I Have Become the Principal of the “Night School”
I have been keeping this a secret, but actually, I have become a principal.
The name of the school is, “Night School.”
This is an initiative that borrows local facilities such as nursery schools and after-school drop-in centers for free and allows anyone to become a teacher.
For example,
a member of the Japan Self-Defense Forces taught a challenging hide-and-seek class (he even dug a hole and hid in it).?
We also had a Super Nintendo tournament and called it the casual Olympics.
In addition, a local young man taught us how to DJ.
It is a system where everyone gets involved and meets others for the fun of it.
That is what “Night School” is about.
The intuitive reader may have noticed after all this talk.
That this is “community welfare using the school as a metaphor.”
Yes, this is one of my “welfare that does have the appearance of welfare” series, which is my current obsession.
Although I may be the principal, I am just here to liven things up. In truth, Mr. Akira Matsuzaki, the most extraordinary social welfare council employee in Japan and other local activists are the creators of “Night School.”??
Mr. Matsuzaki created a place for children who refused to attend school, but experienced failure when nobody showed up. He thought about why no one came. During that time, he went to a festival and saw a lot of people there. That was because there was more than one purpose. Some children wanted to eat candy apples, others wanted to take part in the Bon-Odori dance, and some came to take pictures of the children dancing the Bon-Odori.???
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There are all sorts of hashtags like the ones mentioned above.
He realized that people are more likely to come if it catered to various hashtags.
But people who come to festivals do not mingle with one another. They are just there together, but that does not create interaction. So, why not make it a place where there are various hashtags and further exchanges and connections are created?
The “Night School” was created from such ideas.
It is not an actual school, but by making it a metaphor for school, we can all share the same worldview. We do not use welfare-like labeling such as “for shut-in children” or “for those suffering from loneliness and isolation.”
?Even a shut-in child may have a hashtag that says #ILikeGames. In that case, we can connect them with the hashtag #ILikeGames instead of using one for shut-ins.
It is a place where people are not filtered by social issues but are connected somewhere in the multifaceted hashtags that each individual has. That is what the “Night School” is all about.
This time, I went to the opening ceremony of the school.
It was quite chaotic, with children performing dance and taiko drumming, people involved in the issues performing stand-up comedy, having a barbecue for “lunchtime,” and everyone taking part in a weird dance at the end. I didn’t really know who the parties involved in the issues were, but it felt like we were all somehow connected by the fun and the hashtags. It is hard to explain, but that was the vibe of the atmosphere.?
This “Night School” started in Mimata, Miyazaki Prefecture, and people in neighboring cities are gradually starting to imitate it. If you are interested, please feel free to contact the “Night School” office.