Every few months they have an open period where parents are invited to come watch a class. Monday was one of those days. We don’t always go, but we decided to go to this one because it’s the last one before we leave Japan.

We didn’t understand much of what was going on beyond the methodology—it was a Japanese class where they were reading a story—which involved reading, interpretation, and explanation. There was also an activity where some of the students acted out part of the story, but I couldn’t really follow it.

In any case, my lack of understanding didn’t stop me from taking pictures.

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I didn’t think I had time to write a long post today, so I was going to just post some photos I took at school during cleaning time. But I got sucked into the writing vortex.

What is cleaning time? At my school it’s the half-hour or so after the last period of the day, when the students “clean” the school. They sweep and mop the floors, take out the garbage, clean the blackboards, sweep up the grounds, and generally tidy up. I say “clean” because it seems like all they do is move the dirt from one corner to another and back again.

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As I said in another post, April is the beginning of the school year in Japan. Today we had the ceremony for new students. Sort of a reverse graduation ceremony. Only the new first-year students—equivalent to Grade 10 in Canada—and a handful of second- and third-year students who had duties assigned for the ceremony, came to school today.

I took quite a few pictures of the new students, but today I’m just going to show pictures of the sakura (cherry blossoms), which are at their most beautiful today.

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