Tag Archives: ASIJ

Education for Expat Kids – or: So I Entered A Blog Contest

. Blog Matsuri, Japan, Tokyo, writing . , , , , , ,

Japan flagThis blog is lucky enough to be listed on a great site for expats across the globe called Expats Blog.  In fact, look at it on May 21st (don’t worry, I’ll remind you) and I’ll have a featured interview on the site.  But for today, please go look at it to see my entry in their blog contest.  The theme of the contest is International schools, a subject near to my heart since I have one child at Nishimachi and the other at The American School in Japan (ASIJ) so I can’t help but compare them sometimes.

For the contest, bloggers had to write about education abroad and/or international schools, but I wanted to focus on a more specific aspect of the kids’ schooling rather than writing a post about general education in Japan.  I chose to write about Japanese language skills.

I haven’t written much about our language abilities lately, but suffice to say, I’m rapidly becoming the dummy in the house as the kids’ language skills – writing, reading and speaking – improve rapidly with daily instruction and weekly tutor support.  But, as you will see in the post, the kids are learning different Japanese.  My son is learning Japanese as a foreign language at ASIJ and my daughter is taught more natively at NIS, which has a strong bilingual program.  It’s an interesting contrast as my daughter chats easily with friends, while my son corrects her grammar.  They’re both learning beautifully, but differently.  It’s neat to watch.

In entering these Expats Blog contests, I am eligible to win prizes.  One of the prizes is for comments on my post on their site.  So please click to read the post (here) and then, if you’re so moved, write a comment.

If you normally enjoy my posts, then you will really enjoy this one on Japanese language learning in international schools.  Give it a look and let me know what you think.  Expats Blog is a great site – and a wonderful place for expats to go for information.  I’m thrilled to be listed on their site!

Is There Such A Thing as Too Much Technology?

. communication, Kids, parenting, Technology . , , ,

tin cans

My son’s computer is driving me crazy.  I know; it’s a machine and doesn’t have actual powers, but in this case, it really is making me nuts.

Bailey’s school, The American School in Japan (ASIJ) required him to have a brand new MacBook this fall.  We bought the top of the line machine, fully loaded, the best available.  He has to bring it to school every day and they use it in class for taking notes and for writing blog posts.  At home he uses it for research and homework purposes.

Bailey is taking Algebra, and about twice a month he has a “problem of the week” (POW) due.  However, it’s not just a math problem.  The way the teacher has structured it, Bailey has to do the math, then create a video of himself doing the math – or practicum – or whatever it is – and then has to prepare an audio as a voice-over to narrate the film, before uploading it all to his teacher.  I am fully in favor of technology in the classroom, and he has definitely learned a lot by doing this.  I’m just on the fence as to whether or not the math class is the right one in which to put the skills into practice.  This is something I’ve written about in the past.

But back to the actual computer.  This week, as he did his POW, he was chatting online with friends.  He watched sports videos between takes of his own videos.  Sometimes he even checked Facebook. There are so many distractions available!  On Monday night when he was working on a social studies project I moved my computer next to his so I could see precisely what he was doing any given second.

The school, however, has tied my hands.  I can’t take away the computer as a punishment if he’s not doing what he’s supposed to be doing.  It’s his learning tool and he needs it at school.  So if he wastes time being distracted, I have very little recourse besides simple nagging.  I would like to make it so he has to just sit and work, not have the distractions available, but I can’t do it.  I am having trouble teaching him about staying focused.

I am by no means a Luddite; I believe in using technology to the fullest.  But there has to be limits somewhere, and perhaps 8th grade is too young to expect kids to be in charge of themselves fully.  Focus, time-management, and study skills are things that do not come naturally; they need to be taught, and sometimes the computer is an impediment to that.

Please, if you have a different opinion, or a suggestion here, let me know.  I’m having trouble reconciling myself to my son’s dependence on technology and the issues implied therein.  Feel free to let me know what you think.

I Can’t Hear In Email Very Well

. communication, writing . , , , ,

The other day, the American School in Japan (ASIJ), where my son is in 8th Grade, sent out an email reminder to ask parents to e-sign a permission slip for the kids to stay after school to go to the high school football game. It’s a K-12 school, and once or twice a semester, the games are played on a Friday night under the lights instead of on Saturday morning, and the PTA makes a night of it with concessions, games for kids, etc.  However, ASIJ is in Chofu, about an hour outside of Central Tokyo, so transportation is always an issue.  It happens to be the night of the middle school dance, and normally because of the distance, dances are held from 4:30-6:30 so the kids take a late bus home. The school was asking middle school parents to sign that they are responsible for their own kids at game-time, after the dance, and will get them home safely.  If the parent isn’t going to be there, he or she has to list who exactly is responsible for the child.  Very American-style safety-conscious.  My mother would be so proud.

Both parents get this particular email.  When it came into my in-box, I ignored it because I knew I had already signed the permission slip for Bailey.  My husband, Marc, forwarded it to me asking, “Did you do this?”

My response, in my mind, was a little snarky: “What do you think?”

Well, I’m generally pretty on top of the Weinstein schedule and work very hard to make sure permission slips and things aren’t lost in flux.  I’m not perfect and I make plenty of mistakes, but I’m very detail oriented and I have a good record.  To me, that was already ticked off the list.  Been there, done that.

That wasn’t how Marc “heard” the message though.  He “heard” me asking his opinion on whether or not Bailey should go to the game and IF we should sign the permission.  “What do you think? (About Bailey doing this event?)

So Marc’s response was: “I thought he was intending to do this, no?”

I was astonished.  He totally misunderstood me, and for a minute, I didn’t understand what he meant, either.  I wrote back: “You loony – you asked if I did this and I asked, what do you think – meaning do you think I did it?  Well of course I already did it!  There was no harm in doing it.  If he changed his mind, he could get on the late bus after the dance.  But I’m sure he wants to stay.  We’ll drive out there to be there before 7.  The dance ends at 6:45, so we should probably be there before that so we’re officially responsible for him.”

That’s when Marc realized the miscommunication: “That’s the problem with email.  When I read it, I heard you asking it as, “do you think we should let him stay” as opposed to, “duh, of course I already did it.”

That’s when I responded, “Yes, hearing is pretty lousy via email, I agree.”

Marc’s response, knowing me very well indeed, “Sounds like a blog post.”

Ha!

We are lucky, Marc and I, that we have become pretty adept over the years at clearing up miscommunications.  People get in trouble for what they say via email all the time, partly because the recipient can’t hear the intended innuendo, tone of voice, or facial expression.  I’m sure when phones were first invented people had miscommunications all the time.  Now we have a thousand different ways to communicate and just as many ways to MIScommunicate.  People get knots in their knickers about this all the time when a simple, “what do you mean?” type of question would be indicated.  It’s not that hard.  Just tell people that you have trouble hearing them when they email.

We are going to enjoy that football game on Friday!

This Is Not Your Father’s Math Homework

. critical thinking, Kids, Technology . , , ,

Tonight I watched my son, Bailey, do his math homework and at first, he did exactly what I expected him to do.  He surveyed the worksheet, got out his graph paper and worked through the one main problem, ultimately creating a graph for the outcome, before reaching a final solution.  It was just like I used to do for my own math homework centuries ago.

That’s where the resemblance ended, however.

Bailey’s next step was to take a video of himself (with his school-required laptop with camera in it) explaining in great detail what his solution was  and how he arrived at it.  The video ended up being approximately 5 minutes long.

After taking the video and saving it on his hard drive, Bailey uploaded it to Google Docs, to the video section.

Next, he made sure to click the little box saying “make the video public on the web with a sign-in required.”  That allowed him to share the video only with those to whom he gives the password.

In Google Docs Bailey is able to retrieve and copy the “embed code” for the video which allows him to embed the video elsewhere.

And lastly, Bailey had to create a blog post on his personal blog, which he has through school.  He calls it his “Bailey-verse.”  He has the blog organized by class – he has to blog now for most of his classes, even for the strings orchestra. Please note that Bailey had to paste the embed code into the HTML section of his blog post and not in the regular creation part of it because then the code would appear, but it wouldn’t link properly to the video on Google Docs.

The finally, he was done with it.

Whew, that bears absolutely no resemblance to the math homework I used to do!  I am proud and confused all at the same time.  Bailey is no different from any of his peers at the American School in Japan; I don’t think he works with any particular facility, but he has just done it enough times that it’s second nature now.  Not every assignment has to be done in this way, but for a significant portion of them per month, he goes through this process.    I could say all sorts of trite things right here about how my children will never know a world without computers, or that he already knows more about software than I do, or even that he has terrible handwriting, but I don’t care because he never needs to write any more.  But you already know all those things; I don’t need to repeat them or elaborate on them.  I could also get morose and wonder if Bailey is really better off with all of these steps or if he just has to do more work than I did in 7th grade.  But is that going to hurt him, even if it’s true?  Most likely not.

How did he learn this stuff, I wanted to know.  He said that the computer people showed them some videos at the start of the year and he has learned other stuff from his fellow students and classmates.  They share knowledge well, it seems.  It this knowledge-based economy now, the ability and willingness to share what you know is a commodity.

Right now I’m going to just enjoy my little glimpse into what seems to be a very bright future indeed.  Go tell your kid to do his math homework and see what you find out.

Transitioning to a Traditional School – Learning To Take a Test

. Education, motivation, parenting . , , , ,

Bailey, last spring, with a Lego-version of C3POMy son, Bailey, except for first and second grades in a traditional American school in the U.S., has spent the majority of his schooling life in a Montessori classroom – even for preschool and kindergarten.  He’s a textbook Montessori child – curious, self-motivated, and interested in a variety of subjects. Last June, he graduated from the fantastic school which he had been attending for the prior four years and we decided to send him to the big American School here in Japan – literally called The American School in Japan (ASIJ), which is an hour outside the city, in Chofu.  The school runs many buses from downtown, but it has to be located out there in order to have the facilities (read: for sports) that an American school requires.  All of the parents worry about the bus ride, but the kids actually like it.  It’s like an hour-long playdate before and after school.

Montessori method is quite different from a traditional learning environment.  It’s more individualized, child-centered, and independent.  Children stay in the same classroom ideally with the same teacher for three years, and Bailey got one extra year out of his wonderful teacher because she moved classrooms with him.  So he had the same teacher for four years.  The classrooms are mixed age, and often older children teach younger ones because you never learn something so well as when you teach it to others. Montessori method also does not require homework or testing, feeling that the children work hard enough in school, and work to master concepts innately, so they do not have to assess the progress – it’s apparent.  We loved it for Bailey – it was perfect for his style of learning.

But he has done quite well transitioning to the American school too – where in the middle school, he has not only one new teacher, but seven.   It’s a big place and he has to use a locker, a gym locker, and a music locker for his violin.  He’s enjoying it.

But there has been one stand-out consequence of the transition that we have just realized, in the fourth week of school.  Bailey has never had to study for or take a test.

He had a math assessment last week and he did not tell us about it beforehand.  He did okay – 80%, but not stellar.  He was disappointed with himself.

“Well, did you study, Bailey?” I asked.

“I knew the material.  I understood it.”

“There’s more to it than simple understanding.”  This statement floored him.  In the past, if he understood, it was great – he could move forward with the next thing.

So my husband and I sat down with Bailey and literally showed him how to study.  It’s not enough to understand – you have to understand, take in the material, memorize it – own it – and then be able to regurgitate it in the proper format for the teacher.

We talked about various methods of studying.  Some people write to learn, some people say things out loud, some people can learn by staring at the book and then asking someone to “test” them, but most work in a combination of methods, depending on the class and the type of material.

“That’s hard!” Bailey protested, when we found out that he had a health quiz the following day for

which he needed to study.

My husband, Marc, and I agreed – it is hard!  And time-consuming, to boot.

Grudgingly he put in the time to write out the material he needed to learn for the health test, and then Marc tested his knowledge.  Miraculously he did very well on the test!

“That studying thing really works, Mom,” he said, pleased with himself.

“Gee, ya think, Bailey?” I teased.

The whole thing was wildly interesting to Marc and me – knowing how take a test and study is one of those things we take for granted.  I don’t remember “learning” it per se.  And now Bailey will always know it as he works on what methodology is good for him personally.  Onward and upward on this journey!