It has been a year and a half since I've added to this blog. I don't feel like I have much to share unless we are traveling or embarking on another grand adventure. Another grand adventure is fast approaching. Last spring I was substitute teaching at my old elementary school, when the principal ask if I wanted to go to Japan. Florence's sister city is Yamagata City, in the Gifu Prefecture, (not the large Yamagata up near the nuclear mess). The Siuslaw School Dist. had an exchange program for high school students every summer for many years. Unfortunately, due to increasing cost of travel and the group responsible to fund-raise for the Siuslaw students, disbanded, so the exchange became one sided. Last summer when the Yamagata delegation came to Florence, the mayor of Yamagata proposed a new position in the city government's Life Long Learning Department. Therefore, after much paper work, complicated translations, and a very non-specific contract with the City of Yamagata, Charly and I are heading to Japan in two weeks, for a year.
It is my fondest hope that my title "Coordinator of International Relations," (given to me by Yamagata City), will truly become a cultural exchange. After our wonderful experience teaching in Bhutan, we are again wanting to immerse ourselves in another culture and be a small part of better understanding and cooperation in a global community. I am trying hard to set up some project exchanges between our two school systems. The Japanese curriculum is very rigid and I will have to be pretty creative to convince the Japanese English teachers that science, technology, engineering, math, and art are what our young people will need to succeed in this global economy and how cultural sharing is paramount in our planet's ecological survival. As usual I go in with lofty goals, but I am smart enough to know that slow baby steps are necessary to make any lasting changes in an educational system. Wish me luck!
Charly is going as my volunteer "every-man." He has already been ask to read English picture books to pre-school children at the local library, walk our wonderful translator's dog, drive me around to the many schools, shop, garden, and explore Japan. Hopefully he will draw and read which he doesn't seem to find time to do when we are at home.
We are trying hard to learn some basic Japanese before we arrive, it is a slow process for our "old brains." Below are some photos of the Japanese students who came to visit last week. We had two fifteen year old girls and an English teacher stay with us. They giggled every time I tried to speak Japanese. Ah, well, I like to make people laugh.
Pictures and blogs will come at least monthly while we are in Japan. Doumo Arigato Gozaimas, Yamagata City, for this wonderful opportunity.
It is my fondest hope that my title "Coordinator of International Relations," (given to me by Yamagata City), will truly become a cultural exchange. After our wonderful experience teaching in Bhutan, we are again wanting to immerse ourselves in another culture and be a small part of better understanding and cooperation in a global community. I am trying hard to set up some project exchanges between our two school systems. The Japanese curriculum is very rigid and I will have to be pretty creative to convince the Japanese English teachers that science, technology, engineering, math, and art are what our young people will need to succeed in this global economy and how cultural sharing is paramount in our planet's ecological survival. As usual I go in with lofty goals, but I am smart enough to know that slow baby steps are necessary to make any lasting changes in an educational system. Wish me luck!
Charly is going as my volunteer "every-man." He has already been ask to read English picture books to pre-school children at the local library, walk our wonderful translator's dog, drive me around to the many schools, shop, garden, and explore Japan. Hopefully he will draw and read which he doesn't seem to find time to do when we are at home.
We are trying hard to learn some basic Japanese before we arrive, it is a slow process for our "old brains." Below are some photos of the Japanese students who came to visit last week. We had two fifteen year old girls and an English teacher stay with us. They giggled every time I tried to speak Japanese. Ah, well, I like to make people laugh.
Pictures and blogs will come at least monthly while we are in Japan. Doumo Arigato Gozaimas, Yamagata City, for this wonderful opportunity.
.jpg) |
| Our visitors from Yamagata City |
.jpg) |
| Yamagata delegation with Florence's Mayor Xavier |
