Mr. Anderson: Social Studies Extraordinaire

This interview was written by Hunter B.

“I didn’t end up in Japan for any particular reason, because I’m an international school teacher.  So when I was finishing teaching at a school in Korea, I went to look for a job, and this place offered me a job, so I took it! But I guess if it would have been a certain place I would have said no. Like, if it would have been a particularly dangerous place with war or with a high crime rate, I would have said no. If it was a school with a really bad rating, I would have said no. Plus, Japan is a little bit famous, like, a lot of people would want to live here, and so when they offered me to live here, I said oh wow that’s pretty cool!

“My biggest loss… I guess I’m quite lucky I didn’t lose anyone yet. Although I guess a loss for me personally is that I’m not a very friendly person. I don’t really reach out to people and call out to them and stuff, so I’m really sad that [...] I'm not that close to [my old school friends] anymore. I only have one friend I still talk to from high school and it’s not mean to say he wasn’t really my best friend, my best friends, I don’t talk to anymore. I guess I would consider him my best friend now. I guess I am sad that these people are not part of my life anymore.”

Near-death experience…

“I crashed a car when I was 16 and I fell asleep. I was driving through the country road as a 16 year-old. I was feeling a bit sleepy, and eventually fell asleep on the steering wheel while going at a decent speed and crashed. As I gained consciousness, all I remembered feeling and seeing was that the airbag was...comfy and hot. The only thing I was cautious about was if people around me were safe.”

His biggest fear: 

“Now that I’m a father, I fear something happening to my daughter. I think about that all the time. Like, walking down the street with her is very scary, because in America the streets are very separated from the sidewalk, but here you’re, like, right next to the cars, and so it really grips me with terrible fear. I’m always saying, ‘be careful, be careful!’”

Are you happy with where you are right now?

“Sure I’m pretty happy, I like it here in Japan. It’s a really nice school, I get to do work that I like. I get to be comfortable with my family. I guess the downside is that I can't really visit my parents now because of COVID.”

When Mr. Anderson was a child, he wanted to be an astronaut or a pilot. Soon he realized it was too much of a big dream and too unrealistic as he got older. He thought of what he wanted to do and so he decided to become a teacher and started to study about teaching. But he hated it and dropped out. He immediately got a job as a teacher and thought, No way, I actually like being a teacher. So he continued to teach!