Every morning, Toshiyuki Hayashi, 31, carries a lunch bag and joins the neighborhood children as they walk a few blocks to Washington Elementary School in Park Ridge.
Once there, he bows slightly when addressing a new class and wishes pupils a good morning with “Ohayogozaimusu.”
“Good Japanese,” he says, praising the 3rd graders when they respond with the same greeting.
Hayashi, visiting from the Japanese prefecture of Yamagata–a three-hour train ride north of Tokyo–is among 19 teachers visiting Chicago-area schools through Dec. 5. They are on a three-month tour of several Illinois cities and schools that was paid for by the Japanese Ministry of Education and coordinated by the Illinois State Board of Education and a not-for-profit Chicago organization called Education for Global Involvement Inc.
The teachers live in the homes of host families, and this week most will share a truly American tradition: Thanksgiving. Hayashi will join the family of Washington’s principal, Larry Csajaghy, as they travel to Grand Rapids, Mich.
“We’ll have turkey and maybe venison. He’ll get all that,” Csajaghy said.
Hayashi has attended a school board meeting and a Chicago Wolves game. He has tasted Frosted Flakes, but prefers hot rice and soup for breakfast.
“He ate it one day, but never again,” said Liz Swanson of Park Ridge, who is hosting Hayashi.
Hayashi, who reads and writes English but hesitates on conversation, has noticed that American children are, well, a bit unruly in the classroom compared to his pupils in Japan. There, children wear uniforms, take off their shoes before entering school and help clean the classrooms, lunch room and campus grounds.
They hesitate before raising their hands in class, making sure they know the answer to avoid embarrassment.
Csajaghy, who spent two weeks in Japan several years ago in a similar program, said Hayashi’s visit allows his pupils to learn “that everyone is not like them.”
Washington’s population is homogeneous: Most pupils are white, English-speaking and from upper-income families, he said.
The youngsters used to meet Japanese children at the Chicago Futabakai School. But Futabakai moved from Park Ridge to Arlington Heights in 1997, and it has been harder for the classes to get together, Csajaghy said.
“A lot of their children did not speak English, and we had few who knew Japanese,” he said. “It took them about one minute to communicate.”
He remembers administrators watching children from each school work together on calligraphy and get covered with ink.
“We laughed. We had matched our pigpen with theirs,” Csajaghy said. “Kids are kids.”
Three other Japanese teachers also are observing Park Ridge schools, and more teachers are stationed at schools in the Elgin area, as well as in Chicago, Evanston and Skokie.
Joan Longmire, who teaches 7th-grade social studies at Eastview Middle School in Bartlett, said her pupils thought Japan sounded like a great place to attend school. That is, before Yoshihiro Ito described a typical student’s day, and the fact that there are 34 more days in the school year.
“Their school day starts at 8:15 a.m., and just before 4 p.m. they clean the classroom,” Longmire said. “They all stay at school until 6 p.m. doing an activity, either band or a sport. They have to take the same sport for three years. They don’t go home until after 6, and then they have to study for an (high school) entrance exam.
“I said, `Don’t they have a life?’ “
Eastview pupils learned that life in Japan is costly and crowded, Longmire said. Ito showed one class a film in which subway employees are pushing passengers into the already-full cars.
The local families are seeing a different side of Japanese culture too. Swanson said her family quickly overcame any apprehension about opening their home to a newcomer after Hayashi showed her daughters, Karryn, 11, and Leena, 9, how to do origami and a film on Japanese cartoons.
“He’s so polite,” Swanson said. “It changes the tone in our family. While his English is good, I find when I talk to him, I talk a little slower and wait for him to respond. I realized that’s a good thing to do any time.”
Hayashi, in turn, has admired the way the family eats dinner together and reads books before bedtime. Also, “the husband helps his wife with cooking and homemaking,” exclaimed Hayashi, whose wife and 10-month-old daughter await him at home.
“In Japan, the husband’s job and wife’s job are separate.” But he quickly added, “I help my wife.”
