Totto-Chan

 Word Count: 292 words

From a young age, Totto-Chan was expelled from her school for having lots of energy and "disrupting the class." You can see here how innocent she is, how closing a desk repeatedly would get her expelled from her first school. 

A strong figure in your life is all you need to push forward and continue to want to change your life and those lives around you for the better. Totto-Chan first experienced this with her headmaster at her new school, making her excited to leave her house and learn. Tomoe, the new school she attended within a train car, was a school designed to bring about creativity in the students, in ways the students believe things should be done. Students were able to specialize in learning about what they were interested in, or discovering what they loved. I believe these tactics should be used in schools in America as I believe a lot of time is wasted going through curriculum you are expected to go through. 

The 1945 airstrikes took all of this silliness that these children knew away from them. From visiting wounded soldiers to seeing Tomoe, their school burn down by dropped bombs, making children grow up fast not knowing what else in their lives may burn down. The headmaster kept things fun as it says, "A 'tea party' would be something new at Tomoe. But the children liked the idea. They loved doing things they'd never done before. The children didn't know it, but the headmaster had invented a new weld, sawakai (tea party), instead of the usual sobetsukai (farewell party), on purpose." (93). This school overall would go to help Totto-Chan in every way within her life. It was a blessing she was expelled from her first school!