Day 3: July 4th (Shizuoka)

Today I met up with Aina and Akiko Satake and we visited the Shizuoka Shiritsu Ryuso Junior High School in Shizuoka.

Aina just completed her freshman year at Brookline High School.

The school is named after Mt. Ryuso whose name means dragon's nail. It is thought that the dragon left its nail mark on the mountain.

Outside of the school was many beautiful mountains.

All School Assembly

Today the school had a modified schedule because of a whole school assembly in the morning. This assembly was to decide the teams for their "Sports Day" in October. They spend the next few months practicing for it. Each grade has 4 homerooms and each had to pick out the colors red or blue from a box to decide which team they would be on. Therefore half the school would compete on team red and the other half on team blue. After the teams were decided, each team had to organize themselves by birthdays, so that the students could mingle with students from other grades. I was amazed at how organized the students did this! I was also amazed that this entirely assembly was student-led. The student leaders from each homeroom picked their colors, the students announced everything on the microphone, and gave all the directions. The teachers watched from the back.

They also had a pool for swimming class and students had to change into their swimsuits and run through a shower to wash before going into the pool.

We took a tour of the school led by the English teacher Ms. Kanazawa. We observed an English class, math class, and science class.

I was surprised to learn that the students stay in the same class all day and the teachers rotate to the different rooms.

Each student gets a desk and a chair when they start at the school in 7th grade. Their chair has their name on the back. When they switch seats, they pick up their whole desk and chair and move it. On the last day of school, they bring their desk and chair up to the next floor for the next grade. This was so interesting! They also all have cushions for their chairs in case of earthquakes to cover their heads.

I gave a presentation about the Lawrence School to 3 different English classes. Aina also helped out by translating parts of my presentation for the students - thanks Aina!

First, I presented to the special education class which had 4 students in it (normally it has 5 but 1 student was absent today). Since there were less kids, this definitely helped ease my nerves for my first presentation! We played Simon Says as an icebreaker. Then I told them all about Lawrence School and they asked me questions. Afterwards, they all asked for my signature! It was so cute.

I also presented twice more to two different general education classes. We played a top #5 trivia as an icebreaker. These classes had more than 30 students each. Many students were surprised about the length and timing of our school year and how long our summer break is since they only get about 3 weeks. They were also surprised at how short our transition times were between classes (3 minutes compared to their 10 minutes). They also were surprised that we serve pizza at our school every Friday. At the end of my presentation, students asked me questions about how old I am, what sports I play, if students at my school can get seconds and thirds of pizza, if my school gives homework over the summer, and what American and Japanese foods I like.

I felt like a celebrity wherever I walked in the school because many students waved at me and said hello. Some students also came up to me to practice their English with me.

The class learned that I am going to Kyoto tomorrow so at the end of class a few students got up and presented on what I should see in Kyoto. They had made these presentations recently to practice their English. The students did such a good job! I was so impressed!

Students then ate lunch in their classrooms. Each student brings their own placemat, utensils, and their toothbrush. The students help serve and clean up the lunch. They rotate whose job it is to serve and get the lunches. The servers put on aprons and hats. Unless a student has an allergy or dietary restrictions, all of the students eat the school lunch. After they finish eating, the students clean and organize all of the dishes in the front of the classroom. They collapsed all of the milk cartons to be recycled. There are no trash cans in any of the classes. Their school seemed like it was zero-waste! After lunch the students brush their teeth. I was amazed at how this whole process was so well organized and the teachers didn't need to intervene at all!

The teacher also eats lunch at the same time at her desk facing all of the students.

After they finished eating, a few students came up to ask me questions.

Shizuoka Prefectural Earthquake Disaster Prevention Center

After visiting the school, the Satake family took me to the Shizuoka Prefectural Earthquake Disaster Prevention Center. My name was on the computer screen!

Here we learned about what to do during an earthquake and a tsunami to be safe, structural designs to keep homes and buildings safe, and how people prepare a stockpile in case of a disaster.

We learned about the devastating Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. This was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan. This earthquake lasted 6 minutes and also created a tsunami.

Aina and I got to experience a low level 6 and then a level 7 earthquake.

The level 7 one was intense! We were prepared for it and already holding on and ours only lasted 20 seconds. I can't even imagine it going on for 6 minutes, especially if you aren't prepared for it. That would be very scary.

We also learned about the science behind why some buildings have more damage than others. First, as you can see in the picture on the left, if the soil is not as compacted and has too much water in it, this will cause more damage to buildings during an earthquake. Scientists have the technology to map out these risk zones.

We also learned that when the epicenter of an earthquake is farther away, taller buildings shake more and shorter building do not shake as much. However, when the epicenter is closer, taller buildings actually shake so fast that they don't move as much and shorter buildings move a lot more.