing systems to English, but I'm not having to teach them the concept of reading in the first place.
Makoto however is a blank slate. The biggest challenge is getting him to understand that reading is possible and just how it's done, let alone doing something like sounding out words. The other problem is that of time, we have to face this at night after dinner is done so I'm usually tired after teaching all day and possibly with a private lesson or two, and Makoto has had enough for the day and wants to play. This means he's less than focused and I am not as patient as I should be. All of this has led to some tears (On both sides truth be known) and some yelling from both sides as well.
But, still, we keep going. Lately I've been working with word recognition. We know the alphabet and we're kinda there on the various sounds, it's starting to tie them together and as the middle step between nothing and reading the first book, I've been using the rhymes of Seuss to get things moving along.
Hop on Pop is the current book of choice. Now normally I use this on my junior high school kids to teach them pronunciation (Fox in Socks, a book my speech contest student curse by the time I'm done with them, but yet love getting a copy of after speech, is my choice for intonation and stress). The best thing about the book is that the inner cover contains most of the words used and grouped into their rhyme scheme. This makes it easy, in theory, to point out that the same letters make the same sounds, thus all you need to do is say the same sound over and over and over again, just change the first sound.
With Makoto, this has been slow going. He's great at memorizing (The kid has Panda Bear, Panda Bear What Do You See fully memorized), but actually reading... that's been difficult. It's like the idea isn't quite there and his frustration at being asked to do something by Daddy that he's not so sure of is palatable.
Last Thursday I decided to test him. After all, he had memorized and was, hopefully, reading, a number of the words. So instead of going through the word list, I opened the first page of the book. Then there was a fight.
Makoto howled that he couldn't do it. He didn't want to. He can't read. I kept at it that, yes, he could. He had already. He could indeed read this, really he could! I finally had to grab my youngest into a bear hug and told him that Daddy believed in him. Daddy thought that HE. COULD. READ!
I talked about how much I love reading and how happy I was when I read my very first book, an experience that I still remember and I still have the book (Are You My Mother?, in case you wanted to know). I told him that we could do this together and then go show Mommy. There was some sniffing, but Makoto settled down a bit, opened the book and...
"Uuuup. P...p...pu... Pup. Pup i... i... is u...p up. Pupupup. C.... c... Cup. Pup is... i... in c... cup. Cup. Puuuuuup. Cup ooon Puuup."
I gathered my son up and took him downstairs. The second time, in front of Mommy, was a bit more smoother.
Up.
Pup.
Pup is up.
Pup.
Cup.
Pup in cup.
Cup.
Pup.
Cup on pup.
The "click" happened. If you have ever taught, you are aware of the click. It's the teacher's reward. That moment, a moment that is damn near audible, when you've been pounding away at something, trying to twist it and turn it to just the right way for a student to understand. That moment when frustration gives way to understanding, that sweet, sweet moment of education when something is learned, not a fact, but a new way of thinking, that click. It happened.
Makoto read three pages. He's not a reader yet, we still have a long way to go before I can say he can read. The target is still Green Eggs and Ham. But he learned something that I wanted him to get, not the words, not the rhyme, not the phonics, but the simple fact that HE. CAN. READ!
My first book was not Dr. Seuss, my second was. And I remember reading the good doctor a lot growing up and still enjoy reading him to my sons and students. And once more the good doctor has provided the perfect cure for the "I can't do it", because Makoto now knows that he can.
Just how cool is that?
So the major education project with Makoto is learning how to read. Going slow, very slow, and working on things like letter recognition and phonics. It's been, a bit stressful.
Part of the problem is that, teacher I am, but I always expected to be teaching at the secondary level. I like teaching small kids, but I usually don't handle education of children as young as Makoto. The other problem is that while I have taught reading (And in fact teach it every year), I'm dealing with those said older kids. Yes, it's quite a bit of a jump for my junior high students to go from Japanese and its four different writing systems to English, but I'm not having to teach them the concept of reading in the first place.
Makoto however is a blank slate. The biggest challenge is getting him to understand that reading is possible and just how it's done, let alone doing something like sounding out words. The other problem is that of time, we have to face this at night after dinner is done so I'm usually tired after teaching all day and possibly with a private lesson or two, and Makoto has had enough for the day and wants to play. This means he's less than focused and I am not as patient as I should be. All of this has led to some tears (On both sides truth be known) and some yelling from both sides as well.
But, still, we keep going. Lately I've been working with word recognition. We know the alphabet and we're kinda there on the various sounds, it's starting to tie them together and as the middle step between nothing and reading the first book, I've been using the rhymes of Seuss to get things moving along.
Hop on Pop is the current book of choice. Now normally I use this on my junior high school kids to teach them pronunciation (Fox in Socks, a book my speech contest student curse by the time I'm done with them, but yet love getting a copy of after speech, is my choice for intonation and stress). The best thing about the book is that the inner cover contains most of the words used and grouped into their rhyme scheme. This makes it easy, in theory, to point out that the same letters make the same sounds, thus all you need to do is say the same sound over and over and over again, just change the first sound.
With Makoto, this has been slow going. He's great at memorizing (The kid has Panda Bear, Panda Bear What Do You See fully memorized), but actually reading... that's been difficult. It's like the idea isn't quite there and his frustration at being asked to do something by Daddy that he's not so sure of is palatable.
Last Thursday I decided to test him. After all, he had memorized and was, hopefully, reading, a number of the words. So instead of going through the word list, I opened the first page of the book. Then there was a fight.
Makoto howled that he couldn't do it. He didn't want to. He can't read. I kept at it that, yes, he could. He had already. He could indeed read this, really he could! I finally had to grab my youngest into a bear hug and told him that Daddy believed in him. Daddy thought that HE. COULD. READ!
I talked about how much I love reading and how happy I was when I read my very first book, an experience that I still remember and I still have the book (Are You My Mother?, in case you wanted to know). I told him that we could do this together and then go show Mommy. There was some sniffing, but Makoto settled down a bit, opened the book and...
"Uuuup. P...p...pu... Pup. Pup i... i... is u...p up. Pupupup. C.... c... Cup. Pup is... i... in c... cup. Cup. Puuuuuup. Cup ooon Puuup."
I gathered my son up and took him downstairs. The second time, in front of Mommy, was a bit more smoother.
Up.
Pup.
Pup is up.
Pup.
Cup.
Pup in cup.
Cup.
Pup.
Cup on pup.
The "click" happened. If you have ever taught, you are aware of the click. It's the teacher's reward. That moment, a moment that is damn near audible, when you've been pounding away at something, trying to twist it and turn it to just the right way for a student to understand. That moment when frustration gives way to understanding, that sweet, sweet moment of education when something is learned, not a fact, but a new way of thinking, that click. It happened.
Makoto read three pages. He's not a reader yet, we still have a long way to go before I can say he can read. The target is still Green Eggs and Ham. But he learned something that I wanted him to get, not the words, not the rhyme, not the phonics, but the simple fact that HE. CAN. READ!
My first book was not Dr. Seuss, my second was. And I remember reading the good doctor a lot growing up and still enjoy reading him to my sons and students. And once more the good doctor has provided the perfect cure for the "I can't do it", because Makoto now knows that he can.
Just how cool is that?
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Ain't No Cure for the Back to School Blues
Yesterday Beloved pulled me aside after dinner was done to say that Makoto's teacher is a bit worried about him. Apparently he's been a bit difficult at school; not completing his work unless told multiple times, wanting to constantly be with people, including when going to the toilet, and has started sucking on his arm when he sleeps. Her theory is that Makoto is feeling stressed at home for some reason and this is showing up as loneliness and behavior issues.
Beloved's theory is that I'm being too rough on Makoto when it comes to learning to read (To be fair, there's something there, I do think I need to dial back a bit). Makoto himself says that his problem is, well, not making friends at swim class, having a friend of his moving soon, and having a brother bother him in the morning.
Me, personally, I think this sounds more like a case of the back to school blues. That curse that seems to strike all students when they suddenly come face to face with the fact that summer is over and after a month of being the center of attention, we're back to being in a class and instead of non-stop play time, we're being asked to do things that we might not like to do.
I have a whole school full of students who are more or less in the same boat and while they don't burst into tears the way Makoto did last night, they tend to be a bit more prickly about things for the first week and a half until the gears have fully changed.
To be honest of course, teachers get the back to school blues too. I mean, yeah, summer for us is mostly prepping for the next term (In Japan, the school year ends in March and starts in April, summer's just a break), but we're off the bell system and we can be a bit more flexible on what we're doing and when we want to do it. It usually takes me a good week and a half to get back into gear and stop grumbling about waking up to drag myself into school and start throwing parts of English around and beaning students silly with them.
But it does leave an interesting issue with me. Now, as a teacher, I tend to ignore the Back to School Blues in my students. It takes a week or so, but inevitably, they'll get it back and buckle down (At least until the last test, after that...), but as a father, my heart aches for my son and it hurts to see him crying and not being his normal cheerful self.
So what's a father to do to beat the back to school blues? And what should a teacher do when his student/son seems to be having said problems in his class?
Beloved's theory is that I'm being too rough on Makoto when it comes to learning to read (To be fair, there's something there, I do think I need to dial back a bit). Makoto himself says that his problem is, well, not making friends at swim class, having a friend of his moving soon, and having a brother bother him in the morning.
Me, personally, I think this sounds more like a case of the back to school blues. That curse that seems to strike all students when they suddenly come face to face with the fact that summer is over and after a month of being the center of attention, we're back to being in a class and instead of non-stop play time, we're being asked to do things that we might not like to do.
I have a whole school full of students who are more or less in the same boat and while they don't burst into tears the way Makoto did last night, they tend to be a bit more prickly about things for the first week and a half until the gears have fully changed.
To be honest of course, teachers get the back to school blues too. I mean, yeah, summer for us is mostly prepping for the next term (In Japan, the school year ends in March and starts in April, summer's just a break), but we're off the bell system and we can be a bit more flexible on what we're doing and when we want to do it. It usually takes me a good week and a half to get back into gear and stop grumbling about waking up to drag myself into school and start throwing parts of English around and beaning students silly with them.
But it does leave an interesting issue with me. Now, as a teacher, I tend to ignore the Back to School Blues in my students. It takes a week or so, but inevitably, they'll get it back and buckle down (At least until the last test, after that...), but as a father, my heart aches for my son and it hurts to see him crying and not being his normal cheerful self.
So what's a father to do to beat the back to school blues? And what should a teacher do when his student/son seems to be having said problems in his class?
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Repeat After Me
An AET (Assistant English Teacher)'s life is repeating. Many AETs will wax quite a bit about how a great deal of their teaching duties consists of being a human tape recorder.
This is true. I spend a great deal of class time trying various ways to get grumpy, disengaged, junior high school students to chorus repeat and drill various words and sentences out of a desperately bland and uninteresting textbook. I yell, I scream, I do funny voices, I change tempo and stress, I do everything but stand on my head and spit nickles in an effort to get my students to repeat "Would you like some more?" over and over again.
And yes, I don't like it most of the time. It's not particularly interesting for me and I know it's mostly dull for the students, most of whom just tune it out. I will say one thing about it though, it has been great training for life as a father.
If an AET's life is repeating, a father's whole fricken universe is repeating.
"Eat your dinner. No, I said eat your dinner. No, put the train down and eat your dinner. No, put that train down, sit down and eat your dinner. I said, put the train down, get out of your bother's chair, sit down in your seat and eat your dinner!"
If I had some flash cards, I'm not too sure I could tell the difference between trying to wrangle a toddler into his chair for dinner and teaching junior high school students English!
Of course there are other similarities as well. Both groups get pronunciation drills (Say "Apple" Hikaru! Can you say "Apple"?) and both groups will proceed to deliberately mess it up because it's fun to annoy Sensei/Daddy.
Of course, it's not fair because the first group are students and I'm not supposed to yell at them and the second is just too damn cute so I can't yell at him either.
There are some differences of course. One group is shorter than the other, but the first tends to be more energetic about English lessons. The crying from both groups when they don't get their way is the same however.
This is true. I spend a great deal of class time trying various ways to get grumpy, disengaged, junior high school students to chorus repeat and drill various words and sentences out of a desperately bland and uninteresting textbook. I yell, I scream, I do funny voices, I change tempo and stress, I do everything but stand on my head and spit nickles in an effort to get my students to repeat "Would you like some more?" over and over again.
And yes, I don't like it most of the time. It's not particularly interesting for me and I know it's mostly dull for the students, most of whom just tune it out. I will say one thing about it though, it has been great training for life as a father.
If an AET's life is repeating, a father's whole fricken universe is repeating.
"Eat your dinner. No, I said eat your dinner. No, put the train down and eat your dinner. No, put that train down, sit down and eat your dinner. I said, put the train down, get out of your bother's chair, sit down in your seat and eat your dinner!"
If I had some flash cards, I'm not too sure I could tell the difference between trying to wrangle a toddler into his chair for dinner and teaching junior high school students English!
Of course there are other similarities as well. Both groups get pronunciation drills (Say "Apple" Hikaru! Can you say "Apple"?) and both groups will proceed to deliberately mess it up because it's fun to annoy Sensei/Daddy.
Of course, it's not fair because the first group are students and I'm not supposed to yell at them and the second is just too damn cute so I can't yell at him either.
There are some differences of course. One group is shorter than the other, but the first tends to be more energetic about English lessons. The crying from both groups when they don't get their way is the same however.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
The Sweetest Sound in the World
Yes, I am a father and of course all fathers are interested in their children's development, but I'm also an educator and one who focuses on English as a Foreign Language. As such, watching the boys develop their languages has been utterly fascinating to me. Both of them started out with Japanese, in terms of actual words I mean (For babbling, they both had a much expanded 'vocabulary' over their Japanese friends, not too surprising given that English has a lot more sounds than Japanese), and for a while with both I was worried that while we were trying for bilingualism, we were getting monolingualism.
I really shouldn't have, but that part is more father than educator.
But in many ways, it's absolutely fascinating. Makoto started off with "hush" and now speaks as a normal 4-year-old, albeit one with a slightly lower vocabulary mainly because some of the items he encounters are only named in Japanese. Right now he has a set rule about what he speaks to whom. Grandma, Grandpa, and Daddy get English, Jiji, Baba, and Mommy speak Japanese. If he encounters a Western face, he switches to English without missing a beat. Admittedly, a year or so back, there was no set rule for him and he would just fling random language at people and get frustrated when Grandma had no idea what a neko was or why Baba didn't understand him when he talked about going to America.
Now, if you read up on bilingualism, it becomes apparent that the quicker you expose a kid to it, the better. And it can't be done via TV, babies want the real thing, which is why Beloved and I have set the ground rules for the boys; I speak English, she speaks Japanese. When we're together as a family, the general default language is English just because Beloved's English is far, far better than my Japanese.
So far, it's been working as Makoto can and does switch between language at the drop of a hat.
Not to say that we haven't had some problems, the damn kid is too smart for his own good sometimes and isn't above asking Mommy for something in Japanese and then turning around and asking Daddy for it in English after getting shot down.
But getting back to language development, Hikaru is current in the middle of a language explosion. After taking a long time to start, he is rapidly adding words to his vocab, pointing out very important objects like Hiro, Anpanman, cats, dogs, and telling people he wants THAT or he wants to go upstairs. He's also adding English words, wow, yeah, ok (All of which sound just like Daddy) and my favorite, Daddy.
It really is the sweetest sound a father can hear. It came as a surprise to me because the day before, the best Hikaru could manage was Dada, which wasn't bad, but he also called things on TV dada so there was some question as to if he meant me. The other day however when I returned home, it was to "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" and a tackle hug to the knees from a flying toddler while the four-year-old attempted to climb up my arms.
Hikaru has also very quickly picked up that, yup, saying this gets my attention, so right now I have a small person trailing behind me most of the time saying "Daddy, daddy, daddy!", but it's all good.
Until Makoto joins in. Having a stereo rendition of "Daddy!" at top volume makes me reconsider the whole project... either that, or perhaps I should just teach Hikaru how to say Mommy instead.
I really shouldn't have, but that part is more father than educator.
But in many ways, it's absolutely fascinating. Makoto started off with "hush" and now speaks as a normal 4-year-old, albeit one with a slightly lower vocabulary mainly because some of the items he encounters are only named in Japanese. Right now he has a set rule about what he speaks to whom. Grandma, Grandpa, and Daddy get English, Jiji, Baba, and Mommy speak Japanese. If he encounters a Western face, he switches to English without missing a beat. Admittedly, a year or so back, there was no set rule for him and he would just fling random language at people and get frustrated when Grandma had no idea what a neko was or why Baba didn't understand him when he talked about going to America.
Now, if you read up on bilingualism, it becomes apparent that the quicker you expose a kid to it, the better. And it can't be done via TV, babies want the real thing, which is why Beloved and I have set the ground rules for the boys; I speak English, she speaks Japanese. When we're together as a family, the general default language is English just because Beloved's English is far, far better than my Japanese.
So far, it's been working as Makoto can and does switch between language at the drop of a hat.
Not to say that we haven't had some problems, the damn kid is too smart for his own good sometimes and isn't above asking Mommy for something in Japanese and then turning around and asking Daddy for it in English after getting shot down.
But getting back to language development, Hikaru is current in the middle of a language explosion. After taking a long time to start, he is rapidly adding words to his vocab, pointing out very important objects like Hiro, Anpanman, cats, dogs, and telling people he wants THAT or he wants to go upstairs. He's also adding English words, wow, yeah, ok (All of which sound just like Daddy) and my favorite, Daddy.
It really is the sweetest sound a father can hear. It came as a surprise to me because the day before, the best Hikaru could manage was Dada, which wasn't bad, but he also called things on TV dada so there was some question as to if he meant me. The other day however when I returned home, it was to "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" and a tackle hug to the knees from a flying toddler while the four-year-old attempted to climb up my arms.
Hikaru has also very quickly picked up that, yup, saying this gets my attention, so right now I have a small person trailing behind me most of the time saying "Daddy, daddy, daddy!", but it's all good.
Until Makoto joins in. Having a stereo rendition of "Daddy!" at top volume makes me reconsider the whole project... either that, or perhaps I should just teach Hikaru how to say Mommy instead.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Reading and the Kids
I am a bibliophile. I devour books like crazy. As I am so fond of relating, when I came to Japan I brought with me 25 books that I meant to use to tide me over until I could return to the US and reconnect with the rest of my library. I now have well over 200 books and about 300 or so waiting for me in the US to get back to them and eventually ship over.
It's with this in mind that Makoto's first Christmas present from Daddy was a set of books. Actually every Christmas has been books. Oh I do get toys and DVDs, yes, but there will always be a book waiting for both boys. Even going on trips, if I can find them, I bring home books for my sons. Makoto has been read to nightly by me from about age one and a half (We had to wait a bit to drive home the point that one is not supposed to EAT the book, especially if Daddy is reading it) and Hikaru from birth given that Daddy is in charge of hauling the wet, nekkid kids out of the tub from where they were bathing with Beloved, and getting them dressed and ready for bed. Our usual nightly routine has been a bit of TV (Star Trek usually) while dressing and settling down Hikaru, and then to the books as soon as Makoto finishes dressing himself and works out what he wants to read.
Beloved and I, working on this whole 'Make the kids bilingual' bit have a system worked out. I refuse to read anything in Japanese, she refuses to read anything in English. In terms of timing then, Japanese books are read during the day when Beloved has a few moments and the boys want something read, but bedtime stories are Daddy's providence.
Thanks to Amazon.co.jp and a few trips to Tokyo, we actually have a fairly good collection of English children's books. Makoto's reading tastes change rapidly. He doesn't like long stories or stories with multiple chapters (Thomas being the sole exception) and even if he says he wants Winnie-the-Pooh, I know it's just going to be for two or three nights before he gets bored and starts demanding the good Dr. Seuss again. Hikaru has also gotten into reading, though we are still very much on the literal taste for reading phase. His favorite book is the classic "Goodnight Moon", which he brings to me any time I sit down at the table if food is not ON the table (Food being more important than reading of course).
I admit that sometimes I get bored with the kids books. The classics not withstanding, some of the books are just terrible. The Thomas series (The ones that have been re-written to match the TV show, not the original Railway Series) for example bores me to tears, the same with the Scooby Doo reader Makoto got from his aunt last year. While I will read them every so often when Makoto asks, there has been any number of nights where I've refused and told Makoto to get another book, any other book. The classics though... I admit, some of them invoke memories for me, either reading them myself or having them read to me. Many I hadn't really read before, but find them entertaining and of course they bring out the best part of all. Sitting in my chair when the day is done and both my sons next to me as I read them a story before bed, what other dad moment could be better than that?
I know I have joked about trying to geek out my kids, but I really do hope that they will continue to have a love of books. Given that they have two shelves full of books and are thrilled when I bring home more, I think it's working. Soon they'll have a large collection too... and will probably annoy their wives or mates just as much as I have annoyed Beloved in attempting to find space to store them all.
It's with this in mind that Makoto's first Christmas present from Daddy was a set of books. Actually every Christmas has been books. Oh I do get toys and DVDs, yes, but there will always be a book waiting for both boys. Even going on trips, if I can find them, I bring home books for my sons. Makoto has been read to nightly by me from about age one and a half (We had to wait a bit to drive home the point that one is not supposed to EAT the book, especially if Daddy is reading it) and Hikaru from birth given that Daddy is in charge of hauling the wet, nekkid kids out of the tub from where they were bathing with Beloved, and getting them dressed and ready for bed. Our usual nightly routine has been a bit of TV (Star Trek usually) while dressing and settling down Hikaru, and then to the books as soon as Makoto finishes dressing himself and works out what he wants to read.
Beloved and I, working on this whole 'Make the kids bilingual' bit have a system worked out. I refuse to read anything in Japanese, she refuses to read anything in English. In terms of timing then, Japanese books are read during the day when Beloved has a few moments and the boys want something read, but bedtime stories are Daddy's providence.
Thanks to Amazon.co.jp and a few trips to Tokyo, we actually have a fairly good collection of English children's books. Makoto's reading tastes change rapidly. He doesn't like long stories or stories with multiple chapters (Thomas being the sole exception) and even if he says he wants Winnie-the-Pooh, I know it's just going to be for two or three nights before he gets bored and starts demanding the good Dr. Seuss again. Hikaru has also gotten into reading, though we are still very much on the literal taste for reading phase. His favorite book is the classic "Goodnight Moon", which he brings to me any time I sit down at the table if food is not ON the table (Food being more important than reading of course).
I admit that sometimes I get bored with the kids books. The classics not withstanding, some of the books are just terrible. The Thomas series (The ones that have been re-written to match the TV show, not the original Railway Series) for example bores me to tears, the same with the Scooby Doo reader Makoto got from his aunt last year. While I will read them every so often when Makoto asks, there has been any number of nights where I've refused and told Makoto to get another book, any other book. The classics though... I admit, some of them invoke memories for me, either reading them myself or having them read to me. Many I hadn't really read before, but find them entertaining and of course they bring out the best part of all. Sitting in my chair when the day is done and both my sons next to me as I read them a story before bed, what other dad moment could be better than that?
I know I have joked about trying to geek out my kids, but I really do hope that they will continue to have a love of books. Given that they have two shelves full of books and are thrilled when I bring home more, I think it's working. Soon they'll have a large collection too... and will probably annoy their wives or mates just as much as I have annoyed Beloved in attempting to find space to store them all.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Playing With the Letters
Got a bit of a surprise when I came home, Makoto presented me a flag that he had made after he had come home from school. Japan's NHK E has a program that comes on during the weekends that Makoto is fond of. It's a kid's show of course, but the main thrust of one of the segments is that everything is done with papercrafts. Japan had a long and glorious history of self-made toys. Children would often make them themselves, or have them had made by their grandparents. Nagano, which since olden times was known for its woodworking skills and the quality of its wood from the Kiso Valley, has been working to preserve these old toy traditions. In fact, the nursery school that Makoto attends as a Ojiichan (Grandpa) in residence whose main task, besides to help with the kids, is to make those old toys and teach the young children how to play with them.
Makoto of course has gone hog wild for this whole concept and just enjoys paper craft. Usually our house needs a through cleaning every weekend and I have to spend a great deal of time gathering various paper scraps, cut up newspaper and the like, and getting them ready to go out to the garbage for burnable trash day.
Makoto's very good at creating things, but as with all small boys, he loses interest pretty quickly in playing with them and proceeds to the next project.
Every day after school, Makoto usually bothers Beloved until she finally gives him the ads from the day's newspaper and some tape, he then goes upstairs to chop it up into something. Today he decided to make a flag by rolling a newspaper ad into a tight tube and then tapping a piece of notebook paper to it. It was a typical Makoto craft, but what caught my eye when he gave it to me was that the decoration on the flag, instead of being random scribbles or a face, was parts of the alphabet. Makoto had decided to decorate his flag with some of the letters, capital and lower-case, that he has been learning.
The lessons are starting to stick. Not only am I proud as a father, but as a teacher I've gotten my payoff, my student, without being prompted, has shown that he has learned the lessons I have taught him.
I'm going to save that flag I think, I'm pretty sure I'll be looking at it for a long time with pride.
Makoto of course has gone hog wild for this whole concept and just enjoys paper craft. Usually our house needs a through cleaning every weekend and I have to spend a great deal of time gathering various paper scraps, cut up newspaper and the like, and getting them ready to go out to the garbage for burnable trash day.
Makoto's very good at creating things, but as with all small boys, he loses interest pretty quickly in playing with them and proceeds to the next project.
Every day after school, Makoto usually bothers Beloved until she finally gives him the ads from the day's newspaper and some tape, he then goes upstairs to chop it up into something. Today he decided to make a flag by rolling a newspaper ad into a tight tube and then tapping a piece of notebook paper to it. It was a typical Makoto craft, but what caught my eye when he gave it to me was that the decoration on the flag, instead of being random scribbles or a face, was parts of the alphabet. Makoto had decided to decorate his flag with some of the letters, capital and lower-case, that he has been learning.
 |
| MAONMlCebBD spells Daddy's Happy |
I'm going to save that flag I think, I'm pretty sure I'll be looking at it for a long time with pride.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Now I Know my ABCs...
Part of the problem of raising bi-lingual and bi-cultural kids is that, well, chances are one of the cultures is just not helping. I mean, I can reasonably be sure that my sons will learn the kana and (God help them) kanji from teachers in school. I'm fairly sure that they will be drilled, asked to write, and tested on their usage from now until they manage to graduate.
However English... Well, I'm an English teacher in a public Japanese junior high school so I'm less than enthused about waiting until junior high for my sons to learn how to read and write a language that they have been speaking since they started speaking.
So the big adventure right now is teaching the 4-year-old how to write the alphabet in the hopes that this will lead into reading. Now me, the guy with the degrees in education and English plus 8 years teaching experience, I kinda figured we'd ease into this. Make it fun, make it colorful, make it interesting for a young boy so he doesn't get scared off on it. No pressure, no ridiculous goals, just three pages in a workbook a day, gone through twice to get it drilled in.
Oh, and bribery in the form of chocolate and ice cream if done for a month (Beloved of course does NOT LIKE THIS).
And, for the most part, he's good. The past Mother's Day had Makoto writing his first card to Mommy (Daddy just provided the spelling) by himself, which he not only bragged about for the next two days, but sent his mother into tears.
What I didn't count on was that, between classes and chores, I would be a bit busy at times, and Hikaru.
Thus the following:
Round 1
Me: Did you do your three pages yet?
Makoto: Not yet, Daddy. I'll do them now.
Me: Ok! I'll check them in a few.
I wander upstairs to get some work of my own done for lessons until...
Beloved: HELP!
Me: Now what?
Come downstairs to find that Makoto went to the toilet (An event loudly announced since 4-year-old boys are justifiably proud of this) and Hikaru decided that, gosh, that red crayon looks just delicious... So now I must spend a few minutes with my fingers in the youngest's mouth trying to get chewed crayon out of it. Meanwhile of course Hikaru is trying his best to escape because crayons are YUMMY!
Spend a few minutes "reminding" Makoto about not leaving crayons down, hand him the remaining half of said crayon, and tell him that he needs to get his pages done; go back upstairs.
Round 2
Beloved: HELP!
Downstairs to find the Beloved tearing the living room apart, the other part of the crayon is missing, pages still not done. So I join in the tearing apart, meanwhile grilling the eldest (He's already developed that 'cool prisoner under the lamplight' look).
Me: Makoto, where's the crayon?
Makoto: I don't know.
Me: Well, where did you put it?
Makoto: I don't remember.
Me: Did you finish your pages?
Makoto: No...
Me: *sighs* Ok, go take your bath and go to bed.
Few minutes later I get collared by the Boss and informed that, well, the remaining half of the crayon was stolen and eaten by the wandering bottomless pit. We did eventually 'find' the crayon... the next day... and let me tell you that red marbled poop is... interesting to say the very least.
But at least Makoto eventually made it through the pages and is now up to 'M'.
However English... Well, I'm an English teacher in a public Japanese junior high school so I'm less than enthused about waiting until junior high for my sons to learn how to read and write a language that they have been speaking since they started speaking.
So the big adventure right now is teaching the 4-year-old how to write the alphabet in the hopes that this will lead into reading. Now me, the guy with the degrees in education and English plus 8 years teaching experience, I kinda figured we'd ease into this. Make it fun, make it colorful, make it interesting for a young boy so he doesn't get scared off on it. No pressure, no ridiculous goals, just three pages in a workbook a day, gone through twice to get it drilled in.
Oh, and bribery in the form of chocolate and ice cream if done for a month (Beloved of course does NOT LIKE THIS).
And, for the most part, he's good. The past Mother's Day had Makoto writing his first card to Mommy (Daddy just provided the spelling) by himself, which he not only bragged about for the next two days, but sent his mother into tears.
What I didn't count on was that, between classes and chores, I would be a bit busy at times, and Hikaru.
Thus the following:
Round 1
Me: Did you do your three pages yet?
Makoto: Not yet, Daddy. I'll do them now.
Me: Ok! I'll check them in a few.
I wander upstairs to get some work of my own done for lessons until...
Beloved: HELP!
Me: Now what?
Come downstairs to find that Makoto went to the toilet (An event loudly announced since 4-year-old boys are justifiably proud of this) and Hikaru decided that, gosh, that red crayon looks just delicious... So now I must spend a few minutes with my fingers in the youngest's mouth trying to get chewed crayon out of it. Meanwhile of course Hikaru is trying his best to escape because crayons are YUMMY!
Spend a few minutes "reminding" Makoto about not leaving crayons down, hand him the remaining half of said crayon, and tell him that he needs to get his pages done; go back upstairs.
Round 2
Beloved: HELP!
Downstairs to find the Beloved tearing the living room apart, the other part of the crayon is missing, pages still not done. So I join in the tearing apart, meanwhile grilling the eldest (He's already developed that 'cool prisoner under the lamplight' look).
Me: Makoto, where's the crayon?
Makoto: I don't know.
Me: Well, where did you put it?
Makoto: I don't remember.
Me: Did you finish your pages?
Makoto: No...
Me: *sighs* Ok, go take your bath and go to bed.
Few minutes later I get collared by the Boss and informed that, well, the remaining half of the crayon was stolen and eaten by the wandering bottomless pit. We did eventually 'find' the crayon... the next day... and let me tell you that red marbled poop is... interesting to say the very least.
But at least Makoto eventually made it through the pages and is now up to 'M'.
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