Take a fish to work day

Working as an ALT in Japan means that it's possible to bring my sewing to work. It's interesting in a way. If you read the JET Forums there are any number of people constantly soap-boxing about how they only ever study or plan lessons during their copious amounts of free time and denouncing those JETs who bring a book to work or surf the net for reasons other than kanji box. Now, the catchphrase of JET is ESID, or each situation is different. There are JETs who are based at very strict schools where they must wear suits every day and present a certain image. There are JETs who have very little free time (usually high school ALTs) due to planning all of their own lessons every day. I spent my first two years here being very careful to present a good, hardworking image despite being in a much more informal environment and not being responsible for planning classes. I was the first American ALT in the elementary and JHS in a dog's age and I wanted to present a good image to battle the American Stereotype.

The thing is, though, my schools really are very laid back. I work at four junior high schools and seven elementary schools and I could count the number of suit-wearing teachers on one hand. I'm looking around the teacher's office here at Seaside, and I only see two button-down shirts and one tie out of eight staff members. The Southside is even more informal, with teachers running around in tracksuits all day. The Concrete Jungle is a bit more regimented, but still comfortable. The lunch lady holds the power at that school, and she doesn't stand on ceremony very much as long as you respect her. Lately the Westside has been a bit more strict thanks to a new principal starting in April, but it's nothing compared to some schools. It goes without saying that all of the elementary schools are quite relaxed.

(You might have noticed that the junior high schools are codenamed. You're so smart!)

At first I was nervous about bringing my sewing to work, even though I only worked on it during lunch breaks. I knew it was going to bring me attention, and boy was I right! The cries of "oh my gosh, the foreigner can sew???" echoed around eleven staff rooms. I was asked in hushed tones if people also embroidered in the US, and by the eleventh time it was pretty difficult not to spin a yarn about how we weld all of our clothing together in the US and only Japan knows how to embroider. Eventually that petered out, probably helped by my Wikipedia-fueled counterattack of facts about the origins of embroidery showing up in Europe, Egypt, and China. By that point I was more comfortable sewing between classes, because I noticed something interesting; more students were talking to me, and they were more confident using English! Whaaaaaaaat?

I knew that props helped make talking easier. Elementary kids climb me like a tree to get my stuffed monkey and my Rilakkuma pencil case is stolen on a daily basis. It's so much easier to start talking if you having something to point to, hold, or ask for. Every kid I teach now knows two very important phrases: Monkey, please, and Monkey pass. I'm leveling them up to "I want the monkey," and next we're hopefully going to get to "give me the monkey." But why would a silly little fish design be engaging at all? It isn't that cute, you can't throw it at each other, and it's, well, boring compared to stuffed animals. But a few weeks ago the special needs girl at Southside spoke to me for the first time in months and we had a nice little conversation about what colors we like, whether she likes sewing or cooking better (cooking), what her favorite recipe is (stir-fried veggies), and I couldn't ignore that. My relationships with work colleagues have also gotten better. People who've been cool towards me for two years are coming up and starting conversations with the sewing as a catalyst! It's unbelievable!

JET recommends studying as a way to start conversations with people because you can ask them questions about what you don't understand but I've found that those conversations tend to end pretty quickly. You ask a question, get an answer, finish. It's good as an ice-breaker, but unless you're asking a teacher of Japanese you probably aren't going to get very far from asking what やはりtranslates as in English. Students are also probably less willing to approach the ALT when the ALT is burying her head in a textbook, has a dictionary open, and is furiously writing kanji. The biggest factor, though, is probably that all Japanese students have to take home economics, starting in the 5^th grade in elementary school! Where they might not have confidence in speaking English they will definitely have more confidence concerning crafts!

Still, to put it in perspective, I don't think I'd be able to get away with sewing at school if I hadn't spent the first two years working really hard and if I wasn't making it clear that I'm still working hard now, what with the two adult eikaiwa classes a week, international day, speech contest practice after school and on weekends, etc. I don't think this would necessarily work for a brand-new JET right out of the box. I consider myself very lucky to be placed in an area where I'm given so much autonomy and where my fellow teachers are open-minded enough to let me use this as a way to increase communication with kids. I always tell people, if I hadn't been placed here I would have left after a year. Now I'm on my third year and I can't believe how difficult it's going to be to leave next August.