GEOS Isesaki is SOL

GEOS seems to have made its own New Year's resolutions, which appears mainly to be that they will save as much money as possible. They're accomplishing this by closing down quite a few of their schools, and - in a turn of events that is not surprising to me in any way - Isesaki is one of the unlucky ones.

Technically, my school isn't fully closing - it's being merged with the local GEOS Codomo (kids') school, and head office wants us to encourage our students to move over to is. The Codomo school isn't very far away, and since their only other choices are Takasaki (1 hour away by car) or Ota (two hours away by car), head office is hoping that the majority of the students will simply opt for the new location.

Sounds good on paper, right? Merge two schools at the better location, making it more successful, and keep everyone happy in the process. Right, except that ideas that look good on paper rarely work properly in the real world. There are two major flaws in the logic.

1. The Codomo school is TINY. Yes, it's located in the Ito Yokado mall, but it's TINY. It occupies a little corner and is basically constructed of partition boards. There's a very small lobby, a miniscule office, and two average classrooms. The school already has about 70 kid students, and given that I have 40 students, nobody's convinced that schedules can be made to fit the classroom limitations. They could probably add some of the kids to my classes, but my classes are more expensive and aren't set up quite the same.

2. In the official letter to the students, it's stated that I will quite possibly not be the teacher at the "new" school. I can't read the letter because it's in Japanese, but Benni-sensei says it pretty much guarantees that they'll have a new native teacher. This is only partly true. If enough of my students agree to move their classes to the new location, then I'll be kept on as the native teacher. If too many of them decide to quit or go to different schools, then I too will be sent to a different school. Which means I'm facing the possibility of moving.

On principle, I don't mind moving. It's a hassle and will cause me problems, but the actual idea of moving isn't aggravating to me. The problem is that I don't want to move. I'm quite happy where I am - I like Isesaki, I like my students, I like my co-workers, and I don't want to have to get adjusted to a new place and a new school. The matter would be completely different if I was ready to move on, but I'm not. I'm very comfortable here, and I'm not ready to move on yet. In other worse, I like moving but not being told I have to move. Of course, I don't like being told what to do in general, so I'm unhappy anyway.

Right now, I don't know for certain what will happen to me. I'm hoping that the majority of my students decide to move to the Ito Yokado school, thereby allowing me to continue teaching them, which would make everybody happy (as Hitomi-san reports it, everyone's more worried about changing teachers than changing location, which I take as a compliment). But we can't tell them that I might be able to stay in Isesaki, which might encourage them to just cancel classes altogether.

I should know for certain what's happening to me by the middle of February, once we know what our students want to do. Our last day of classes will be March 31st, so at least I've got two more months to enjoy myself here. Although I don't like the idea of leaving Isesaki and getting settled in someplace new, I'm not completely against it. It's not like I have any choice in the matter. And Benni-sensei thinks I'd be placed somewhere else in Gunma or one of the neighboring prefectures, so maybe I won't be completely from everyone. After all, these are the people who are my first Japanese friends, and I really like some of them.

So, I'm still waiting to see what happens. For now, I'm just going to enjoy my time in Isesaki while I can. It's just another bend in the road that I'm approaching, and I won't know what happens until I get there.