東京立会小学校にて自己紹介中

The 2008 IEJ trip to Japan was incredible, beautiful, educational and inspiring and left me with a deeper understanding and love for the Japanese people and culture. At every turn I learned something new, experiencing Japan’s hospitality, beauty, history, cuisine, art, and educational and religious systems.

How does one sum up such an incredible and life-changing journey? The IEJ Program enabled me to experience a Japan few are privileged to encounter with activities such as a personal welcome and tour from the High Priest at Todaiji Temple; a private tour of Nishi Hongwanji Temple and its beautiful gardens; viewing traditional dances by Geiko performers in lovely Kimonos; demonstrations of the fine arts of Japanese Archery, Swordsmanship, and a Noh performance; listening to a moving lecture by an Hiroshima survivor; Yuzen-Zome silk painting experience with a master Kimono designer; wearing a beautiful silk Kimono; lunch at a Buddhist dormitory; meeting the Ikaruga town mayor; and an incredible home-stay experience.

Impressions of Japan flood my mind: clean streets, no trashcans or napkins; toilets that do everything alongside traditional Japanese toilets that aren’t for those with weak thighs; neon signs in Shibuya (Times Square on steroids!), multi level highways; no jay walking; cemeteries built into the sides of mountains, rice fields reflecting the sun, bullet trains stopping for only one minute; vending machines with drinks everywhere; organized and polite crowds; bowing; business cards exchanged, read and reread as precious documents; yummy mochi; handkerchiefs and fans; slippers; tame Japanese deer; green tea; singing tour guides; Bento Box lunches; comfortable Tatami mats; singing karaoke; rows of Sake barrels at the shrines; and a farewell view of magnificent Mt. Fuji. What a beautiful and enchanting land we experienced!

Two highlights of the trip, one personal and one professional were especially memorable. My husband and my home stay visit with the Morikawa family was a personal favorite. The family, Akira, Hideko, Hitomi and her husband Masaki were delightful and went out of their way to make us feel welcomed and at home. They prepared wonderful food family style, dressed us in Kimono and attire for Japanese Archery, invited us to the 100 year old home of Mitsuko Iribe where we had tea, took my husband on long morning walks, and gave us beautiful gifts. My favorite activity was practicing Japanese calligraphy with Akira, who taught me how to prepare the ink and then patiently showed me how to use the brush to create the beautiful lettering. It was an amazing and unforgettable experience.

The professional highlight of the trip was teaching art lessons to a 3rd grade and 4th grade class at the Tachiai Elementary School in Tokyo. I was so impressed with the school itself, which was clean, organized, and overflowing with student work samples. The student body welcomed us with song and performances and then eagerly participated in our lessons. It was challenging teaching students without relying on language but the students were patient and had fun creating their masterpieces. It was an enriching and humbling teaching experience that gave me fresh understanding of and sympathy for our second language learners.

I will cherish and share my memories and experiences from Japan and am grateful for the opportunity to have participated in such an amazing program. Thank you JBA, IEJ and IIST – “Doomo arigatoo gozaimasu!”

Hamakawa 中学校にて、カリフォルニア地理のデモレッスン風景

I have only been a teacher for three years, so I was surprised when I was selected for the 2008 JBA USEJ tour of Japan. I teach English Language Learners and I studied Asian History, so I knew I would benefit from the experience, but I did not expect that ten days abroad would be so life changing. I am truly grateful that I had this opportunity so early in my career because it will inform my teaching practice and philosophy for my next thirty years in the classroom.

Japanese schools have a reputation for being clean, orderly, and advanced, and Hamakawa Junior High certainly was. From maintaining the facilities to cultivating the arts, teachers and students were actively participating in their education and taking pride in their school. The students were very respectful of their teachers, each other, and their surroundings. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the students were very comfortable in the classroom, with regard to their studies and social groups. The principal explained that they were working to build relationships not just to impart knowledge, and that was apparent. One of my colleagues remarked that the sense of community was the school’s greatest strength. The “Evergreen Elders”, retired men and women from the neighborhood, served as our translators, and I became fast friends with one of them who served during the American Occupation. I observed an American History lesson, and I was impressed at the detail and insights shared by the teacher and students. My high school’s student population is predominately Asian, unfortunately our students learn very little about Asia in their World, European, and US History courses. Next year, I will be teaching the only Asian History course in my district. The teachers and students at Hamakawa Junior High demonstrated a broad worldview and a focus on social responsibility that I will work to promote at my school.

After spending three days in Tokyo, I stayed with the Tomofuku family in Nara. Riko, Mikako, and Risa once lived in New Jersey, so we were able to have conversations in English about Japanese culture. It was Riko’s wedding anniversary (her husband was on a business trip) and Risa’s 20th birthday, so I worried that I was imposing, but they were so welcoming. The first night, we went out for a Korean barbeque dinner, we shopped for baseball souvenirs at the mall, and we watched the hit TV shows until we fell asleep. The next day, we walked around the neighborhood for hours until we found a group of boys with whom we played soccer. I feel lucky to have enjoyed fancy hotels and behind-thescenes tours in the cities, but I feel even more fortunate to have learned about everyday life in suburban Japan from such an open, generous, and fun-loving family. Riko said the best thing about Japan is that the people are so happy, and I did see so many smiles and expressions of happiness, from both the citizens and the tourists.

I met the most incredible people in Japan and within my tour group. We did not know each other before, but we quickly bonded. I reunited with the ladies from the LA area just yesterday, and we talked about our slumber party on Tatami mats, our skinny-dip in the hot springs, our sake sipping at Meiji-Jingu, our hike in Miyajima, and our two wildest nights dancing at the discotheque and singing karaoke near the train station. As teachers, we spend most of our time taking care of large groups of children, so it was refreshing to just relax and take care of ourselves. The spiritual moments did not only happen at the shrines, they also happened in the bus driving through the national forest and in the airplane flying over Mt. Fuji. I actually purchased a woodblock print, one of Hokusai’s 36 views of Mt. Fuji, and placed it in my office for inspiration. The scenery was so beautiful. I can still remember the omnipresent green.

My family, friends, and colleagues have asked me about my summer vacation. If they do not have the time to look through my scrapbook, I put it simply by saying that I grew as an educator and as a person. I have studied in London, backpacked through Western Europe, and driven a van through the American Midwest, but my tour of Japan was the most meaningful adventure of my life.

訪れた京都での想い出の１枚

When asked how to explain my trip to Japan with the IEJ program the following words come to mind: it was the trip of a lifetime! I was proud to represent the Japan Business Association as well as my school on this trip. Every step of the way, we were treated like royalty and given so many cultural opportunities one traveling alone would never be able to experience. We wore kimonos, and ate traditional Japanese meals. We watched the Maiko dance, and learned how to purify ourselves before entering temples. We visited historical landmarks and were overwhelmed by the generosity of the Japanese people. All of these amazing experiences could not have been possible without the JBA.

Among all of my experiences in Japan, the most memorable to me was visiting Tachiai Elementary School. At this school I was able to teach a lesson to a typical fifth and sixth grade class. I observed the way teachers interacted with their students, and looked at the materials they use to teach (some of which looked very familiar!). We were even given the opportunities to meet with the staff and community members to discuss our cross-cultural perspective. When I applied for the program, my curiosity was in the field of integrating technology in the classroom. Since Japan is well known for leading the business world in this field, I wanted to see if the same thing translated to the classroom.

To my surprise, the school was very traditional: blackboards and chalk with students seated in individual desks. While there was evidence of student work in the upper grades having been completed on computers, there was not obvious integration of technology into regular, everyday lessons. After speaking with the teachers in the discussion forum, I learned that yes, students do have access to a computer lab on a regular basis but there was not the same emphasis on incorporating research based projects or lessons that teach information literacy skills. On a similar note, there was not a reliance of information on websites or emails to communicate with parents, as there is in my school district (Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified). Clearly Japanese students perform consistently at a higher rate than American students, so there is more than a reliance on integrating technology to correlate with student performance. Needless to say, this was a very educational aspect of my trip!

One of the other distinct memories I will cherish on this trip, was my home stay with the Sakamoto family. While in Nara, I stayed with a very kind family that opened their home up to me. I likened the experience to when my new students come from Japan and come to my classroom. There was a lot of anxiety that I would not be able to communicate my basic needs. I found myself seeking out English letters and words in every sign, desperately trying to find something familiar that I could understand. I now know what my Japanese speaking students feel like when they just want to find something that they can understand or relate to. What the family lacked in English language skills, they more than made up for in hospitality. They opened their home to me and treated me like a queen, making sure all of my needs and desires were met. I hope to be able to be that hospitable and welcoming to my new students.

To say this trip was amazing is an understatement. I learned more than I had even hoped about Japanese culture: from the history about the shrines and temples, to enjoying all the different types of Japanese food and the traditional dances of the Maiko. I am looking forward to sharing my experiences not only with my fellow teachers but with my students for years and years to come. Thank you JBA for allowing me this opportunity!

奈良のYamaguchi さんご家族（ホストファミリー）と

Leaving for LAX on Saturday morning, I wasn’t exactly sure what the ten days ahead of me would hold. I was a little unsure and very curious, but as soon as I was connected with the other twelve participants from Los Angeles and was greeted by representatives of JBA, all my nervousness was gone. It was from that moment to the time we boarded the plane in Tokyo to return home, that I experienced a trip of a lifetime.

Past participants had told me what a wonderful trip it is, but their accolades do not do this experience justice. I was so impressed with the program, the accommodations, the school visits, and the cultural experiences that we encountered everyday. Everything was so well organized and so well appointed for, that there was no room for want. The days were packed with varied learning experiences covering the spiritual, educational, and cultural aspects of the Japanese people. And everywhere we went we were treated like royalty! I was truly amazed at what special treatment we received everywhere -the Meiji Shrine, the Suzunoya kimono experience, Tachiai Elementary School, Todai-ji, and Hiroshima to name a few.

Two of the most memorable experiences for me were the two about which I was most apprehensive – the demonstration lesson at the elementary school, and the home stay. I was prepared to teach the third and fourth graders, but when it came down to actually presenting my lesson, I realized what a different experience this was. My not knowing the Japanese language and the students not knowing English presented a bit of a challenge. I was the minority who didn’t speak the language and had to rely on gestures combined with words to teach my lesson. Thankfully, my lesson included a lot of physical responses and active involvement and the students were able to do the lesson with ease. They even chanted “Again! Again!” when we finished. This experience made me understand at a deeper level what it must be like for our students who are sitting in our English language classrooms not being able to communicate with me, or their classmates, and how I can better accommodate them. The school experience is definitely one that I will remember.

I was looking forward to the home stay, as I figured it would allow me a chance to see what a typical Japanese family and home was like. However, as with all things unknown, they are accompanied by curiosity. I had a short description of who my family was, but really didn’t know a whole lot about them. Thankfully, those apprehensions were quickly put to rest when my host family greeted me at our dinner party – I knew it was going to be a good fit. My host family couldn’t have been more accommodating, generous and nice. The mother of the family spoke English very well, which was a relief to me, and which allowed us to share our experiences, cultures, and questions with each other. I had many questions for her about Japanese customs and ways of life, just as she had hers about America. Although the two girls in the family were young, they were learning English and liked to practice the words that they knew while playing some American games and reading books together. It was a lot of fun! Being a part of a Japanese family, if even for just a day, was a wonderful way to gain further insights into what makes the Japanese such special and gracious people. It’s hard for me to acknowledge that I actually had some trepidation about the demonstration lesson and the home stay, when I am now able to see what great and memorable experiences they turned out to be.

This trip was so amazing! The beautiful places, people and culture of Japan have made a lasting impression, and one that I will remember fondly.