I had the honor today of attending a special needs class at the Kesennuma Junior High School. Once a week special needs students from the Kesennuma area junior high schools meet at the Kesennuma Junior High School where the students learn life skills.
They make crafts and sell them in the fall as a lesson in working to create a product and receiving an income from their labor. The activities were varied and included skills such as woodworking, pottery classes, and computer skills class just to name a few. Teachers from the area schools accompanied their students but there were also retired teachers that donated their time to assist the students in the various activities.

I went to the pottery class where I quickly learned that I have no artistic skills whatsoever but the students kindly assisted me in my project. The kilns were loaded and then we had to paint the famous sumo wrestler and Kesennuma native Hidenoyama Raigoro. I had to leave before I finished but the students sent my project to Omose Junior High with Abe- sensei. I will post a more complete joint posting but I wanted to share this experience as soon as I got back to my accommodations.

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Great shots of the special needs pottery class. I have an unscheduled morning, so I took the chance to walk around this technical H.S. They have a full on metsl shop, complete with milling, forge, the works. They even have an elox machine, which was pretty much the state of the art when my father retired as a tool and die maker someyears ago. I enjoyed watching the woodworking and eletrical classes. Students were building testers...pretty advanced electronics as near as I could tell.
Carol arrived last night and she should be finding her was around Matsuyama today. After lunch I'm scheduled to visit a textiles class. MMaybe I'll come away with a new towel...Cheers, Jim McElroy

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hey Jim,
I saw the inscription in your posting and I was wondering how you were able to get it??????but then I saw the last photo and I knew that you spent time in some philosophic reflection (glasses added class).
I was glad that you had some free time to tour the tech High School. In our farming community back in Texas many of my students do not wish to go to college. I wish we offered more shop skills classes for our students that need and want them.
Tom

Jim
Sorry I was packing...in my replyI meant get in not get it...
maybe I need an Asahi or the glasses!!!!
Tom