Cubero teacher: 'I did not see Godzilla yet !'

Jim Tiffin
Staff Writer

GRANTS — Cubero Elementary School teacher Julie McHenry is in Japan and has started teaching English to pre-school and first-grade Japanese students.

She is on a three-week trip, at her own expense, and is living with her son Alex Chamberlain, who teaches English to pre-schoolers and first-grade students at the English Language School in Hachinohe.

Chamberlain's wife, Karmen Kincaid, a former teacher at Laguna-Acoma Middle School and Seboyeta, is teaching first-grade students at a U.S. Air Force base in Misawa.

McHenry's arrival in Japan last week was promptly marked by losing her luggage.

In an exclusive e-mail to the Gallup Independent, for this series of stories, she has detailed her first few days.

"I left my suitcase at the Narita Airport and didn't remember it until I was on the train headed for the Tokyo Bullet Train Station," said McHenry."A very nice Japanese man went out of his way to help me and believe it or not, they found my suitcase and had it sent all the way up here to Misawa."

"It arrived last night (Thursday). I went to school Wednesday night with my son and spent four hours in his classes with him. It is not a school as we would imagine, but rather a small, private English school run by a wonderful young woman named Akiko Shimakawa. Her school is called QB English School.

"Alex works with anywhere from two to five students at a time ranging from (ages) 3-15.

"Wednesday night I taught a little 6-year-old Japanese boy named Reo. He was working on his colors in English and the numbers as well as letter sounds and some sight words.

"He seemed to catch on very fast and was excited to play an English board game after his lesson.

'I go tonight (Friday) again and will experience teaching the pre-schoolers.

"Jet lag has kept me from doing too much else ... I am finally getting over it today (Friday). I did have a Japanese flower arranging class called 'Ichibana.' I must say the resulting arrangement was lovely. Japanese take their flower arranging very seriously. It is one of the several traditional Japanese art forms.

"This is such a wonderful experience and one thing I found out was that a Japanese 6-year-old is exactly the same as an American 6-year-old.

"I will have much more to tell about next week.

To her students at Cubero she wrote:" P.S. I did not see Godzilla yet!"

At Cubero, prior to leaving for Japan, McHenry said her students know how to count to 31 in Kanji, the Japanese language, as well as pronounce the days of the week, the months of the year, name colors and say other short phrases.

She said her Cubero students also have learned how to write some of the Japanese characters.

She said she is planning to arrange a Pen Pal program so that the Japanese and American students can write to each other.

Editor's note: While Cubero Elementary School teacher Julie McHenry is in Japan, the Independent is publishing an update of her activities today, March 24 and 31, and a final story, after she returns.