Year Two

Today marks our second “Taiku no Hi“, or rather, the Japanese holiday celebrating “Sports Day”. Offices are closed and the children at Japanese schools compete in sporting events with their parents watching. Upon arriving last September, this was my first holiday in Japan and I remember thinking “wow, such an odd reason to close down businesses”. Now that I have a better understanding of the Japanese work or “salary man” culture, I understand why there needs to be a national holiday for Dad’s to witness their child’s activity at school. Since he’s not at Japanese preschool, today is no different of a school day than typical for Roo. However, Ryan does have the day off and we attended an open house at Tokyo International School, one of the schools we are considering for kindergarten next year. The school was amazing. We are so fortunate here in Tokyo to have such wonderful places from which to choose. At this school the children check out iPods from the library and last spring had the opportunity to sing their school song to Bono (of U2). I asked the question of how teachers and children interact and where on the spectrum they are in terms of authoritarian versus guidance and mutual respect. They are the antithesis of authoritarian, and I was very happy to hear the children call the teachers by their first names as this, in my mind, is the greatest indicator of a progressive school that will raise the most tolerant and compassionate world citizens. If I could ask only one question, it would be “how do the children address the teachers?”. It speaks volumes. Of course I can ask more than one question, and I typically do! I have created a chart on which I score different attributes, and in the end, I will have a total score for each school visited. The reality is that there is probably no bad choice, it’s just a matter of which works best for Roo.

Today after school we go to a birthday party at the Colombian Embassy for one of Roo’s classmates. This will be birthday party number four since the start of the school year. I don’t mind, though. It’s always a fun time for the kids and a great chance to meet other parents.