English Lock-In

While Aaron and the boys were chunking peanuts and candy, I was preparing for my first English Lock-In. Way back in July, Aaron and I had come up with the idea of doing a lock-in at the Komu. On this particular night in July, the Komu was open late, until about seven o’clock. The village children really seemed to enjoy the unique opportunity to stay at the Komu so late, as it usually closes at 4:30. I know that I enjoyed lock-ins during my childhood; it’s so much fun to transgress the rules and sleep in a place that is normally off limits at night. So, I thought, what better place to stay all night than the Komu? It’s already a totally cool place during the day; imagine it at night!

The process of getting permission for my idea was slow, but having become accustomed to the way Japanese do things I was not surprised. Throw on top of their characteristic slowness the fact that I don’t speak Japanese well, and the end result was that it took about six months to bring my idea to fruition. It was well worth the wait, though.

We got things started at 7:00 p.m. Colin had agreed to help me, thank goodness. I’m not sure they would have allowed me to do this by myself due to my lack of Japanese. I had been hoping for the entire evening to be just the kids, Colin, and me, but we apparently attracted a crowd. Mr. Kamaya had invited a man from a regional education newspaper, so he hung out for a while. Both Mr. Kamaya and Mr. Tasaki (the assistant superintendent) stayed for some time, as did two men from the local T.V. station (one of whom was our friend Nao), the 3/4th grade teacher, and the elementary vice principal. They stayed for about the first hour, which was when Colin and I were teaching the kids some new Alaska-related vocabulary and playing games. For me, it was actually kind of nice to have all these folks watching me teach, because some of them had never seen me teach before. They’ve been paying more for nearly a year and a half, but have never seen me conduct a lesson. Go figure.

The games were a hit, and we stopped around 8:30 for a very American snack of peanuts, pretzels, and chocolate covered raisins. I had ordered everything but the peanuts from the Internet. At 9:00, we played a group game and then tried to play hide and seek. I had dimmed some of the lights to make things a little more exciting, but that was a mistake! Nearly all five of the 4th grade girls burst into tears and completely freaked out. They were absolutely convinced that they had seen a ghost. So, I turned on the lights again, but the mood was pretty much blown. I scrapped that plan and we let them play for a while on their own.

Now, previously, during the planning stages, Mr. Kamaya had communicated to me that Japanese elementary children are supposed to go to bed at 10:00, so that’s what the published schedule said. I, of course, had no intention of going to be so early. So, at 10:00, I turned on the giant T.V. screen and told everyone to get ready for bed. By 11:00, they were ready for me to start the movie, “Brother Bear”. Most of the older kids hung out in another room and did their own thing, but generally I think it worked out well. The 4th grade girls got scared again around 1:00 a.m. when the light from the vending machine turned off and left us in the dark, so they asked to move to another room so they could leave the light on. Colin and I dozed off and on, and I noticed that at 4 a.m. two of the 4th graders were still awake! I bet they slept well on Sunday night!

The kids pretty much woke themselves up the next morning, and I then tried to teach everyone about instant oatmeal. Unfortunately, they were pretty turned off by it and I certainly won’t be doing it again. Oh well, live and learn, right? We then spent a bit of the morning making totem poles out of paper and toilet paper tubes. Right about in the middle of our art project, Mr. Kamaya and Mr. Tasaki showed up. I think they were impressed, because the kids were really a pretty picture of productivity. Everyone was engaged and enjoying themselves (even the girls who were still awake at 4 o’clock). By 9:30, it was time to clean up and get ready to go home.

Before going home, Colin and I had a brief meeting with Mr. Kamaya and Mr. Tasaki to talk about how things went. All through this process, the Japanese have been really interested in the concept of a “lock in”. They have never seen anything like it, I think. Originally, I had told Mr. Kamaya that one of the reasons I wanted to do it was that even just having a lock in, even if we didn’t teach any English, would have been a very American thing to do. Anyway, they were pleased enough with things that they asked me if I’d be interested in doing it one more time before I leave. When they asked, I mumbled quickly to Colin, who was translating for me, to make sure he would be okay helping me. He’s so laid back, he never says no, so I assured Mr. Kamaya that we would be happy to do one more. So, maybe June will see me planning one more “English Lock-in”. At least this time, I won’t try and play hide and seek in the dark!