If you happened to be on an international flight to Japan this summer, it would not have been surprising if you had a member of the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts community traveling with you.
ASMSA students and faculty took advantage of several exchange opportunities to visit Japan during the summer. Two students spent six weeks in a full cultural immersive program through the Youth for Understanding organization. A group of 23 students and two faculty members participated in the Kakehashi Project, a program sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. Two ASMSA administrators also visited Japan during the summer as well through two separate organizations — the Japan Foundation of Los Angeles and the Hot Springs Sister City program.
While each group’s final destinations varied, the goal for each program was essentially the same — provide the participants opportunities to gain insight into Japan’s culture and history that leads to a better understanding of our global society.
Whether it was through a visit to a school, a shrine or a restaurant or even just a night in with a host family, ASMSA participants were able to come away with a new appreciation of the Japanese culture and residents. Each trip allowed them to grow as a global citizen — a specific goal of ASMSA’s Global Learning Program.
“ASMSA has developed a commitment to ensuring our students are globally engaged citizens,” said ASMSA Director Corey Alderdice. “There are many ways to spend time abroad: travel, study and exchange. Each approach offers something different, but exchange provides the participant with the opportunity to really engage with members of another culture. Time spent connecting with others promotes both personal growth and cultural understanding.”
Alderdice traveled to Tokyo, Kanazawa and Kyoto as a member of a Japan Foundation Educator delegation. The group of 15 educators included districts offering Japanese, those interested in launching new programs, and state/national-level advocates who could help promote additional language opportunities.
Group members visited with various school administrators to learn their approach to supporting students and meeting their needs. They also visited with representatives of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports Science and Technology, where Alderdice was able to learn more about the “Super Science” and “Super Global” high school designations.
ASMSA has had an exchange program with Tennoji High School in Osaka for a number of years. Tennoji is a designated “Super Science” school. Students from the school visit ASMSA and Hot Springs for about a week each year. Alderdice visited Tennoji during a free day during this summer’s trip.
For many of those Tennoji students, their trip to ASMSA is the first time they have traveled outside of Japan. Nikki Zhang, an ASMSA mathematics instructor, served as one of the chaperones for the Kakehashi Project trip. She said the same is true for many of the ASMSA students who traveled to Japan this summer.
“About half of our students had never left the country before,” she said.
Students spent a number of nights with a Japanese family during the Kakehashi trip. Zhang said those visits played a large role in understanding the Japanese culture.
“The home stay was very important,” she said. “The students saw how the families work. They saw what they eat and went to visit Buddhist temples. We got to see how friendly they are.”
She added that the trip also allowed her develop relationships with the ASMSA students. “Some of the students I had never had a chance to talk to outside of the classroom,” she said.
Malcolm Vincent, a senior this year, said when he first was accepted to the Kakehashi Project trip his expectations were that students would likely spend several nights in a hotel and do more tourist-like activities, such as visit museums and historical sites.
While there were some activities such as that during the trip, he was pleasantly surprised with the home-stay aspect of the trip. He and fellow senior Noah Balushi stayed with the same family, which included one son of a similar age to them.
“The home stay was the best part,” Vincent said. “I’m sure everyone may say they had the best family, but we had the best family. We were there only two or three days, but we felt like part of the family. Our host mother started to cry when we had to leave. It was a lot more personal.”
During his home stay, the family took Vincent and Balushi to a restaurant to eat sushi and ramen. “Their ramen is much better than the quick kind we heat up in the residential hall,” Vincent said with a chuckle. They also visited a shrine, a park with a nature trail and meditated with the family.
But perhaps showing that the simplest of things can provide the biggest connection, Vincent and Balushi connected with their 15-year-old host brother the most through games.
The first night they were with the host family, the boys spent part of the night playing video games on a Wii. When a trip to another destination fell through, the host brother suggested they visit a popular arcade where they met his friends.
“He and his friend would speak in Japanese and then they would speak in English to us. We met a lot of their friends from their baseball team. Despite the language barriers, we had a lot of similar interests,” Vincent said.
Vincent said he is glad he decided to take advantage of the Kakehashi Project trip. He was considering participating in a Global Learning Program trip to Great Britain next spring until this opportunity came along.
“No one from my family had ever been near Asia,” he said. “It’s not as common as a trip to Europe. It seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
For Amber DiPersia, a senior who also went on the Kakehashi trip, the home stay was a bit nerve wracking at first because she didn’t speak Japanese and her host family didn’t speak any English.
“At first it was like playing charades,” DiPersia said. “But in the end, we really connected. At first I had this notion that people were really reserved in Japan and did not speak much. That they were really quiet. But then we started asking questions with Google Translate and it seemed to work well enough so we could understand each other.”
Her host family took her to a giant waterfall that was connected to Mount Fuji. They also went to the beach, stopped at a Japanese photo booth and went to a 100 yen shop, the Japanese version of an American dollar store.
Throughout the entire trip DiPersia was impressed with the cleanliness of the town they visited and how honest people were. “They held people to a higher standard and that held us to a higher standard, too,” she said.
DiPersia said she “felt like a different person coming back from that trip. I wanted to be a better person. I always encourage people to travel. Everyone should travel somewhere. But now Japan specifically just to experience such a kind group of caring people.”
David Slaymaker, assistant dean for outreach at ASMSA, visited Japan this summer as part of the Hot Springs Sister City educator delegation. He immediately noticed the kindness of the Japanese people he met.
“I was amazed by their warm hospitality,” Slaymaker said. “The home stay gave me a better understanding of life at home and their culture. I don’t think you can start to grasp it until you’re immersed in the culture.”
Slaymaker visited several schools as part of the delegation. The dedication of the students and faculty were impressive, he said.
“Their school culture reflects a huge enthusiasm for learning. It’s interesting to see how they generate the students’ commitment to the schools,” he said.
Commitment to their education is something ASMSA seniors Lauren Capes and Joseph Davidson can claim full knowledge of after their trips to Japan through the Youth For Understanding program. While the Kakehashi Project students spent three days with a host family during their trip, Capps and Davidson spent almost six weeks with theirs.
The two students applied for the program on the recommendation of Dr. Neil Oatsvall, an ASMSA history and Japanese teacher who had participated in the program as a teen. Youth For Understanding is an international organization that has the belief that full cultural immersion is an effective means to gain the skills to thrive in an increasingly multicultural, competitive global society, according to its website.
Capes and Davidson were placed in host homes in more suburban or rural areas of Japan outside of the major city centers. They attended class daily with Japanese students, most of which did not speak English. They also participated in after-school clubs and activities with their fellow students and host families.
“You become a Japanese person,” Davidson said. “It is a full cultural immersion. There is no one to give a guiding hand. I was the only (native) English speaker in my area. I think my experience was better because of that. I couldn’t fall back on someone else. I had to throw myself into the language 100 percent.”
His days were spent in class—eight hour-long classes in a normal day—followed by two to three hours of club activities after school. His host brother would then have homework to do at home. That left Davidson time to visit with his host parents, who had some knowledge of English.
“I was lucky both of my parents had knowledge of English. They would say something in normal Japanese and then say it slower until I was able to pick it up. The No. 1 important and best part of my experience were my nightly discussions with them. It taught me everyday words I wouldn’t have learned in class,” he said.
Attending classes on all different kinds of subjects helped him learn more Japanese as well.
“I got a better handle on grammar. I tried to take as much advantage as I could and get as much experience as I could in the six weeks,” he said.
Davidson would ride a bicycle about five miles to school every day. There was one problem at first — he hadn’t ridden a bicycle since he was a young child. When he first picked up the bicycle, he thought it would be simple to start riding again. After several falls on his first day of trying to leave for school, his host parents laughed and said they would take him that day and he could learn to ride the bicycle during the weekend.
“That was the hardest thing was to learn how to ride a bike. I’d get on the bike and fall down. I’d get back up and ball back down. After the 10th time, my host mom comes over laughing,” he said.
Besides gaining a better grasp on the Japanese language, Davidson experienced another life-change on the trip. Japanese families eat a more balanced, healthy diet than most American families, he said. Not a big vegetable eater before the trip, Davidson learned of many vegetables he liked when they became part of his daily meal.
“I’m still eating my vegetables. Before I went to Japan, I hated vegetables, but I came back and they’re not too bad — especially cucumbers, which are pretty good,” he said.
Capes didn’t have to ride a bicycle to school. Instead she had a 45-minute train ride each day to school. She would get up at 5:30 in the morning to get ready for school. She would spend the morning in classes with students her age. The afternoons would be spent at the junior high helping students in the English classes. She would then either go to tennis or track practice and then another 45-minute train ride home to have dinner with her host family.
She enjoyed helping at the junior high in the afternoons.
“It was really fun. We would play English games. I showed them American dances,” she said.
Capes said she had only minimal Japanese language skills before the trip.
“I only knew very basic conversations. My host sister knew English very well. Sometimes it was kind of difficult to discuss something. I learned to fend for myself. My Japanese improved,” she said.
Having the opportunity to live in rural Japan for six weeks was a great opportunity to learn more about the culture and language, she said.
“Going to rural Japan, seeing how their daily life plays out feels like it really helps you learn more than what you would have during a week trip. You get to learn more about the people, too,” she said.
Capes was surprised at how much trains are used for transportation. But considering her host family lived in a rural community so far away from school, the train was the only transportation available. It also led to her getting a tour of the train station. “I got to see all of the components that make it run simply,” she said.
Staying with the host families on the Youth For Understanding and Kakehashi Project trips were especially fulfilling. Many of the students grew close enough to their host families, even in a short three days, that they have kept in contact with them.
Davidson said he developed bonds in the six weeks he was there that he doesn’t ever see dissolving.
“Through all of the things we did as a family, we really bonded together. My host brother plans to study here in the U.S. I’m working with my parents to find a way to visit him,” he said.