A teacher's reward

The other night I had the pleasure of meeting up with a former student of mine from Australia not far from the centre of Tokyo. He is by far one of the most talented students to pass through the school and carried all of the honour and burden of being school captain as well.

However, we met not as student and teacher this time, instead in the "real" world as two blokes going out for a snack to eat. I know very well the awkwardness he may have been feeling though. Do I still say "sir" or "Mr Howes" or "Stephen / Steve", or even try a "Howesy"? How much can I mention of the school? Isn't this weird? I'm sure these were some of the things running through his mind. They were certainly going through my mind when I met former teachers after graduating. This was amplified even more when I gained employment at the school and had to greet former teachers as colleagues. I'll get to that more in a minute.

I never intended to be a teacher when I left school, but I picked up the thrill and pleasure of helping people understand something (initially English language) that came from my thoughts, planning and utterances. The "aha" moments are the short term pleasures, but the long term feelings of immense satisfaction and pleasure come from witnessing a young student develop and mature into a genuinely nice person with a passion for learning. I definitely came away from the other night's catch-up with that feeling. I know that he will absorb all that awaits him in the next journey, and many people's lives will be richer from the skills and passion he puts into all the pursuits he undertakes. I wish him well and look forward to remaining in contact.

My story isn't done though. Two nights prior to the above mentioned catch-up, I met with current students from my former school and their accompanying teacher/tour guide/... many other applicable names. The group were on the travel/cultural experience part of their Japan Exchange Trip. Six boys had just finished their 5 week stint with a host family and attended school for a significant portion of that time, and two other boys joined the 2 week travel component only. It is a fantasic reciprocal exchange program with 6 boys from 2 different schools in Osaka (i.e. a Japanese boy stays at the Aus boy's house and attends school in August, then the Aus boy stays at the Japanese boy's house in December/January).

I taught Japanese to most of these boys twice (and Science once) while I was at the school. Once in Grade 8 and then again in grade 10. They are about to enter their final year (Grade 12) when they return to Australia. I was extremely happy to have them in the town that I referred to so many times in our lessons, and hopefully they appreciated the significance of that too. I would have loved to have helped take them around the rest of the country and share stories, history tid-bits, cultural customs etc., but that opportunity unfortunately doesn't exist for me anymore. What a great experience that was though. I was lucky enough to join two trips around Japan when I was a teacher at the school, and I have to say that they were some of the most rewarding moments of me being a teacher - out in the field, using the language I taught, enabling students to use their senses to learn more than we could ever possibly cover in a year in a classroom. Not only that, I could share all of my experiences I am passionate about, and give current and relevant advice. Ah, it was brilliant.

The students were just as thrilled to see me as I was to see them. I am overwhelmingly happy to see that they made the journey here to Japan. To me, it means that they maintained their interest and desire to experience the culture and language that I tried hard to deliver to them in the classroom. It was rewarding for me to not only see these fine lads again, but to see that they were here to learn more about the subject we discussed in the classroom. It means that something was sparked along their path of learning that they wanted to experience or simply know more about. Quite honestly, I don't think I could ask for much more than that as a teacher of Japanese. Thank you gentlemen. Stay in touch and I wish you well in your final year.

However, spare a thought for the man in the picture below, Greg Dabelstein.

He was the accompanying teacher/tour guide of the school group. He planned every detail of the trip, as he has done for many years. As I mentioned earlier, I joined him on two of these trips and witnessed the enormous amount of time he spent on making sure there was a balance of traditional and modern, large cities and small towns, fun and solemn, and group and individual free time. It was a finely timed experience that the students would come to appreciate even more after they had returned to Australia. I loved it and tried to offer whatever I could, which usually meant there were samurai history stories coming out at every pause on the journey. They all loved them. I'm sure they did. Maybe.

So why spare a thought for him? Well, if I got so much satisfaction out of seeing my former students visiting me, I wonder how he felt seeing his former student (and colleague) living in Japan, married to a Japanese woman, with bilingual children, working in a Japanese-speaking environment, and greeting his former students as they partake in a language/culture exchange. Thanks mate.