Visiting Schools in Japan

Before I left for the U.S. I was able to have an interview with Michael DiMuzio, the assistant principal and St. Mary's International School in Tokyo, Japan and it was a great experience! Mr. DiMuzio is an amiable personality and after talking with me about the St. Mary's elementary and giving me advice as a young and aspiring teacher he gave me a tour of their new school facilities. The school is an amazing structure! Everything is space conserving and top-of-the-line. I learned a lot from the experience and it was good to see how a prestigious school, such as St. Mary's is run. 

The following day I went to have an interview with Brian Vander Haak, the headmaster of Christian Academy in Japan, and again, it was helpful to have advice from a person in the school administration as to what direction I might want to go and what kinds of expectations the school has for incoming teachers. 

After meeting with Brian Vander Haak, I took the train to the American School in Japan so that I could visit Mio Foster's 4th grade classroom for the afternoon and it was incredible! ASIJ is a prestigious school as well and has amazing facilities, there are at least four of every grade level in the elementary and the student population is fairly diverse. In talking with some of the teachers afterwards I gained a lot of insight into the whole international teaching realm and several teachers gave me input as to how I could get the proverbial "foot in the door" when applying for teaching jobs. I even met a lady whose husband was from Dubuque, Iowa where Emmaus Bible College is! In fact, this lady's husband attended Clarke College which is about four hundred yards from where my sister-in-law Amy's parents live! It is truly a small world!