There's practice and then there is practice.  No one does practice like Third year Junior High School students.  Four weeks before the end of the school term, I noticed something odd was happening at the school and with my schedule.  What was it?  I would no longer be teaching English to the 3rd year students.  The reason given:

Graduation Practice 

In America, you might be lectured on the logistics and timing of graduation once or twice, In Japan this event is so intricately planned that I was asked to help a teacher keep a record of the agenda and to time it to the second.  The goal was to be end 3-5 minutes earlier than last years graduation.  I watched as all the students filed down the hallway and into the freezing cold gym.  Venturing from the kerosene heated teachers room, I stood next to the wall and watched as usually soft spoken teachers turned into Marine sergeants and students were re-taught the proper to sit and stand on command.

If the kids were not fast enough they were yelled at.  If they made too much noise they were scolded.  After fifteen minutes, I'd seen more than enough and wandered off to the computer room hoping that the depressing economic news from home would wipe the image of 13-year old in boot camp from my mind.

When graduation day finally arrived all the students showed up in

their uniforms while the female teachers wore dresses and all the male teachers wore black suits with silver/white ties.

Those unlucky students who'd had the guts to rebel by not dying their hair back to its uniform shade of black were dragged into the teachers room and

 subsequently treated to an impromptu beauty treatment courtesy of  the science teacher.  There were many of the students mothers all wearing their best outfits and expensive leather purses.  I counted four fathers among out of over a hundred mothers.

The actual ceremony is well orchestrated business meeting for Junior High School students.  With all the formality that only the Japanese can do, with the soundtrack of

Mozart's The Requiem

and the Titanic playing students with proper

 bowing & handshakes received their diplomas.  There was little or no applause and a lot less joy to a time that most American kids would be thrilled about.  Then again it is a little unusual to have a Junior High School graduation. 

During the ceremony, I saw few smiles and many tears.  As I watched many of the Third year boys turn red and lift their heads up to staunch the flow of tears that I say sneaking out of their eyes, I had an inkling of what the day actually meant to them.  You see for many of the students Graduation Day is a day of lasts.  Last day that they will eat together, play together, study together, clean the floors together, sit together, walk to school together.  In public schools, once you're assigned to a homeroom class you're with the same class for three years.  many of the students spent more time with their classmates either in a classroom or participating in club activities than they did at home with their families. 

After the ceremony all the students gathered near the front gate and hurriedly promised each other they would email, write, hang out and go to game centers.  The tradition is that those who remained behind would try to grab some kind of memento be it school shoes, jacket buttons, ties, shoes laces from their graduation mentor.  Students came up to me to say thank you and goodbye.  Yet what and to wish me well.  Yet what touched me the most is when a few boys came to me and asked, "Angela sensei, don't forget me please."

In their world the worst thing that can happen is not to be remembered.  I took his picture and nodded my head as a second year student pulled off the boy's button.