Unusually Mezurashii

Today I learned a few new words. The first being mezurashii meaning rare or unusual and the other being kokoro which means warm hearted. I was called into the office of the kocho-sensei (principal) and he told me exciting new plans in Tamagawa. We are going to have a new junior high school! He described the layout of the high school and told me it was very mezurashii. This is when we pulled out my trusty friend, jisho-san (Mr. Dictionary) and I realized the meaning of the word.

Traditional Japanese schools are basically one long building, usually with two floors. There, width of the school is only one classroom deep (where in America there are usually classrooms on both sides of the hall). I think this allows for better air circulation. Anyways, students remain in the same classroom all day and teachers move from classroom to classroom. All subjects are taught in the same room. The new school however is going to be more like an American or Western school. There will be separate classrooms for each subject plus a base classroom for the students where they will have homeroom or where they can convene between periods. There will also be several lounges through out the school and a section where anyone in the town can come and learn. It will bring together students and adults. This is when I learned kokoro (warm heart). Instead of having 1st grade, 2nd grade and 3rd grade (roughly translates to 6,7, and 8th grades) the grades now have names like "easy", "warrior", "blue skys" etc. Each of the kanji (Japanese characters) contain the kanji for kokoro. The title of the school is Tamagawa Chugakko (Jr High) a warm hearted school. From what I understand this is a very different style of education. My principal takes a lot of pride in this school. To make this even more amazing is that there are only 30 schools like this in all of Japan. Why Tamagawa you ask? I have no idea, I asked the same question and I got an answer stating that Hagi is a famous town and many famous people come from Yamaguchi-ken. But still, I have no clue why they chose Tamagawa. The day the school opens (January 11, 2004) there is supposed to be tons of press and a big ordeal at the school.