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Comparing it to what I know of education back home, which is probably both fuzzy and dated, I tried to imagine how sensei swapping would go over in America. I assume that if a teacher, at a school where he was well liked by staff and students alike, found job satisfaction, and to which he lived in relative proximity, were to one day be told by the principal that he must move across town to a new school, teach a new grade, and perhaps a new subject, he would not accept it humbly. To completely simplify the American mentality, we are a country fiercely proud of individual independence, freedom of choice, and creating opportunity for upward mobility. For better and worse, our culture, similar to many Western cultures, breeds independent thinkers and doers. We are the self-made men and women. Our vision of community is in the networking it provides for our personal growth. We don't let others impede our dreams nor dictate our decisions for us… and if they do, and we have the money, we get a good lawyer. And we certainly wouldn't allow kochoo sensei dictate to us where to teach.

In spite of any silent grievances by the Japanese teachers, there does seem to be more of an acceptance of their instability. Or maybe I'm just not privy to their bitching sessions. Does this stem from a cultural mentality that accepts fate much easier than we do in the West? Our ideas of self-imposed destinies accept only as much as can't be changed. Am I reading too far into this? Maybe. But no matter where the perfect balance lay in terms of extreme acceptance and activism, I think each culture can learn a bit from the other. Perhaps in Japan an individual's rights can be overshadowed by an obsession with group harmony. But as easily as that can be criticized when seen so simply, our American obsession with individual rights and self-promotion can be criticized for blinding us to our effect on the greater community.

Obviously I over dramatize the differing societal focuses of Japan and America. We learn early on that as Americans we are "rugged individualists." We also learn from every simple primer on Japanese culture how dedicated to the group and company the people of this island nation are trained to be. We know the differences, blah blah, but in practical manifestations of this mentality can we in the West learn something from this Japanese system? Can we get a cost-benefit analysis here? I don't know. My understanding of education from the non-student side is severely limited to these past months in Nagayama. All I can do is describe these differences that initially strike me as odd.

But, at the end of the day, the sensei swapping has proved beneficial to my once sorry plight in the staff room. While some of my teachers will be greatly missed, an honorable good riddance to others. The new teachers' efforts to talk to me are a refreshing change of pace. Maybe since they're all new they see the need to be friendly with as many teachers as they can. Maybe to them I'm really not the invisible gaijin in the corner. Whatever the difference, the new atmosphere created by the swap is better for me. And I'm not here for education reform anyway.

"While some of my teachers will be greatly missed, an honorable good riddance to others."
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