Pumpkin Carving

When I planned out my lessons for the semester, I knew I was going to throw a Halloween party. I didn't know what it was going to be, but I figured I would do some small game with each class and give them candy. About a month ago, Elina told me that the last JET threw a school wide Halloween festival. She did bobbing for apples and stuff. Forget that. I would have done it for one school, but to gather all the materials for four different schools and be responsible for all those kids at once? No thanks.

I got the impression that the last JET chose to do this herself and that it wouldn't be expected by the school. Since we've been told that the JET experience is what you make it, I chose to play ignorant. Lazy? A little, but it's not a bad lazy since I'm doing something else that I think will be better. So I waited each week for some teacher to bring up the school festival. Nothing. I figured this was really good or really bad, if they decided to ask me the week before.

Well, last week, one school brought it up to me. I said I would do it, but I didn't know what games to do, besides bobbing for apples. I could think of a million class size games, but school sized activities? A little more difficult. So I asked what Gabrielle did last year. She couldn't remember. She asked other teachers. No one could remember.

So I said I had been planning a class party and she said I could do that instead. Awesome.

At this school, the vice-principal went on base and bought two big, orange pumpkins. They have pumpkins here in Japan that they eat, but they are small and green and, more importantly, not good for carving. I chose to have a carving class for 5th grade and one for 6th.

It was the first time they had seen a big, orange pumpkin before.

I remember in elementary school when a police officer would show up for some 'drugs are bad, mmkay?' speech. We would shout out, "Have you killed someone?" and "Can we see your gun?!" I expected the same reaction with my assortment of knives. I had one kitchen knife, a grapefruit knife, and two mini pumpkin saws. I had them wrapped in a towel, so when I displayed them, I felt like an evil surgeon. Everyone shrank back, "scary!" A little culture difference.

I took it upon myself to divert from the carving lesson and teach knife safety. I showed them how to carry a knife, how to hand it to someone, and how to cut away from yourself.

The carving went great. I did the main cutting. The students pulled out the seeds, wash the seeds, and then scraped the inside. I then cut out the face, but I let them cut a little with the mini pumpkin saws. Then they took all my knives and scrapers and washed them and threw away all the newspaper. Great experience for them, little work for me. Just how I like it.

Clicking on the pictures will take you to my Flickr account where I also have pictures of the undoukai that took place last month.