taneichi-chu sports fest

ConGrAtUlATiONs

The sports festival is held every year to 'build relationships bewteen the grades AND teach teamwork.' Having spent hours and hours practicing the events (for an entire week's worth of afternoons) that are based more on 'luck' than actual skill. The military style of 'training' / Japanese education, had never been more apparent. The students are required to march on and off the playing field at the blow of a whistle. The rigid, ceremonial style of 'festival' is not meant to be a casual imitation of the Olympics, but rather an intense series of bootcamp activities that put everyone's skills to the test.
Also interesting to note, there were no solo events. Fortunately, everything was relay or team style races, because all students must participate in all events. And naturally, there are several students who lack all coordination and athletic ability. Yet they instinctively do their best, hoping to blend in with the pack and not draw attention to their weaknesses. It is these students, those who do not excel at sports, (in a school of 200...maybe 10% fall into this category), that I was most worried would fail miserably. Wrong again, I was so surprised and proud of their decent efforts! And unlike so many of those 'mean kids' from our past childhood, who would find this an opportune time for taunting and teasing, Japan doesn't seem to have them. Everyone is so supportive of one another and understanding/respectful of their differences, their strengths and their weaknesses. Back home, teachers need to 'practice' this mentality in school and actually 'teach' respect classes etc....but in Japan its intuitive and maybe inherent. And when you combine 'team-oriented' students, with their passion for excellence and add their unbelievable work ethic, you get a **** teacher's dream job. ****
During each event, the students who are not participating must cheer...and with NO teacher supervision, everyone cheers. Japanese students are interesting like that, they accept responsibility, often saying "its my duty". As a result, the students stood in their ultra-perfect lines, doing the same cheer (the EXACT same melody) for 6 hours. While my own patience has considerably improved this year, the monotony is too much for me to take at times and I simply must make some attempt throw a curveball in their routine...not to be fecitious, just to show people what it means to be human. And remind them that you simply can not plan for every possible situation. They really are missing the element of surprise over here.
Atsushi & Naoya were 2 of Team Yellow's leaders. I was on 'yellow' team, but wore a red track suit. This through all students for a loop as I had already broken Cultural Rule of Conformity #284, (although I chalked it up as a personal victory in Individualism.)
There were plenty of relay races, 3-legged races and whatever the race below is called. The picture above shows Yusho leading the pack. Yusho's my favorite student--oops favorites are 'bad' in Japan....

wow 2 personal victories in ONE day!

Seiyu & Yuuki are a couple of the leaders for the Team Red (which won by a bit of a landslide).
Tire races...these were interesting and sorta resembled something the Marines do. 2 lines of students with a row of tires in between. Run to the tires, try to get the tires back on 'your side' while the opposing team plays tug of war with you. When you have a set of tires, build a tower. Pile them as high as you can and the tire tower left standing after the whistle blows are the champs. Great teamwork games, and some actually required some strategizing and dare i say 'higher level thinking'. not just rote memorization and rehearsed activities that they are subjected to daily.
2 of my favorite sassy girls....Akane and Sumika.
Go RED.
Go YELLOW.

fight fight fight