I think I win...

...the ALT prize for teaching at the smallest school in all of Japan.

So, the other day I started at Nakajo Elementary, just down the street. In the afternoon, the kyoto sensei (vice-principal) says "oh, you'll go teach at our branch school now in the mountains!" Thinking it's one of the tiny mountain schools I go to occasionally with a mere 10 students, I asked "Uh ok, how many students are there at this school?"

"ONE" she said.

One? That's right, the entire school is one student, Kaho-chan, and one teacher, Yamazaki sensei.

Thinking it was a joke, we drove up into the the hills, the craziest 40-minute drive to a school EVER up a one-lane, earthquake damaged road. We ended up in the bustling metropolis of trees and terraced rice fields surrounding Karekimata elementary, an old, full-sized wooden elementary school built long ago. The dozen or so inhabited houses in the village have old-style thatch roofs and broken mud walls, both damaged by quakes and the 15 feet of snow that smothered the mountains this winter. There was still a foot of snow on the sports field outside the school.

Kaho is a 6th grader and will graduate to Nakajo Junior High next year. She is this school's last student ever. The school will close after she leaves.

Geez, talk about population decline, a recent problem in rural Japan...this school educated 30 or more kids in the old days. Last year the school had four students - three 6th graders, including Kaho's sister, and Kaho as a 5th grader - and attendance at the school has dwindled just as the population of the town has.

The only people there in the village now are Kaho and a few families of elderly folk, about the same ratio as down in Tokamachi, where young people flee the heavy snow and conservative ways of inaka rural Japan for the flashy lights and jobs of the city.

When I arrived at school, Kaho and her teacher were playing a game of cards and staring at each other. I can't imagine how sick they must get of each other, and how much she longs for another kid to talk to. Thank god she has a dog. But she was cheerful, and shy at first. After teaching her some basic English, she warmed up, and we easily became friends.

After waiving goodbye and telling Kaho that I'll be back to teach her in a month, we started the trek back. Just down the road from the school, we stopped to say hello to a police officer on a motorbike, who came up to the village from Tokamachi to patrol god-knows-what. I think he was actually delivering mail too.

I will go up there many more times to teach Kaho, except in the winter when the road is often impassable and they are isolated from life below.

Next time I teach, I should smuggle her a print-club machine, or a candy bar, or a friend to play with...



Kaho and Yamazaki Sensei

The two-story Karekimata elementary school, complete with classrooms, full-size gym with gymnastics gear and wooden basketball hoops, and one student.