School's Out For...Winter?

Growing up, there were always a few things that alerted me to the fact that the school year was about to end. The bus driver opening up the emergency exits in the roof of the bus to let in cool air (conveniently disregarding the fact that this also illuminated the flashing emergency lights on the back of the bus) was a sure sign. As was the mournful song of my suburban neighborhood’s phantom ice cream truck-often heard but never seen. In my later years it was the public school kids I would encounter at the mall who asked in a perplexed tone, “You’re really not on summer vacation yet?”

This year I got to observe a very different year’s end-taking place not during the balmy days of June but rather during the last dying days of winter. As the new school year starts in April, most schools over here let out in mid to late March, rendering Alice Cooper’s classic summer jam “School’s Out” entirely useless.

Now that I’m a teacher, the end of the year no longer means that I can look forward to three straight months of watching MTV with my brother; instead, I get to look forward to a number of boring graduation ceremonies. I do really like a number of my 6th graders at the elementary schools and my favorite class clown is in the 3rd grade at my middle school (consider this a shout-out if you’re somehow reading this, Tachibana Kenma), so I was pretty sad to see many of them go. Hopefully they’ll be going to a better place. Like Momoishi High School, where many of the girls will apparently date twenty-something dudes in pimped-out cars in exchange for designer handbags, or so I’m told.

Although I’m rather famous for my horrible memory, I really can’t remember having a graduation ceremony in either elementary school or middle school, which I’m pretty sure means that no elementary or middle schools in America have graduation ceremonies (at least that’s what I’ve been telling everyone over here who asks me about it). Come to think of it, I can’t really remember much of my high school graduation either although I do seem to recall Chris Smith raising the ire of teachers by wearing a fraudulently procured honors tassle, so I guess it must’ve been some kind of a big deal. Over here they seem to do it all backwards with large ceremonies for elementary and middle school and a smaller one for high school where the students don’t even receive individual diplomas.

The first graduation ceremony I attended was last week at my middle school, Momoishi Chuugakkou. Upon arriving at the school I was told to wait, as I would be entering the ceremony along with the guests of honor. Just before the start of the proceedings, I was ushered towards the gymnasium along with a bunch of old guys in suits and an old lady in a pastel green kimono who thanked me for “coming to Japan”. The hallway leading up to the gymnasium had been decorated with red cloth and tissue paper and the third graders lined the sides, greeting and bowing to guests as they entered.

I was really surprised when I saw the gymnasium as it had been decorated quite extravagantly for the occasion. After a few brief introductory speeches, the first diploma was handed out with the principal reading the text in full, “In the 17th year of Hesei, in the town of Oirase, in the district of Kamikita, in the prefecture of Aomori…” Subsequent students were only called by name until the final recipient received her diploma, at which point, the full text was again read.
The actual handing out of the diplomas worked something like an assembly line with a student being called up to the stage by name, bowing to the principal and then receiving his or her diploma. At this point the next student is called up and when the previous student proffers his or her departing bow, the new student offers a bow in greeting. It was quite an efficient system, made all the more impressive by the clockwork precision with which it was performed: the students and principal folded their bodies neatly in half as they bowed and then sprung back up in perfect synchronization, as if controlled by an invisible system of strings and pulleys.
Meanwhile, the rest of the students sat and watched the ceremony with the same detached boredom as I. Notice their resemblance to an unblinking mass of black and white cartoon characters.

After the diplomas were handed out, it was time for a number of long-winded speeches from officials from the board of education, as well as the ex-Mayor (can you imagine the mayor coming out to your middle school graduation?). Now, a Japanese ceremony involving children is practically guaranteed to involve some sort of song and graduations are certainly no exception.
First, there was a song sung by the entire student body. Notice the student conductor in the middle.
Next there was the 3rd grade’s solo performance. By my estimates, roughly 100% of these girls were crying by the end of the song.
Finally, the 3rd graders took to the stage for the grand finale. I had been previously warned about the crying but I was surprised to see even a few of the “tough guys” crack on stage.
On an unrelated note, you might remember me telling you about the school’s stuffed alligator months ago. I managed to snap a photo of it on my way out. This is why you don’t mess with Happy Gilmore.

Well, today I had the pleasure of attending yet another graduation, this time at Momoishi Elementary School. You would think that since the children are much younger, the ceremony would be simpler and shorter in length. No such luck. In reality, the ceremony was longer and more involved, despite there being far fewer students.

When I arrived at the school, I was quickly ushered into the fancy conference room to have tea with the big guys while we waited for the ceremony to start. I quickly chose a relatively uninhabited corner of one of the tables and slunk down low in my seat hoping not to be noticed (somehow that never seems to work for me in this country). Within seconds the town’s head bureaucrat had spotted me from across the room and in his usual greeting to me shouted “Mister Mehan!” in heavily accented English before motioning for me to join him. So I ended up sitting in the presence of the head bureaucrat, the ex-Mayor (who everyone has continued calling “Mayor”), the new superintendent and a number of other important old men while they spoke their unintelligible old men talk and threw around pronunciations like watakushi that I’ve only ever heard in Kawabata Yasunari’s old radio broadcasts.

Once the actual ceremony was under way, it became clear that there were some differences when compared to the middle school variant that I had observed earlier. After being presented with a diploma, the elementary student had to hold the open diploma over his or her head and then bow with arms kept straight. The student then performed a full 180º heel-pivot before walking off stage. This last Michael Jackon-esque move proved a bit precarious although none of the students actually fell over.

After the speeches (this time also including a speech from the superintendent), the kids performed some sort of call and response shouting thing that I often see at school events. One of the groups would then sing a song, followed by some shouting and then another song. It was kind of like a musical but without all the stuff that would make musicals interesting, were they actually interesting. This process induced more crying than even Chris Carraba himself could hope to muster from a room of prepubescents; many students shouted out lines like “Thank you for all your kindness!” before bursting into a fit of sobbing.

Most sad of all is the fact that these kids will now enjoy only one week of holiday before either returning to Momoishi Elementary or starting life at a new school. Japanese students spend 240 days out of the year at school, 60 more than their American counterparts-and that’s not counting after-school activities, required study time during holidays and outside tutoring classes. Hell, if I had to go back to school in a week, I would probably cry too.