Osaka International School

I have a much better understanding of the school now and can describe it much better. In is a very un-Japanese school in that there are no uniforms, you don't take off your shoes when you enter the building and the school itself was designed to be beautiful! Really there are two schools - but I will get to that . . .
OIS has about 250 students - about 20 - 25 per grade. About 30% of the students are from Japan, 15% are Korean, 12% American and the remainder are from around the world representing about 30 countries. We follow an International Baccalaureate curriculum. Our sister-school - Senri International School (SIS) has about 500 students and follows the Japanese school system so all of the students are Japanese with about 60% of them being returnees. In other words they were raised in another country and returned to Japan but didn't fit into a traditional Japanese school. All of the students speak English fluently and many classes share students. This enables us to have a complete athletic and performing arts department despite our small size. For my part, I only teach the OIS students but will probably interact with all of the students throughout the year.

Introduction to Osaka

Greetings everyone,
I hope to use this blog on a regular basis to relate my adventures in and around Japan. In case you don't know, my wife and I sent our kids off to college and left the country. Well, actually my wife is still in the US getting the kiddos off to school. She will be joining me in September. Sigh. I had to come early to start my job at Osaka International School. If you are so inclined, you can check out the web site at http://www.senri.ed.jp/OIS/index.htm . Well, my intention is to look at a different aspect of Japan each week and give my response/understanding to the things I see, experience or have questions about. In fact, I hope readers - if there are any - will post questions that will become future posts.

This week's topic . . . Welcome to Japan and Osaka
Osaka is Japan's second or third largest city - depending on how you count. About 16 million people. We are living at the north end of town a couple of miles from the furthest subway station. I live in a very small apartment. One room is the kitchen, dining room, living room combo. There is a small bedroom attached. It might be a nice office? Then there is another bedroom, separate, much quieter, darker and still quite small. I think this will become the bedroom. Then there is a small bathroom, with a small washer in it. Amazing.

Osaka is well known for its food and its crime. It is sort of seen as the wild, wild west. To put the crime worries into perspective, there are about 4 crimes per 10,000 people. New York has about 250 per 10,000 and Cary has about 3 per 10,000. So Osaka is just about as safe as Cary, North Carolina but in Japan it is the most dangerous city in the country. Food is great. I have only had a couple of meals - sushi and chinese. But tons of food at great prices. Well, I have only been here about 36 hours so we will see what the next couple of days hold in store.