Celebration at work

Friday was a milestone day for our fledgling Bunka Suginami Canadian International School. The big draw for our program is that students attending our program will not only get a full Japanese highschool graduation but also a BC Dogwood graduation certificate as well. The short hand for our program is the DD (double diploma) program. With these diplomas they will be able to enter any Japanese or BC university of their choice.

I made sure to take her around the school and show her some of the amazing club activities here that the girls are so good at.

Kendo:

Traditional archery with the target at 200 m.

And of course the whole Noginata team wanted a photograph with us.

Here are some of Our girls who brought me a birthday cake along with Gloria from the MOE and Maggie, our offshore rep who got everything going.

The only catch in all of this is that we had to open our school without the final inspection due to the timing of the Japanese year. So... We were inspected this last Thursday and Friday by an auditor hired by the Ministry of Education. Gloria has done audits all over the world and was very thorough. Everybody was on pins and needles hoping the audit would go well.

On Friday afternoon (my birthday) all staff associated with our program on both the Japanese and theCanadian side gathered in the large conference room to hear Gloria's report. 

My wonderful Japanese co-teachers.

She reported a whole series of commendations for the creative work we are doing (especially the co teaching part in which I share the chemistry, math and biology classes with unilingual Japanese teachers). She usually gives a list of recommendations but said that she was so pleased with how well we were prepared that she had NO recommendations. Everybody sighed a huge sigh of relief and shook each other's hands. We are the first certified offshore BC school in Japan; yippee!

To celebrate our owners had a sumptuous barbecue setup for us at a five star hotel. We were set apart on a table set outside on the deck in the beautiful sunshine as the sun set over Tokyo bay. As the champagne was poured and the prawns and shrimp were cooking I watched the lights come on all over Tokyo with all of its garish modern architecture and flamboyant lights. 

This was really a birthday to remember and I feel blessed to be working in such an amazing place!