I usually don’t like to put my daughters into Daycare on the weekend, however I do if there is something very valuable for me to attend. For teachers like me who are interested in furthering the development of their teaching, APRICOT MATES Meetings are indeed very valuable.

There were two last week: one in Osaka and one in Tokyo. I ran my girls up to the Daycare, and then jumped on the short train ride to Nihonbashi to attend the Tokyo meeting.

The venue at Nihonbashi was a comfortable and welcome alternative to the usual Kyorin Building in Nakanosakaue. Checking the map at Nihonbashi station brought a moment of nostalgia as I noted that Sakamoto and Tokiwa Elementary Schools (two Chuo-ku schools in which I taught for many years) were nearby.

It was great catching up with quite a few teachers whom I hadn’t seen for a while – but I was also quite surprised at the rather large number of new faces! So good to see!

In total, 38 teachers including me.

Now, the program for the afternoon had Nakamoto-sensei and Kawahara-sensei giving training at the same time in adjacent rooms… This was slightly problematic for me because, while I have a number of extraordinary and amazing talents, splitting myself in two in order to be in two different rooms at once is not among them!

*Sigh*

BOTH Nakamoto-sensei and Kawahara-sensei give excellent and very inspiring presentations!!

Dilemma, dilemma… who do I choose?

I decided to study with Nakamoto-sensei because well, it’s not every day that she comes to Tokyo. (Reports from teachers who attended Kawahara-sensei’s workshop suggest that it was as fantastic – as usual.)

Nakamoto-sensei opened her presentation by confessing that she had recently shocked some teachers at seminars because she had chosen to talk about the business aspect of teaching. Those teachers had apparently expected Nakamoto-sensei to be not interested in money, and were disappointed that this wasn’t the case. As I listened, I wondered if I actually knew anybody who was not interested in money…

In case I am ever in the future criticised for the same reason, let me state here clearly that I am personally very happy with money coming my way, particularly if it’s a lot. And as such, I was very happy that Nakamoto-sensei in her presentation shared with us the business side of her career in English education.

Look, Nakamoto-sensei did not give a training session on “how to make money”. Her training was about “how to improve professionalism” and “how to improve the quality of your school” so that you can sustain it in order to continue making a positive difference in our students’ lives. Her message reminded me of the words of my favorite philosopher Jim Rohn: “Your income is always a direct reflection of your value to society. If you want more income, you must deliver more value to society”. Nakamoto-sensei’s presentation gave lots of principles to do just that.

After the training there was a small party with food and drinks provided. I should have perhaps made more of an effort to meet new faces, but found myself with old faces, picking up conversations exactly where we’d left them at the last APRICOT event.

I was very happy to learn at this meeting that some teachers even read this blog!! This is good to know because it corrects a mistaken assumption of mine that “probably nobody was” (!).If you are reading this, by all means, send me your comments, questions or topics that you want me to discuss here via the APRICOT e-mail address, OK?

By good fortune and a lucky train connection I managed to be at the Daycare perfectly on time to pick up my girls. They’d had a great day – and hadn’t missed me in the slightest.