Junior High School Graduation

School graduation...ooh the memories!

Today was graduation day for all the Junior High Schools in Iwaki. I went to Nakoso 2nd which is a small school on the boarder of the prefecture south of Fukushima. Actually, I haven't been an ALT at Nakoso since last April but it was a small school (which meant a shorter ceremony) and I kind of know the grad students.

I'll spare you the details of the very unique grad ceremony here (but when I had my blog on live journal last year I wrote about it and then posted it here when I joined blogspot so check back to "Belated March Musings"), but something different happened at my ceremony this year at Nakoso that just makes me realize how different Japan can be from Canada.

It was nearing the end of the event and the students were standing up singing songs (first a Japanese version of Auld Lang Syne, then the school song) and one kid fell over and started having what I suspect was a seizure and then fainted on the floor. The teachers rushed over and started to take care of him but all the students and the principal etc continued singing. During the song a student had to give a speech to thank the parents for their support, but the mic stand was supposed to be set up near the location of the fallen boy. Even though the boy was clearly in the way she didn't change her plans and move the mics location...nope... she stood about 2 inches from his feet in the previously decided location and delivered her speech without even flinching or taking a peek below to see if her buddy was ok. I was impressed at the ability of the students to not fall apart at the unexpected circumstances but I don't know if I would have reacted in the same way if that was my friend. During the same song set the boy was put on a stretcher and carried out by dads and teachers to the nurses room. Again, all while the ceremony continued smoothly.

This brings back another memory of my first ever speech contest and one of my first ever earthquakes! All the ALTS were sitting in the auditorium of the culture center watching the annual Oratory competition and during one of the students speeches the building started to shake. All the ALTs started looking around at eachother wondering if there was some earthquake protocol we should be following and what not and the student on stage just continued giving the speech without skipping a beat. It was incredible!!