Wisconsin has an Internet e-mail discussion group called "WiPK-12." It is a large group of school teachers, school administraters, politicians and other people concerned with education in the state. If a member wants to post a message, he or she sends e-mail to "wipk-12@calypso.dpi.state.wi.us" where it is copied and sent to all of the members. On 22 September 1999, Wednesday, I posted the following message:
Dear educators:
I'm a Japanese who teaches English at Faculty of Education, Fukushima University in Japan. I'm going to visit, as one of six Japanese professors, University of Wisconsin Eau Claire. Some of us, including me, are going to study student teaching program of UW Eau Claire. Some going to study their own subjects concerning education.
I'll be there until the morning of 1 October. We might help you, and you might help us. If you have anything you want us to know, contact me via e-mail.
Next day I received warm regards from Rachel Heldt of Lincoln Hills School, Carol Nelson of Cooperative Education Services Agency 10 at Chippewa Falls, Tim Sell, of the University of Wisconsin -Madison surplus store known as SWAP, Kathy Derene of Wisconsin School News and Jim Hadlock of Chippewa Falls Area Schools.
The Nortwest Flight Number 20, just as it was planned, took off about half past three. We were supposed to have a meal, a short sleep, another meal and to land on Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport around 2 o'clock in the morning. Well, we did have a meal, tried to sleep, had another meal, and arrived at the airport in Minnesota, USA. When we got off the airplane, it was still the afternoon of 23 September.
We got on a wagon, with six other passengers and a driver, crossed the big river called the Mississippi, and arrived at a Wisconsin city called Eau Claire. ("Eau" is pronounced like "Oh.") It was earlier than we had planned when we arrived at Holiday Inn Convention Center. On the first floor of the hotel there was, and is, a place called "Spirits of Eau Claire." We relaxed there. I had a glass of soda water; my fellows had beer. After the drink and talk, we went out. I walked around Downtown. Others walked to University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
I came back to the hotel alone and found out that someone was waiting for us. It was a professor at UW-Eau Claire, called Dr. William P. Dunlap. (His picture you see here is at the UWEC Web page.) Dr. Dunlap, or Bill, invited us to Wisconsin. He made the arrangements for us to come, stay and study with him here. I talked with him over coffee in Spirits. We talked, especially, about what we would do next day.
After he went away, my Japanese friends came back, and we talked about the plan. We went to Cameos, the restaurant on the first floor of the hotel, and had the last meal of the day. It was a long day with five meals: breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and supper.
After the supper, I went to my room and tried to find out how to get my laptop computer and modem connected to the Internet. I was able to read e-mail I received that day, but I found it difficult to send mail out. I gave it up and finished my 30 sleepless hours.
The six visitors usually teach full-time for Faculty of Education, Fukushima University. They are here to study and exchange information about student teaching. Student teaching, or sometimes called "teaching practice," is a program in which university students get practical experience by working as teachers at schools. During the practice, they are called "student teachers." In Japan it is called "kyouiku jisshuu." "Kyouiku" means education; "jisshuu" means learning by practice. When students are student teachers, they don't usually come to the university or college, but in College of Professional Development, UWEC, they come to the campus just 4 times during the 8-week term of practice, to attend Professional Seminar.
Session One, beginning at nine o'clock, was held in four classrooms, titled as "Classroom Management," "Answers to Your Job Search Questions," "What You Need to Know & We Didn't Teach You: Aspects of Wisconsin History Useful for Teachers," "Storytelling with Students" and "How to Collaborate with Special Educators in the Regular Education Classroom."
Some of us went into the room for "Classroom Management." Others, including me, observed "How to Collaborate with Special Educators" presented by one of the academic staff at Department of Special Education, Linda Berg.
Session Two, beginning at 10:30, was held in five rooms, titled as "Handling Classroom Management When Theory and Practice Conflict," "Answers to Your Job Search Questions," "Strategies for Developing Partnerships with Parents," "Work Session: Inclusion Project" and "Behavior Management: Listening, Setting Limits, Consequnces for Elementary Levels."
Some of us saw "Handling Classroom Management" and "Behavior Management." I saw "Strategies for Developing Partnerships" presented by a professor at Department of Special Ed., Dr. Greg Conderman.
We had lunch and talk during the time of Session Three. Session Four was held in four rooms, titled as "Work Session: Inclusion Project," "Work Session: Building Your Portfolio," "Work Session: Using Reading Strategies in the Classroom" and "Answers to Your Job Search Questions."
We all observed the session on "Reading Strategies" presented by a professor at Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Dr. Sue McIntyre.
All of the sessions I saw were held in a friendly way. Some people were taking soft drinks during the session. Sometimes the presenter gave candies to the students. But all were working very hard. The presenter spoke very fast, sometimes using an overhead projecter, giving handouts, and writing on the whiteboard. The students, most of them were female, listened to the lecture, laughed at the joke, had discussion in small groups, and took notes.
I was particularly impressed with their idea of learning and teaching as highly complicated combination of many different things. They used the word "strategies" to show combination of many different skills: not just a collection of skills. They stressed the importance of "inclusion" in which many children in different mental, physical and social conditions learn together, by helping each other, sometimes doing the same thing, and sometimes doing different things.
After the seminar, some of us went shopping in the University Bookstore, in which many things other than books are also sold. Some walked on the street. I walked in the park along the river.
We had dinner at Eau Claire Country Club. Some of us took a taxi, which is called "taxicab" here, to the Club. During the ride, the driver talked with us. She said she hated the schools here because schools had Burger King and children are disorderly. She also said the University was not as good as it used to be because there were many "communists."
It was a beautiful night of stars and the round moon.
If you are a Japanese learning English language, I'm sure you have expericenced that unhappy feeling that there are many, many words you haven't learned. We do know very basic words, which are learned in junior high school, and we learn more in senior high, but there are still many other words we don't know. One of the reasons is that there are many words that are not basic but common. The people who speak English every day use them very often, but they do not fit for examination. A typical example of those words are the verb "brew." "Brew" usually means to make coffee, tea, or beer. The person who makes beer is called a "brewer." The place, a kind of factory, where he makes beer is called "brewery."
Brewer Hall has offices and classrooms for School of Education. Some of the Friday seminar sessions we attended were held in the building. On Saturday morning in one small classroom here, there held a lecture specially planned for us by Dr. Dunlap.
He gave us an overview of how Eau Claire students who study education have field experiences in schools. They go out of the campus and spend time in schools when they are in their second, third and fourth, or often in fifth year as students. It is a lot more longer than Japanese students who study education do.
After the lecture we went to a place which looked like a very big wood house with a restaurant and a brewery inside, the place called "Northwoods Brew Pub." Even though it was still September, there were many pumpkins and other farm products, so it looked like it was Halloween. We had lunch and beer. After that, I promised I would never drink beer again during this trip. I had been warned by my doctor that drinking alcohol was not good for my health. But it was tasty.
We walked from Northwoods, for several minutes, to a very, very large shopping center called Oakwood Mall. It had so many shops that it looked like a town, with shops and streets, in one big building. I had visited the Mall before. We were there three years ago. That time I bought a lot of books there, put them in a cardboard box and sent it to Japan. But this time I bought nothing.
After going back to the hotel, Dr. Dunlap invited us to his house in Altoona. Dr. Sue McIntyre came too. We enjoyed talk and food prepared by him and his wife. I didn't drink but most of us drank beer.
We all thank you, Bill. Give our regards to your wife and father-in-law.
We came here to study the student teaching program though we did have a lot of fun on weekend.
Dr. Lloyd H. Joyal, a former professor of the University, visited us at lunchtime, bringing his wife and friends. Having worked for a long time to help Japanese students, teachers and professors visiting Eau Clair, he has been one of our influential friends here. He now belongs to Eau Clair Board of Education.
After the lunch and talk, the kind educator-entertainer offered us to go on a short trip. He drove his minivan and took us all to the Chippewa Valley Museum in Carson Park. It was interesting because most of the things we saw there were real: tables, chairs, clothes, machines, tools, toys...they were all given by old families who have been living around Eau Claire.
I was impressed especially with the multimedia presentation. It was not video and computers. It was a slide-show consisted of old photographs, with real objects in the spotlight, Irish music in background, and recorded voices of people telling their own experiences.
I was impressed also with its sense of history. The museum did not tell anything about famous politicians and businessmen, nor about the dates of events. It was all about the lives of ordinary working people in certain times of history.
The corner which dealt with the history of native American "Indians," however, didn't have many real objects. But I felt the corner important because it showed how those people suffered from invasion of white people from Europe. But the white people who made the corner were brave and honest enough to show this rather unpleasant side of history. If we want to prevent the young generation from repeat past mistakes, we'd better show them what really happened.
After shopping at the giftshop, Dr. Joyal drove us to the quiet country side where we visited the apple orchard of Hillview Farm. The farm was managed by Dr. Jerry Harper, a former professor of UWEC, and Betty Harper. They let us taste many different kinds of apple, and showed how they polished apples.
It is strange that I bought more at the museum giftshop and the farm than I did at Oakwood Mall.
It was a quiet autumn afternoon with yellow and red leaves. We all thank you, Lloyd.
If you want to be a school-teacher, you will have to go to college or university and study education. While you are a student there, you will go to a school to spend several weeks as a teacher. In Wisconsin you will be called a student teacher. In Japan you will be called a kyouiku jisshuusei which means "a student who is learning about education by practice." We came here mainly to look at and talk with student teachers.
Northstar Middle School, which we visited on Monday morning, gave us the first chance to talk with several student teachers. My first impression of how student teachers are mostly remained the same after visiting other schools. Basically they were like jisshuusei in Japan, experiencing new things every day.
The student teacher must work with a regular teacher that gives feedback, advice and encouragement. That teacher with longer experience is called a cooperating teacher. At Northstar Middle, we were able to talk with three cooperating teachers.
Delong Middle School, which we visited in the afternoon, is where we found out that many student teachers are in their fifth or sometimes six year in the University. Some of us had visited Delong Middle before. It was in 1996.
Visiting middle schools made us realize that those schools were specially designed to deal with children of 13, 14 and 15 years old. In those ages their body grow rapidly. They also start to be interested in many things in the society. The world around them is itself in rapid change, too. They leave childhood and start moving to adulthood. But their minds are not of adults yet. As a result, many of these low-teens have a difficult time.
It reminds me of the two Japanese boys of the age, who shocked Japan a few years ago. One killed children, and the other killed a teacher. Perhaps many junior high schools in Japan are not yet ready to help those young people grow up. They are in rapidly changing in the society which is also rapidly changing.
Have you ever heard of a university in an elementary school? Of course you haven't. I haven't either. It's impossible because a university is much bigger than an elementary. But here we found a university class held in an elementary classroom. Let's start with the class.
Prof. Mitsuishi, Prof. Mori, Prof. Morita and Prof. Sato asked questions in Japanese. Prof. Asaka translated them into English. Sometimes he asked his own questions, too. I translated the students' answers into Japanese.
Because I developed my English all in Japan, never having a chance to stay abroad more than ten days, it was rather difficult for me to listen to students and understand what they say. And there were over 20 students.
About 20 percent of the students spoke about 80 persent of the time. They were somewhat like our students in Fukushima University, Japan.
Longfellow Elementary School was the school we visited after lunch. We interviewed three student teachers there. They were older, "looked" bigger and more self-confident than the students we had interviewed in the morning.
One of them was a big, ponytailed young man called "Jason." Anyone could see he was strong and good at sports. I think, if he had been in a Japanese school, he would have been called a "bad boy," but he turned into a young man teaching classes of physical education. He said he had changed his major a few times and now he was finishing his university courses in seven and a half years.
Comparing the younger students we met in the morning and the older ones in the afternoon, I can see what a strong impact the field experience gives them.
And I'm sure that the sophomores, if they keep trying, will grow into a powerful and confident student teachers.
In the late afternoon, Prof. Suzuki Masatoshi, the Japanese who is known here as "Jimmy Suzuki," arrived at Holiday Inn Convention Center, bringing two of his friends from Japan. These three work at Hyougo Kyouiku Daigaku [Hyogo College of Education] and a school attached to the institute. In the evening they talked with us and Dr. Joyal over coffee. Dr. Joyal brought us some interesting pamphlets published by Eau Claire Board of Education, which takes care of schools in and around Eau Claire City. He also brought to me red and yellow maple leaves packed between two sheets of paraphin paper, and gave me a ride to a supermarket and back.
Fukushima University and UWEC have been friends for several years. So far we've sent two students to UWEC. Some professors of UWEC have visited Fukushima. This is my second visit. Each time we make new friends and meet old ones again.
Dr. Ann Klein, a professor at School of Education, gave us a short lecture on their field experience program for third-year students, called "Block Semester."
First, the students attend certain classes in the University for three weeks. And then they go to elementary or middle schools, observing classes and teaching a 20-30 minute lesson, for one week. After that, they go back to the University, attending the continuing classes, and making their own lesson plans, for six weeks. And then they go to schools again, assisting teachers and teaching their own lessons in the classrooms, for four weeks. And they go back to Campus to think over their experience.
Dr. Kenneth Schmidt, who was one of the professors that visited Fukushima University in 1995, and met some of us when we visited Eau Clair last time in 1996, came, after the morning lecture, to drive three of us. The other three went in the car driven by Dr. Dunlap. Together we had lunch and went to Chippewa Falls.
Halmstad Elementary School, in Chippewa, looked like a very large piece of red-brown rock. But inside, it was a colorful, lively and quiet space for children to study together. It was a like a village in one big building, with the square at the center surrounded by home spaces. The square was the library. Each "classroom" was surrounded by three walls, and sometimes without doors. I was impressed that there were many old Macs and Apple II's still working.
In one of the few closed rooms we interviewed university students having their activities at the school. Prof. Suzuki, with his two friends from Hyogo, joined us in the afternoon. He helped me a lot translating what the students said into Japanese.
After the class hours, the teachers welcomed us to tea-time party in the library, with apple-cider, apples and cheese. We talked about schools, students, computers and picture books. I asked some of them if they knew Jim Hadlock. They said he was a computer wizard who took care of all the computers there.
Going back to Eau Claire, Dr. Ken Schmidt, while driving his car, told me what a great change the student has during the field experience.
In the evening during the stay, we would usually discuss what questions we should ask next day. They would be translated into English, edited and refined by Prof. Asaka. But that was coming to an end. The next day was the day for the final interview.
Locust Lane Elementary School was the last school we visited. There we had the last interview with student teachers. Three Hyogo people were also present. Prof. Asaka, who had been reworking on his questions, made the talk lively, with helpful comments by Dr. Dunlap. I think I became better, too. Although it wasn't very long, many of us thought that it was our best interview.
It was eleven o'clock. We had a lunchtime meeting about what we would do after coming back to Japan. Dr. Dunlap and Dr. McIntyre are coming to Japan on 15 of October. We asked Prof. Bessou of Hyogo to meet them at Narita Airport.
After the lunch, I slept until 5:30. Then we had the last dinner. After coming back to Holiday Inn, I walked for a few minutes to a place called Accoustic Cafe, where they were having poetry reading. The poet Alan Jenkins was reading his own poems aloud. I was rather surprised to find there were many people listening.
I came back to my room around nine o'clock, and spent the rest of the evening by sleeping.
Someday soon, I will write how we came back to Japan. After the arrival home, days flew quickly, just like the theory of Einstein. Now it's our turn to welcome our guests. Dr. Dunlap and Dr. McIntyre are supposed to have already arrived in Japan now. Their stay will be reported on my new Web page.