Can I be a Koro-Sensei?

Although school itself has been busy - we unfortunately are one of the many schools that have to restructure due to a mandated reorganization - I have been trying hard to make sure I engage in some quality time with my family members. (The "love language" priorities for my son and daughter center on spending time together.) When my daughter went to Fan Expo Canada in August of this year, she met Sonny Strait, a famous voice actor from One Piece and Dragon Ball. As she was chatting with him while getting his autograph, he recommended that her father/my husband watch another anime that he (Sonny Strait) worked on - Assassination Classroom. We decided to watch it as a family.

The rest of the family watches way more anime than I do. For instance, they really like Dandandan and Zom 100, which I know nothing about. I liked My Hero Academia (lessened a bit since it's taken a really dark turn lately) and my current favourite is Spy X Family. Based on what my family knows about what I enjoy, they thought I'd like Assassination Classroom.

They were right. 

The anime is based on a Japanese manga. To paraphrase Wikipedia, the premise of the story is that a dangerous, powerful, octopus-like being has blown up part of the moon and has given a class of junior-high students the chance to terminate him as long as he's permitted to be their homeroom teacher for the school year. If they fail, he'll destroy Earth. The students in class 3E are constantly disrespected and mocked by others at the school as failures and misfits; their group is even instructed in a building away from the main campus. 

The main character has no name, but is eventually called Koro-sensei, which I believe is a play on words in Japanese related to un-kill-able, octopus, and teacher. 

(This image of Kurosensei comes from Wikimedia. Use of this image / file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. No changes were made and the link can be found at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Korosensei.real.jpg)

 

We've only watched eight episodes so far, but I'm having fun. It's very clear that Koro-sensei cares deeply about being an excellent teacher and supporting each and every one of his students. Koro-sensei is the kind of teacher that, in some ways, I aspire to be. I don't wish to move at Mach 20, or be impervious to poison, bullets, and missiles. If only! I want to make a difference to my students. I want to have a positive impact, and not just on their academics.

Something happened at school this week that had me momentarily cheering and hoping that dreaming of being like Koro-sensei wasn't completely impossible.

Brenda Kim, our Grade 5-6 teacher, called my attention to a poster that had been tacked up near the library door. One of the students in her class had lost a special key chain. She described how the kids in her class remembered, from last year, that I had made a sign when I had lost my McDonalds Minecraft toy, and that, thanks to the poster, the toy was recovered. Based on my inspiration, they used the same strategy. Two of them printed a photo of a replica of the missing item, and they wrote a message. It worked! The AWOL capybara was located!

This is a picture of the sign I posted, back in April!

I am absolutely delighted that they remembered I did this, and applied the strategy themselves months later. The power of media prevailed! Signs equal success!

So, if signs matter this much, then I need to make sure I really make an effort with my bulletin board displays. I've already switched up the library tree display to reflect both the Terry Fox Run and the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation / Orange Shirt Day. This coming week, I'll fix up our STEM photo gallery as well as set up the monthly Indigenous author feature.