Taylor Anderson memorial service in Richmond, VA
Earthquake Tsunami, Fundraising, JETs in the News 
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The below was sent by JETAA DC to its members via its chapter yahoogroup:
We have extended the deadline for messages in Taylor Anderson’s condolence book until Friday, April 1 at 12 pm. It doesn’t matter if your message is long or short, profound or emotional, we encourage you to send it to jetaadc.311relief [at] gmail.com. Members of the JETAADC Board will present the condolence book to Taylor’s family at a service to be held in Richmond on Saturday.
For more information on Taylor’s life, her experiences on JET, and Saturday’s service, please visit the website of the Richmond-Times Dispatch<http://www.legacy. com/obituaries/ timesdispatch/ obituary. aspx?n=taylor- anderson& pid=149794411>.
The family asks that in lieu of flowers, a donation be made to the Taylor Anderson Memorial Fund for the purpose of rebuilding schools in Ishinomaki City. Donation information is available here: http://www.st. catherines. org/tayloranders on.
Regards,
Leigh Ann Mastrini
Outreach Chair, JETAADC
Minamisanriku JET Kathryn Oi shares her experience of the earthquake and tsunami
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Kathryn Oi (Miyagi-ken, Minamisanriku-shi) has shared a deeply personal description of her experience in the midst of one of the hardest hit towns by the earthquake and tsunami–Minamisanriku, which has lost approximately half of its 18,000 residents. The link below to the written piece which appears on the Claremon-McKenna College website where Kathryn went to college also includes a slideshow of before-and-after photos taken by Kathryn.
http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/news/japan2011.php
Katie Oi ’10 was teaching at a junior high school in Japan when the earthquake and tsunami hit the island. She offers the following firsthand account of the week following the disaster and her journey to safety. Katie is now back at home in Seattle, WA.
After a two hour nap or even a night’s long rest, I wake up suddenly feeling uneasy with a feeling like I had a bad dream somewhere deep within my slumber. It takes me even a few seconds to process where I am—back home in the comfort of my own bed—when it was just two weeks ago I was pinned in the heart of Mother Nature’s deadliest attack on Japan. I have to keep telling myself that the past two weeks were not a dream. What I witnessed was real: the devastation from a M9.0 earthquake and 30-meter tsunami, but also the perseverance to rise up as a people and continue to live in spite of all that.
CLICK HERE to read the full piece on the Claremont-McKenna College website.
Correction 3/31/11: Katie e-mailed to point out that she incorrectly mentioned the tsunami as 30 meters a couple times in her piece. The actual reported height, she says, was 16 meters.
Miyagi JET writes of ruin, survival, rebuilding
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The below letter by current JET Waylon Bryson (Miyagi-ken, Sendai-shi) appeared recently in the Washington State University student publication where Bryson attended college.
The following letter was sent to WSU history instructor Roger Chan, who taught author Waylon Bryson, a philosophy graduate of 2007. Chan shared it with Noriko Kawamura, associate professor of history, who passed it on for WSU Today to share with the university community. Bryson is working in Sendai, Japan as an English teacher. This fall he will attend Vanderbilt Law in Nashville, Tenn.
I have lived in the city of Sendai, Japan for the past three and a half years, where I teach English for the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme. I was at my desk in the teachers’ room of Hachiken Junior High School when the earthquake struck.
Earthquakes are quite common in Japan and I, like the other staff members, paid little attention at first.
Then the room moved several feet. I had to physically hold onto my desk so that it wouldn’t move away from me. A control panel on the wall lit up like a Christmas tree and alarm bells started sounding. I could hear students screaming from the floors above as cracks snaked along the concrete walls and the building started groaning ominously.
CLICK HERE to read the full article on the WSU Today site.
Mainichi Daily News: JET program English teachers in Miyagi say they won’t leave
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An article from The Mainichi Daily News about the 1/3 of the 70 Miyagi Prefecture JETs who have chosen to stay in Miyagi and continue working for their communities.
The article quotes the following JETs:
- Katherine Sheu, 25, from Los Angeles, who has taught English at five elementary and junior high schools in Ishinomaki for the past three years.
- Edward Clemons, 25, from Chicago,is in his second year of teaching conversational classes for adults and school students in Kesennuma, another Miyagi city severely damaged by the disaster.
- Daniel Villeneuve (Canada), a Miyagi prefectural advisor for the assistant language teachers.
Full article here:
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/features/news/20110329p2g00m0fe073000c.html
Here’s an article from the Salvation Army’s blog about an ALT named Lis Bennett (not a JET) who was teaching at a school 25 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant when the earthquake struck. She was evacuated from the area and shares some of her experience in the article.
NHK TV today showed a video (in Japanese) of Taylor Anderson’s father Andy Anderson visiting Ishinomaki and laying flowers where Taylor’s body was found. It’s very moving to hear her father say, “Taylor loved Ishinomaki, and we do too.” And as a JET it’s hard to look at the background scenery in the video and not feel that sense of familiarity that this could be any town in Japan.
JETAA Northern California benefit raises over $7,000
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KTVU Morning News in San Francisco has a whole feature on JETAA Northern California’s fundraiser. SF Consulate JET Coordinator (and JET alum) Peter Weber is interviewed. I think I saw a brief shot of JETAA US Country Representative Rod McLeod. And it sounds like Canon Purdy may have been there as well.
Good work JETAA Northern California! Yoku ganbatta!
Click here for the video: http://www.ktvu.com/video/27302416/index.html
MSNBC: Family holds out hope for missing American teacher “Monty-san”
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The latest coverage of still unaccounted for Rikuzentakata-shi, Iwate-ken JET Montgomery “Monty” Dickson.
MSNBC: Family holds out hope for missing American teacher “Monty-san”
By Miranda Leitsinger, Senior Writer and Editor, msnbc.com
“Almost everyone in the town of Rikuzentakata on Japan’s northeast coast knew teacher Montgomery Dickson, or “Monty-san,” as the locals call him.
But the tall American hasn’t been heard from since the March 11 quake and tsunami slammed the northeastern coast of the island nation, and any surviving villagers in the town of 23,000 who might have spotted his familiar face apparently have left. An International Medical Corps team that visited Rikuzentakata in the wake of the double disaster found it “was completely destroyed by the tsunami and no persons were present. Showing the depth of the tsunami wave and extent of the destruction, water marks were observed at a height of up to 10 meters (nearly 33 feet) on the sides of hills.”
CLICK HERE for the full article and to read more about Monty.
JETwit featured in CLAIR NY (aka Japan Local Government Center) Newsletter
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Here’s a link to the Spring 2011 Issue of the JLGC Newsletter, published bi-annually by CLAIR NY (aka Japan Local Government Center).
This issue includes a feature on JETwit.com (PDF) which I was asked to write a few months ago. It’s hopefully a helpful explanation of the background and purpose of JETwit. However, post-3/11 I have to admit it also feels dated and I feel somewhat conflicted about posting it now given what’s still going on in Japan.
Japan Times: U.S., U.K. teachers stay on to help care for evacuees
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This Japan Times article on 3 ALTs who have stayed on to help their towns post earthquake/tsunami appears to be about 3 JETs, though that’s not mentioned specifically in the article.
The English teachers listed are:
- Victor Kochaphum (Iwate, Tanohata)
- Kevin Blake (Iwate, Miyako)
- Paul Dixon (Iwate, Miyako)
Minasan arigatou. Ganbatte kudasai.
Please feel free to share additional stories and examples that you know of in the comments section of this post.
CBS’s 60 Minutes recently aired a segment on the town of Matsushima which was wiped out by the tsunami. The segment includes an interview with an ALT named David (I can’t tell how to spell his last name) who gives a harrowing description of being in the school gym with students, teachers and parents when the tsunami hit and how he was able to hold on to the basketball hoop (the water was that high) and help pull a few students to safety.
The interview with David starts at about 6:24 into the video and includes video footage of the school, which looks very much like the schools we all taught at as JETs/ALTs.
Side note: Good feedback from a JETwit reader: “Thanks for the update and the link. Btw, not all JETs (or all of your readers) are ALTs.” The title of this post, which originally read “Matsushima JET,” has been changed accordingly.
The New York Times has an article today about Rikuzentakata titled Japanese Town Holds on to Hope.” The article explains that JET Montgomery “Monty” Dickson as well as the Takata High School swim coach, Motoko Mori, and 29 of the high school’s 540 students are also still missing.
JETs quoted in article on English teaching in Japanese elementary schools
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New AJET Chair Matthew Cook (Osaka) as well as Beppu City JET May Schlotzhauer are both quoted in a nice Epoch Times article titled “Japanese Elementary Teachers Take On Teaching English.” (Yes, Epoch Times is the paper connected with Falun Gong, but they have a mix of regular reporting together with propaganda.)
While the article includes some cynical, provocative quotes, it’s also nice to see that the JETs quoted are the voice of experience, perspective and reason in thinking about and commenting on the new requirement to have English in 5th and 6th grades in Japan. This makes sense as JETs are actually working in the schools with teachers and students and positioned to be informed commentators.
Also interesting, toward the end of the article is a description of a proactive attempt by Cook to help prepare the elementary school teachers in his district for the coming requirement. A good example of a role that JETs can (and likely already do) play in school districts around Japan.
“Hoping to help prepare elementary teachers to teach English, Cook lobbied the board of education to host a training seminar, but was turned down. Later the board agreed to allow his school to offer a voluntary seminar to teachers from three local elementary schools. The seminar will be offered once, lasting no more than two hours.”
Here’s the link to the full article:
Recent news about the fate of the JET Program
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Some interesting recent news about the fate of the JET Program. As you know, there was a bit of a dust up last year as the Japanese government reviewed all of its spending programs and that included JET. Anyone interested in helping to prove the worth of the program should check out the JET Return on Investment (ROI) page on this jetwit site: http://jetwit.com/wordpress/category/jet-roi/ There is also a continuing online petition to support the continuance of the program: http://www.change.org/petitions/save_the_jet_program Apologies if any of this has been posted on jetwit before!
High-profile JET alumni defend the program:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110210f3.html
The same article was also published by the Mainichi:
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/features/news/20110205p2g00m0fe017000c.html
The program may not be in imminent danger after all. Here’s a page from a Japanese government web site that indicates that as of November of last year Prime Minister Kan was telling the U.S. that the program would continue (Regardless of his words, there is a continued need to track and publicize the worth of the program!): http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/area/usa/visit/president_1011/exchange.html
The page is in Japanese but there’s a link to a pdf of an English document (the original?) on the right-hand side of the page. Here’s the text of that document (Item number 3 contains Japan’s continued commitment to the JET Program):
> FACT SHEET:
> Strengthening the exchange between Japan and U.S.
> for further deepening the Japan-U.S. Alliance
> November, 2010
> Prime Minister Naoto Kan and President Barack Obama met on
> November 13, 2010 in Yokohama. Prime Minister Kan, with the view that
> further enhancement of mutual understanding among wide range of people
> between Japan and the U.S. is necessary for mid and long term deepening
> and development of the Japan-U.S. Alliance,
> 1. announced his new initiatives as follows to further strengthen the
> exchange between Japan and the U.S. aiming at several thousand
> exchanges in 5 years and stated that he would continue his efforts to
> explore other possible effective measures;
> (1) Sending Japanese young teachers and interns to the U.S.
> -Sending young English teachers to the U.S.
> -Sending young Japanese language teachers to the U.S.
> -Sending Japanese students to the U.S. as interns at Japanese language
> courses in the U.S.
> (2) Other programs
>
> -Promoting collaborative education and two-way exchanges among
> universities in Japan and the U.S.
>
> -Supporting immersion Japanese language courses in the U.S.
> -Opening and expanding Japanese language courses and promoting
> Japan Studies in U.S. higher education institutions
>
> -Strategic promotion of international cooperation in the field of
> advanced science & technology and sending young Japanese
> researchers to U.S.
> -Strengthening relationships with U.S. think-tanks
> -Inviting Asian study experts from U.S. to Japan
>
> -Promoting short-visit program for U.S. students
> -Celebrating 2012 Japan-U.S. Cherry Blossom Centennial Anniversary
>
> -Delivering Japanese values such as peace and environment through
> Japanese art
> -Holding modern art exhibits at major art museums in the
> U.S.
> 2. expressed his concern over the decline of Japanese students who study
> in the U.S. and stated his intention to further concentrate and work on
> this issue; and
> 3. reaffirmed the importance of the several efforts addressed so far
> between Japan and the U.S, especially JET(The Japan Exchange and
> Teaching) Programme, CULCON (US-Japan Conference on Cultural
> and Educational Exchange) and Fulbright Program, expressed his
> intention that he would positively continue to utilize these efforts,
> concluded that he would continue to explore measures which contribute
> to the strengthening the Japan-U.S. exchange.
Cheers,
Mark Frey
Communications Director
JETAANC
www.jetaanc.org
JETs in the News: JET alum to run Tokyo Marathon, raise money for Nepales students
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Thanks to JETAANY President Megan Miller (Hyogo-ken, 2000-02) for sharing this article with JetWit:
There’s a nice article in one of the Chicago Tribune’s local sections on Aomori-ken JET alum Mark Scott who will be running in the upcoming Tokyo Marathon on February 28 while raising money for a Nepalese charity that helps students go to school who might not otherwise be able to do so.
The charity, fyi, is Everest of Apples, the official Aomori-ken AJET charity. Here’s a little more about the charity:
“As the official charity of Aomori AJET, EofA is mostly funded by JETs in Aomori. As such, we are not explicitly looking for donations from JETs from other prefectures (although they are always welcome!). Rather, we very much hope that Everest of Apples will prove to be a model, or at least food for thought, for other prefectural AJETs, or any similar groups of JETs, interested in setting up their own charity.”
************
Are you running in this year’s Tokyo Marathon? If so, let us know by posting in the comment field below or emailing jetwit [at] jetwit.com.
