Me and the Snake I Found Outside

The other day I found a snake outside. But before I go into that, I should admit this is not the first time I've been involved with snakes out here.

The first time was last summer when I found a snake in the hallway at the Board of Education. I tried to pick him up. The little bastard bit me twice, but eventually I got ahold of him by the neck, and then brought him into the office to show everyone.

One of my co-workers wanted to hold the snake, so I handled the snake over, giving the warning, "Careful, he bites." Alas, in my hurry to warn my co-worker, I blurted out the words in English, and he didn't understand. The snake bit him and he dropped it on the floor, causing a bit of confusion as several of us scrambled to catch the snake again. It also caused a bit of distress to the one female worker in the office, who stood on her chair and yelled at us to get the snake out of the office.

I've retold this story a couple times since to my JET friends, who usually shake their head and say something like, "Joel, you idiot." But in my defense, it's not like I brought the snake into the office from outside. That would have been stupid. But the snake was already in the building. All I did was bring him into the office to show the rest of the Board of Education what sort of things were slithering around in the building.

The second time was a bit more malicious on my part. I found a snake at the junior high school. Actually the students found it, but they called me over to see it. I put the snake it a plastic bottle, and brought it back to the board of Education. The woman in my office has a fear of snakes, so since my desk is next to hers, I teased her by keeping the snake in the bottle prominently displayed on my desk, and from time to time would open the bottle up as if to let the snake loose.

And then this week I was teaching at the elementary schools when I found a snake outside. In the Japanese schools, the gymnasium is located in a separate building, and requires a brief walk outside to get to it. Because my lessons in the elementary school usually involve a lot of games, I often use the gym. While I was walking back from the gym with the students, we saw a snake.

It was a big black snake, a lot bigger than the two previous ones I had caught. I was very tempted to catch it, but since I was with the students and in the middle of class, I decided it might be a bit unprofessional and just walked by. But the next class period, when I was walking to the gym again, the snake was still there and I was unable to resist the temptation.

I grabbed the snake, then told the students to wait for me while I ran to look for something to put it in. Having left my teaching duties in the middle of class, I felt under some what of a pressure to justify the snakes educational value. I had the students come around and look at the snake, and tried to get what mileage I could out of it's ESL value. "This is a snake. Repeat after me, snake."

After that, I decided to try and incorporate the snake into the game I had planned. The game was "Shark attack", in which I play the shark, and the students have to run to an "Island" before I can tag them. (Target English vocabulary for this lesson is "Shark" "Attack" "Swim" "Ocean" and "Island". Lessons at the Elementary school tend to be mostly fun and games).

Anyway, to make the game a little more exciting, I told the students that if I caught them, as a penalty they would have to kiss the snake. This really worked well actually. Usually with these kind of games there can be problems with a couple students who don't want to play, or want to try and get out (which takes the fun out of the game). With this added motivation though, the students were all running as fast as they could.

I guess anywhere in the world you can find people who are terrified of snakes. But in Japan the percentage seems to be very high. Even a lot of the young boys are very afraid of snakes. I think this might be because in Michigan there are many snakes, but almost no poisonous snakes, so we grow up not being afraid. But in Kyushu, there are several very poisonous snakes, and the children are taught to be cautious.

The kids in this 4th grade class were all terrified of the snake. But I think in a way they did enjoy the extra thrill of the game in the way that children sometimes like being scared a little. But the first boy that I tagged burst into tears immediately. I then explained he didn't really have to kiss the snake, but it took him a while to calm down. And even after this explanation, there was still some confusion about it, because the next girl who was tagged out also began crying.

Later that same day, another snake was found on the school grounds, this time it was a poisonous one. When the vice-Principle heard that I had no fear of snakes, she recruited me to get rid of the poisonous snake. However by the time she showed me where it was, the snake had already gone away.

I took my black snake back to the Board of Education, where I displayed it prominently on my desk and teased my co-worker with it.