Friday, February 15, 2008

Thank you ceremony

Wednesday morning I was invited to attend a "Thank you ceremony" at the local elementary school. This is the second year that the school has held the ceremony and though I at first declined to attend, the principal requested my presence so that the children would be taught the spirit of gratefulness, so I did make an appearance.

For the past 6 years I have done crosswalk duty at the main street in front of our neighborhood. I first started when Leiya was in 6th grade and was one of the leaders for taking a group of neighborhood students to school. I may have mentioned this before, but in most parts of Japan, elementary school students are required to walk together single file in groups to the school with the 6th grade students leading the younger ones like ducks. They come home from school in the same way and parents are discouraged from taking their children to or picking the children up from school.


When I first started accompanying the children to the crosswalk, I was amazed at the number of cars that wouldn't stop to let the children cross so I picked up the little yellow flag that is at the corner and stopped the cars myself. 6 years later I'm still stopping cars between 7:30 and 8:00 every morning at the crosswalk.


For this small service, the school principal invited me to the thank you ceremony on Wednesday. Four or five mothers who go to the school once a week to read storybooks to the children before school begins were also recognized and two other volunteers were invited because they faithfully walk to the school each afternoon and accompany the children back to the neighborhood, a 15 minute walk one way!

(One of the volunteers, in the yellow vest, walking the kids home from school. Hmmm. They are supposed to be walking single file.)


The ceremony itself was a bit of an overstaged production in my book. All the volunteers gathered in the principal's office and were served tea and then we were escorted to the gymnasium where the whole student body was gathered and speeches were given, songs were sung, the volunteers were given flowers and thank you letters. Actually since the school pulls from different parts of the district I only knew the 15 or 20 kids from my neighborhood and honestly speaking, a simple thank you from one or two of them as they crossed the street in the morning may have held more meaning for me than all the hullabaloo.


When you were a child, did you feel great waves of gratefulness when your mom made you write a thank you letter to Aunt Betty for something? I don't think I did though I wrote the letter. I have a feeling the school kids on Wednesday were feeling the same way. But the principal and teachers want to teach they children to be thankful so this is a place to start I suppose.


Lovely flowers and the letters were simple but sweet so I made sure to say thank you to all the kids who crossed the street yesterday!





7 comments:

The Calico Cat said...

I wish this went on more often. I think that thankfulness needs to be taught formally & informally. I think that there is a whole generation, that is not thankful one bit for anything. You & I remember thanking "Aunt Betty" I think that there are a whole lot of kids/teens/young adults that never even considered it.

My grandmother has told me on more than one occasion that the only way she know that some of her grand kids got the birthday check is becasue it was cashed...

Sure it is uncomfortable for the receiver of the thankfullness & maybe it was over the top, but....

harts4Him said...

Enjoy the moment. There aren't many thank you's in todays world. You deserve it, you have worked hard without thanks, but gave from the heart.

Shelina said...

Two more fun Japanese things. How wonderful that a system is in place to make sure the kids get to school safely - and how wonderful that they have a thank you ceremony. I think with a ceremony like that, they would learn the concept of gratitude, and I bet some of the kids do feel grateful, but don't know how to share that feeling, or feel weird about doing so.

Quilt Pixie said...

Its hard to know what says "thank you" to different people -- some seem to like the hulla balloo others a quieter, more spontaneous "thanks!"

Marilyn R said...

It was nice that the school wanted to thank you for your kindness. What pretty flowers - Spring is on it's way - some day!

anne bebbington said...

The kids might not have felt an overwhelming emotion of gratitude as they wrote the card but it never does any harm to instil good manners and can only stand them in good stead for later life - lovely flowers to brighten up a sad week :o)

meggie said...

The flowers are very pretty Tanya.
I think it does the children good to learn to say thankyou.