Kyodo News “Rural JET alumni” series: Charlotte Green (Hokkaidō)
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News agency Kyodo News has recently been publishing monthly articles written by JET alumni who were appointed in rural areas of Japan, as part of promotion for the JET Programme. Below is the English version of the column from November 2012. Posted by Celine Castex (Chiba, 2006-11), currently programme coordinator at CLAIR Tokyo.
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“The subtlest things we observe in children are often the most significant. Of all the lessons I learned from JET, this is perhaps the one I have carried with me the furthest.”
Charlotte Green (Hokkaidō, Biei-chō, 2006-08), is from St. Helens, Merseyside, in the U.K. After studying abroad in Tokyo for one year, she graduated from university with a degree in Japanese and Politics in 2006. The same year, she came back to Japan on the JET Programme and spent two years in the lovely town of Biei. Now back in England, Charlotte is currently studying for a post-graduate diploma in Psychoanalytic Observational Studies and working as a play worker with Barnardo’s.
Looking Back with Letters
In a childishly-decorated shoe box at the back of my wardrobe is a collection of items I keep from interesting times in my life. A lot of it was generated from my time as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) on the JET programme. I spent two years teaching in Biei, a rural town in Hokkaido with a population of 12,000 people. Like most other ALTs, I arrived with only an anachronistic picture of the place in my mind. I worked at three different junior high schools, the smallest of which had twelve students and lay amidst rice paddies frequented by storks and warblers, and hills of birch trees that, in the autumn, turned a spectacular yellow. Snow fell thick and fast for six months of the year. The landscape was a constant source of intrigue. I can remember walking home from work one afternoon and hearing Read More
