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Happy Saint Patrick's Day, everyone, though it's already the 18th now for me here in Japan. I listened to the Dubliners when walking home after work and then I had a bottle of Guinness Extra Stout and a glass of Tullamore Dew Irish whiskey. I also roasted garlic and spread it on wheat crackers with sliced cherry tomatoes, basil, and oregano. Not exactly Irish but it was tasty. For a movie, for some reason I wanted to watch The Phantom Menace. Liam Neeson is Irish so I guess it makes a kind of sense. I fell asleep watching it, though. The last thing I remember was Obi-Wan Kenobi saying, "The negotiations were short."
Yesterday was also graduation day for third year students and my last day at the school I was working at. Also, my last day working at a school in Japan because I'm going back to the U.S. next month. It's been an educational six years but for now I just want to talk a little about the school I just finished working at. This relatively small school has one of the best art clubs I've seen in Japan. The junior high school art clubs are always amazing and the students are always light years ahead of anyone I remember from when I was in junior high school, myself included. But this particular school has an art club amazing even by Japanese standards. Several of the second year students are making what I would call professional quality work. The club leader is a girl with a refreshing reverence for art history and I was pleased to see her interest in Gustav Klimt and a variety of Renaissance artists. I introduced her to the Pre-Raphaelites and I was pleased to see she took a liking to them.
I also hung out with the brass band a little and had some great summer afternoons talking with two students in particular. One girl had an amazing knack for natural language acquisition. I've been telling people for years they ought to watch movies in English but this girl was living proof of the efficacy of doing so. Freely talking to her about English idioms and common phrases felt like the kind of thing language education ought to be most of the time but too rarely is, at least in Japan.
Anyway, I hope all the students have bright futures ahead of them. Many of them certainly have skills and talents for brilliant careers.
Yesterday was also graduation day for third year students and my last day at the school I was working at. Also, my last day working at a school in Japan because I'm going back to the U.S. next month. It's been an educational six years but for now I just want to talk a little about the school I just finished working at. This relatively small school has one of the best art clubs I've seen in Japan. The junior high school art clubs are always amazing and the students are always light years ahead of anyone I remember from when I was in junior high school, myself included. But this particular school has an art club amazing even by Japanese standards. Several of the second year students are making what I would call professional quality work. The club leader is a girl with a refreshing reverence for art history and I was pleased to see her interest in Gustav Klimt and a variety of Renaissance artists. I introduced her to the Pre-Raphaelites and I was pleased to see she took a liking to them.
I also hung out with the brass band a little and had some great summer afternoons talking with two students in particular. One girl had an amazing knack for natural language acquisition. I've been telling people for years they ought to watch movies in English but this girl was living proof of the efficacy of doing so. Freely talking to her about English idioms and common phrases felt like the kind of thing language education ought to be most of the time but too rarely is, at least in Japan.
Anyway, I hope all the students have bright futures ahead of them. Many of them certainly have skills and talents for brilliant careers.
