Aaron Ackerson's Blog

Yesterday, I went back to school for the entrance ceremony for the new 7th graders. I always feel uncomfortable at formal ceremonies like that. This year, I even took the day off on the day of the graduation ceremony, which is even more formal. But since the principal introduces all the 7th grade teachers at the entrance ceremony, I had to go.

When I went to school, I got to see who had been replaced and who the new teachers are. All of the English teachers are the same, but most of them are teaching different grades now. For some reason, for my 7th classes this year instead of teaching with the current 7th grade English teacher, I'll be teaching with one of the 9th grade teachers. I'm not that disapointed that I won't be working with that 7th grade teacher though. Last year, when we were teaching 9th grade together, he came up with what was easily the most pointless lesson I've ever been involved with (at least I think he's the one who came up with it). He showed the Japanese dubbed version of the movie I Am Sam to the students. No English audio or subtitles or any English at all. I don't know what he was thinking. Anyway, I just hope that the 7th graders will be good in class even though my teaching partner will not be their regular English teacher. I think one of the problems when I was teaching all grades with Ms. Amimoto was that the students didn't respect her because they only saw her once a week. There were also other reasons why she wasn't respected much though, such as her age and the fact that she was from Tokyo. The other teachers didn't seem to respect her much either, and maybe that attitude rubbed off onto the students.

There is a new principal and vice principal this year. The principal isn't as warm and friendly as the one we had last year, but I don't have to deal with him in my day-to-day work, so I guess it doesn't matter. The new vice principal was one of the regular teachers last year. He has a few annoying personality traits, but he doesn't seem like the strict type, so I don't forsee having any real problems with him.

After I got home, Tomo and I went for a walk by the Ishi River and looked at the cherry trees, which were in full bloom. I forgot to bring my camera, but Tomo took some pictures and a video with her cell phone.