The pre-school and the elementary school

I was back at the pre-school again today, juggling between times with a mask on and without one.  The children don't seem to be affected by the new rules, a different classroom (larger) all the windows and doors open, making for a noisy class with noises from other classrooms and the playground drifting in.  I'm the one who is having trouble adjusting!

This week is Tanabata in Japan, the Star-crossed lovers festival.  The folklore goes that two star gods, Princess Orihime (the Weaver) and Hikoboshi (the Cowherder) fell in love and married but they were so enthralled with each other that the Princess stopped weaving and the cowherder's cows all strayed across the heavens so the Princess' father forbade the lovers to meet and separated them across the Milky Way.  Princess Orihime begged her father to let her meet with her husband and finally the father allowed the two lovers to meet only on the seventh day of the seventh month (July 7th) and that is how Tanabata (Evening of the Seventh) became the romantic star festival.

The pre-school had a lovely Tanabata decoration in the main room.  It is a tall frond of bamboo and there are colorful paper chains and decorations that were made by the children and also long slips of paper on which wishes are written and posted.  I think all the trailing decorations are supposed to be depicting shooting stars...

And as I was leaving the pre-school, the principal allowed me to pick out a pencil holder to take home.  Some of the residents at a local convalescent home made these colorful pencil holders from cardboard milk cartons and brightly colored Japanese paper.

I've never seen such a well constructed pencil holder!  It has many sections and also a variation in height depending on the side.  It took quite a bit of skill to make something so elaborate!   I brought home this pretty blue pencil holder.

Last week I was at the local elementary school as a few years ago I managed to get on the evaluation committee.  The only purpose of the committee is to visit the school twice a year and observe an hour of classes and then ask questions and make comments about what is going on in the school.

This year of course, the main concern is about how the school is dealing with the Corona pandemic.  The elementary schools in our prefecture have NOT implemented on-line teaching yet and not all families have computers or tablets or whatever so the two months that school was cancelled put the children far behind on their studies.  In order to make up time, much of school is now limited to just academics...  There is no longer swimming time (yes, most elementary schools have their own outdoor swimming pools and usually swimming is taught), and the sports day and culture day will be severely curtailed this year.

While walking around the school I noticed that the sink area near the bathrooms now have plastic sheeting separating the faucet areas.  The children usually all brush their teeth at this sink and another one upstairs but the school has even changed their lunch schedule so that each grade eats lunch at different times just so that the sink area doesn't overcrowd at once.

In the classrooms, the children all wear masks at all times (except on the playground) and the desks were pushed as far apart from each other as possible.  There is air conditioning which will be necessary as school will continue into the usual two weeks of summer vacation, but as air conditioning doesn't reventilate the air, all the windows will be left open while the air-conditioning is in use.  That's going to be an expensive electric bill!

I stepped into the "challenge" classroom where there were only four students who get special help for their studies and who have a bit more freedom in their activities because it is a "challenge" for them to sit still too long.  I was drawn to one boy working one-on-one with a teacher on a sewing machine and she explained that he wanted to make his own mask (even though he was already wearing one) and so they were working out mask making instructions.  The little boy seemed to know exactly how to work the sewing machine and it looked like he was going to come out of that hour with a mask to wear.  Good for him!