Kobaharu has taught English in junior high school and in the private sector to everyone from babies to high school students. Then life changed: her husband’s relocation, and three children to raise. She had all but given up on returning to education when she found NIJIN, which accepted her working while also being a mother. Today, as a homeroom teacher on a metaverse campus and leader of local-government partnerships, she keeps working to break down the walls around school non-attendance. We asked her about the possibilities of a new way of working in which “being a mum doesn’t mean giving up being a teacher”.
Born in Hokkaido. Her family moved repeatedly because of her father’s work, and she changed elementary schools three times. In junior high she was in the wind band and took part in the national marching competition twice. Group life at school in those years brought tangled relationships and some bitter experiences, which left her wanting “to make children’s school days happy ones”. After university she worked at a high school in a remote part of Hokkaido, at a private English school and at a junior high school in Sapporo, teaching English to everyone from babies to high school students. Today, while raising three children, she is a homeroom teacher at NIJIN Academy and leads its local-government partnership work.
Profile
- — What led you to work at NIJIN?
- — What kind of work do you do now?
- — Working while raising small children must be hard in many ways. What is difficult about the job, and what makes it rewarding?
- — Tell us about the episode that has moved you most since you started at NIJIN
- — What would you like to take on at NIJIN from here?
- — A message for our readers, please!
— What led you to work at NIJIN?
I was working at a junior high school in Sapporo, but with my husband’s transfer and my maternity and childcare leave coming on top of each other, going back in the same form as before was, in practice, very difficult. Even so, the wish to “stay involved in education” never went away, and I tried online learning support for children in remote areas and marking study materials. But somehow it always felt as though something was missing…
That was when a job advert for NIJIN Academy caught my eye. When I was a schoolteacher I had a student who was not attending school. I wanted to give that student more of myself, but I was swamped by daily duties and couldn’t make the time, and the regret had stayed with me ever since. I thought, “Maybe there is still something I can do.” During the job interview my second son, who was still little, kept coming into my room no matter what, and they simply said, warmly, “Don’t worry about it! It doesn’t bother us at all!” I was sure this was the only place where I could keep working in education while raising my children, and I decided to join.
— What kind of work do you do now?
At the moment I have three main roles. The first is homeroom teacher at NIJIN Academy. As well as two regular classes, I am the homeroom teacher of the “Fukuyama Class”, run in partnership with the city of Fukuyama in Hiroshima Prefecture. On top of the daily activities, in “My Project” time, when students set their own questions and take on a challenge, I believe in the children’s potential and support them alongside.
The second is sales work to move forward partnerships with local governments and companies. As with Fukuyama, I propose opening metaverse campuses and physical campuses to local governments, council members and companies across Japan. Drawing on my view from the classroom as a homeroom teacher, I explain to people outside just how much schools like NIJIN are needed in these times.
The third is being a “mum-teacher”! The environment is freer than conventional wisdom would ever allow: sometimes I am vacuuming until five minutes before homeroom starts, or teaching a lesson with my baby in a carrier. Now and then the baby cries on screen, and the students say “We’ll wait for you, Miss!” and bring out soft toys to soothe the baby.
Through these many-sided roles of homeroom teacher, local-government partnerships and mum-teacher, I don’t split home from work; I get to show students, by example, my life just as it is and that there are many ways to live. I find that enormously rewarding.
A daily juggle of childcare and work! But being able to work just as I am is what saves me
— Working while raising small children must be hard in many ways. What is difficult about the job, and what makes it rewarding?
Honestly, it is hard in every way! But all of it is new and fun. I truly enjoy the class meetings, the lessons, home PE and homeroom, and the most rewarding moments are when I watch the children take something on and the excitement spreads to everyone around.
When it comes to balancing work with childcare, I do sometimes struggle with the limits on my time and with getting the balance right. But every day I am saved by how interesting and how warm it is to be able to bring my life, just as it is, into the place where I teach.
On the other hand, for someone like me whose experience was almost entirely in teaching, sales and leading a team are an unknown world. How to set a strategy and how to empower the team is a daily struggle, but I see great value in being able to turn the energy of the classroom directly into proposals to society.
— Tell us about the episode that has moved you most since you started at NIJIN
The change in one boy I met through the partnership with Fukuyama is still what stays with me most. Children in the Fukuyama Class are, for the most part, children who are “not connected to anywhere”: they have not been able to link up even with the city’s free schools, and they rarely take a single step outside the house. He too was isolated at first, but through NIJIN Academy he made friends across the country in the metaverse, and came to join the Pokémon club of his own accord and mix with others. Over the nine months we spent together he gained confidence in himself, and by the time he finished junior high he was able to go on to a correspondence high school he had chosen himself.
On his last day, when he graduated from NIJIN, I heard that after all the activities were over he said “I’m going to miss this” and cried. Seeing him, now that he knew the joy and fun of being with other people, keep walking forward on his own feet, I felt from the bottom of my heart: “I am so glad we partnered with Fukuyama!”
Bringing the number of “children who can’t connect anywhere” down to zero through local-government partnerships. A cycle that turns a place to belong into love for one’s community
— What would you like to take on at NIJIN from here?
Building on the partnership model with Fukuyama, I want to increase our partnerships with local governments much further. For “children who have not been able to connect anywhere”, the metaverse is the most powerful tool there is. But neither local governments alone nor NIJIN alone can reach every one of them; it is by working together that we can bring hope to more children.
I myself never felt attached to the town where I spent my junior high years, and I didn’t go back for nearly twenty years. But I want to create a cycle in which children find “a place to belong” and “a place to shine” through the metaverse, and that in turn becomes love for their home town. I want to take our cooperation with local governments much further.
— A message for our readers, please!
Once you are inside NIJIN, I think the pace will surprise you. You wonder how time can move this fast at any company. NIJIN “is reborn seven times a day”. That is exactly why all of us on the staff can lock arms and work for each child’s “who I want to be and who I want to become”. If you have given up on working because of raising children: here there is a culture that actively welcomes “mum-teachers” like that!
I am truly looking forward to meeting colleagues with whom any task can be turned into something exciting!
▼ Principal Tatsuro in conversation with Kobaharu
▼ Cross-talk: “We don’t want to give up teaching just because we have children! The NIJIN Academy way of working that these mums chose“
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