Graduation

Yesterday I watched some of my favorite students walk out the door of their school for the last time. Last year I wasn't able to attend the graduation ceremony because I was scheduled to work at a kindergarten instead This year I was actually scheduled at an elementary school away from my main junior high school again, but luckily I was able to change my schedule around thanks to a couple JTEs. I'm really glad I was able to be there. I've been teaching these kids since I came to Takahagi and it's really been a pleasure watching them grow up and mature (a little) into high school students. They're the only class that I will see start and finish their third year, since I'll be gone myself come July. One important thing to keep in mind is that in Japan, when kids graduate junior high school they don't all go to the same high school. Instead they have to take weks and weeks of tests get into specifically ranked high schools across the prefecture and beyond. In that regard it's almost like high school graduation in America, with kids saying goodbye to the friends they've been with since kindergarten.

The actual graduation ceremony was a little dry, as these things tend to be. Principals and members of the board of education giving speeches, etc. One nice thing I thought was that they delivered messages from all of the teachers who had taught the graduating students in the past but had been transfered to other schools or cities. The real emotion came when some of the students got up to give speeches. Plenty of the kids in the audience were tearing up, not to mention the ones giving the speeches. It was starting to get to me a bit too. Somehow I think when I hear something in Japanese it carries more emotional impact than the same words in English. I think sometimes these things sound trite or corny in English because we've heard similar things so many times before. But hearing it for the first time in Japanese bypasses all those reactions and just leaves you with the emotion and meaning behind the words. Writing it out in English really does make it sound corny, but the speech I liked the best was one girl talking about her memories in class, saying, "Even when we had really boring or really difficult classes, I still enjoyed learning because we were doing it together, as a class, as friends. I want to keep learning with everyone tomorrow too, but I can't do that anymore, can I?" Hmm. Maybe it has more impact if you're watching a 4 foot tall girl struggle to get the words out and not break down in tears. Or maybe not.

The sense of togetherness and arriving at graduation as a single group was an important theme for the day. Speeches by staff continually referenced the fact that every single student was graduating. One interesting thing was, during the ceremony there was no mention of class rank, test scores, or who would be going to the most prestigious high schools. The only achievement recognized was perfect attendance. In other words, those that never took a day off from being a part of the group. Which is why two students really confused me. There were two girls graduating that I had literally never seen before. I know its ridiculously hard not to graduate in the Japanese school system, but is it really possible to do so without ever going to school? It was easy to pick these two out from the rest of the students, since they both had their normally long skirts hitched up to mid thigh, and one had bright blonde dyed hair. What's more, neither one bowed during the graduation ceremony. I couldn't really get my head around how they were able to participate and graduate despite breaking so many rules. Why did all the rules so strictly enforced on all of the other kids in order to preserve group uniformity not apply to them?