Japanese Students Spend A Week With Bright School Students And Families

  • Wednesday, August 26, 2015
A group of 15 students from Mito-Eiko School in Mito, Japan, are visiting The Bright School this week and staying with Chattanooga families as part of a home-stay program. The students are accompanied by Mito-Eiko Headmistress Kumiko Tanaka and English teacher Makiko Kurosawa.

In June, 12 fourth- and fifth-graders from Bright School visited the elementary school at Mito-Eiko. Head of School O.J. Morgan, school counselor Nicole Smith and translator Asami Nakano joined the students, who lived with Japanese families for a week.
Some of the families did not speak English.

“This experience helps our students become more comfortable and more confident when encountering new cultures. Through travel and communication with people who speak different languages, children grow intellectually and learn to embrace situations that might have made them fearful initially,” Mr. Morgan said. “I am proud of the way our students conducted themselves and how they were eager to try new foods and customs.”

This week’s agenda in Chattanooga includes tours around town and visits to area attractions such as the Tennessee Aquarium, the Incline and Point Park. On Tuesday, the students took a tour of the riverfront on the Chattanooga Ducks and walked across the Walnut Street Pedestrian Bridge to the Northshore.

The Mito-Eiko students, who are 13 and 14 years old, will spend Thursday shadowing Bright School graduates at Girls Preparatory School, McCallie School and Baylor School. Three of the students who went on the trip in June graduated from Bright School in May and now attend these schools.

On Monday, Bright School students welcomed their Japanese counterparts during the morning assembly, which included recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and singing of The Bright School Song. Each Japanese student introduced themselves and said “nice to meet you” in English. Some of the Bright School students gave highlights of their trip to Japan, which included eating octopus.

While at Bright School, the Japanese students are encouraged to practice their English, and Bright School students are likewise encouraged to try speaking Japanese. To bridge the language barrier, technology has come in handy. The students have been using translation apps in English and Japanese to understand each other.

Bright School fifth-grader Alia Sherrow, who went to Japan and is hosting in Chattanooga, says the apps have helped with communication. “We try to say our words slower at first, and then we use it if they don’t understand,” she said, adding that hosting helped her understand what it was like for her host family in Japan. “I was really excited to host someone.”

Sophia Baleeiro, who also traveled and is hosting, said meeting new people from a different country and culture demonstrates how small our world can be. “We were matched up with people who are like us. It was so cool to find someone who is basically on the other side of the world who shared the same interests as us and were the same age as us, and we can relate to one another.”

It is rare for an elementary school to establish a home-stay program with a school in a foreign country. Building upon a relationship with a school in Mexico City about 10 years ago, the program with the Japanese school started last year when a student from that school and his family moved to Chattanooga. Nakano, an Asian cultural ambassador sponsored by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga who has been living in the home of Morgan and his wife, helped the student and his family assimilate into life in Chattanooga and at Bright School. After learning that Mito-Eiko had an exchange program with a school in Australia, Morgan reached out to Mito-Eiko about starting a home-stay program with Bright School.

“It is the best opportunity in which I’ve seen children grow and learn and build upon their character in a way that only meeting people from different parts of the world can do,” Ms. Smith, the Bright School counselor, said.

The relationship with the Japanese school is part of Bright School’s overall goal to provide students with a school community that is diverse in cultures, races, religions and economic backgrounds. Each spring, Bright School hosts an International Night to help students learn about the cultures of all their classmates. Students from more than 20 countries currently attend Bright School.

“As Bright School has opened itself up to the world by welcoming families from many different countries, we have begun to reap the benefits of offering learning about other people and cultures,” Mr. Morgan said.  “New languages, new customs, fresh ideas, and new friendships have broadened us all in ways we couldn't have imagined just a few years ago. I'm deeply grateful that the Bright School community has willingly and enthusiastically embraced the many new opportunities the world has to offer.”

Fifth-grade students from The Bright School who are hosting Japanese students this week include:
Sophia Baleeiro
Arthur Burns
Kollin Claridy
Claire Holtzclaw
Ryuki Ishii
Sophia Moses
Grace Mulholland
William Nicely
Alia Sherrow
Baker Young
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