Crystal Brunelli is the Wellesley alum from the Tokyo branch who originally connected me with the other contacts I’ve interviewed so far.
Career Path
Crystal double majored in psychology and Japanese at Wellesley (class of ‘94), before getting a Harvard degree in education. She worked for a time at a “kaiwa gakkou” or conversation school in Japan, and at Dana Hall, a private school in Wellesley where she taught Asian studies. Her husband is Japanese, and when she was looking for a more long-term job in Japan in 2004, she found an online posting for Tokyo Jogakkan, a girl’s private middle and high school, where she continues to work to this day.
Current Life and Work
I asked Crystal to compare working as a teacher in the US as compared to in Japan. She shared that she teaches 1-2 middle school classes and 1-2 high school classes per week, and mentors the calligraphy and poetry classes. During the school day, she also has planning periods. She says that she’s teaching less hours here in Japan than she did in the US– a maximum of 15 hours per week, though she said there was more work (like supervising clubs) outside of teaching. When I compare her workload to my mom’s as a middle and high school teacher back in the US, it sounds a lot more well managed and reasonable.
Crystal started an exchange program between Dana House in Wellesley and Tokyo Jogakkan in Japan, where junior and senior high school students travel for a couple weeks at the end of the term. It sounded like a really cool opportunity. Tokyo Jogakkan likes to focus on international education, similar to the ideology at ICU where I’m currently studying. In fact, Tokyo Jogakkan recently became certified as a Cambridge International School. Crystal teaches an “international class” there, a track students can opt into that focuses on intercultural understanding and leadership alongside communication. In the international class, students of all language levels are educated together. Students of different levels will have different variations on the same assignments, while other activities are done altogether in groups.
Crystal shared that one of the advantages of teaching at a private school is the increased 1-on-1 attention that students can receive. She also shared that Tokyo Jogakkan is now teaching an International Class as a Cambridge International School.
Teaching in Japan
Crystal also provided me with some insight on how teaching in Japan works. In Japan, the curriculum is decided by the government. All teachers are expected to be certified, but there is an exception for foreign language teachers, or sports teachers for example. There is also a system to get a provisional license, but a common approach (used by the JET program) is to have the foreign teacher be an assistant to the certified “main” teacher. Crystal said that private schools don’t usually hire from abroad– she was very lucky with her timing and situation that it worked out for her at Tokyo Jogakkan.
Takeaways
Crystal seemed very proud and passionate about her teaching work, which I found quite inspiring. The lessons I took away from her story were to take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves, and hold on to a job you like if it’s working out for you.