face STORIES Experience sharing from Nevers High School

We chose Japan as our destination of educational travel because I am a Japanese teacher, and I have always had the desire to bring my students to Japan someday. In my five years of teaching, this was the first time we ever planned to go there on an educational travel.

For financial concerns, it has been difficult for us to visit Japan. We would spend a day or two in Japantown in Paris visiting Japanese bookstores, restaurants, and exhibitions featuring East Asian arts. Yet both students and parents have shown strong eagerness for an educational travel to Japan.

In France, there are no such thing as school excursions, which require every student to participate as those in Japan. Instead, teachers who are willing to do so volunteer to plan the trip and recruit students.

For example, students studying English go to English-speaking countries, and those studying Spanish go to Spanish-speaking countries. Also, only students who desire to participate will join in the program. Especially in France, as a part of Europe, European languages are taught as first and second foreign languages, so travel agencies have packages ready to offer. Nonetheless, in the case of Japanese – since few schools offer Japanese classes, there are no travel packages for Japan; therefore, I had to put great effort in arranging the accommodation and itinerary all by myself.

My impression of Japanese schools was that, unlike schools in France, each one had an unique personality of its own, in terms of regulations and school atmosphere. With the arrangement of Tokyo Convention and Visitors Bureau along with other connections, this time we had the opportunity to visit three schools, which were Kyoto Prefectural Toba High School, Tokyo Metropolitan Kokusai High School, and Saginomiya Metropolitan High School. The characteristics of each school were completely different, let alone the atmosphere. While every student in each school was facing great pressure from their studies, I had this impression that they can get their work well-done while enjoying club activities and high school life to the fullest.

Toba High School and Saginomiya High School were similar in that their students were nicely dressed in uniforms. Meanwhile, many students of Tokyo Metropolitan Kokusai High School lived abroad for a long period of time before returning to Japan, so the characteristics of this school were totally different from the others, which surprised my students. In Toba High School, students joined in normal classes and club activities. It really felt like experiencing a day in the life of a Japanese high school student. The experience at Tokyo Metropolitan Kokusai was somewhere between Toba High School and Saginomiya High School. Students not only joined in normal classes but also took Japanese courses for foreigners and French class. In Saginomiya High School, students from both schools chatted at the exchange gathering and took part in club activities. I was glad that they were able to have so many different kinds of experience.

The primary goal of this educational travel was to allow students to experience what Japanese high school students experience. I had always wanted them to get a taste of Japanese high school life, and to experience everyday life of Japanese high schoolers. They had homestay experience and spent a night in Toba High School as well. By joining a sightseeing trip, you may visit historical buildings, take pictures, and learn something; however, there is scarcely a chance to experience everyday lives in that country. This is why we arranged homestay so that students were allowed to experience the daily life of a Japanese high school student.

When arranging the itinerary, I had to include Kyoto and Tokyo in our plan because for all of the students, this was their very first time to visit Japan. I also included Koyasan for personal touch. It was not so much about religion; it was rather about experiencing Zen and Buddhism as a part of Japanese culture. Besides this, I did not want them to just visit big cities such as Tokyo and Kyoto but to visit regional towns as well.