Konan Middle School shares culture with Ryukyu Middle School

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Marcus Morris
  • 18th Wing Public Affairs
KADENA AIR BASE, Japan --  Teachers from Kadena's Ryukyu Middle School and Konan Middle School, in Naha City, created a new exchange program to allow students to share their culture and practice their communication.

Seth Renquist, Ryukyu Middle School host nation culture teacher, said the program gave Okinawan and American students time to interact and learn a little bit about one another.

"This was the first time we have done an event like this and it took a lot of work to coordinate it," said Renquist. "We had to start out by working together, which helps us grow our bond between the two schools and makes future exchanges easier."

As part of the half-day program, 40 of Konan's English class students took turns talking to the Ryukyu Middle School students and answered questions about their school and heritage.

The students were divided into four groups, each of which prepared a presentation about Okinawan culture and presented them in English to the Ryukyu Middle School students.

"Our English teacher Mr. Deguchi has the kids do an international culture project every year," said Mariko Yokoda, Konan Middle School English teacher. "This exchange allows our students to experience firsthand a different school culture and allow them to work on their communication skills with American students."

During the exchange, the students talked about the different type of artwork done in Okinawa, such as glass blowing and bingata, the types of food that can be found, such as sea snake and shredded pig's ear, and the difference between a Japanese school and an American school. The Konan students had one more custom to share with the Americans, an Eisa demonstration.

After the Okinawan students finished their presentations, they were partnered up with an American student to shadow for regularly scheduled classes. The Ryukyu Middle School students engaged with their counterparts to help them understand the lessons and make the class experience fun.

"The purpose of this exchange is we want the students to be able to communicate in the community more because some of these students live next to local kids," said Al Barney, Ryukyu Middle School principle. "It was great to see the students participating with each other and smiling, and we hope to become Konan Middle School's sister school and continue this program yearly."

Though this is the first time for Ryukyu and Konan Middle Schools, another two local schools, Kadena and Yamauchi Middle Schools, have also hosted similar get-togethers. With any luck, Konan and Ryukyu Middle hope to have a similarly successful continuation of the program. Ryukyu Middle School would like to make this a yearly occurrence and plans on sending students to Konan Middle School during a future school break.