A group of students from Japan will visit Franklin in January as part of a decade-long tradition.
The 10 students and three chaperones will come from Kuji, Japan, a city of about 35,000 on the eastern side of Japan, which has been a sister city of Franklin for more than five decades. They will visit several schools and the city while staying with a host family for six days in the beginning of January.
The trip has become an annual tradition and a great opportunity for Franklin students, said Greg Moore, one of the organizers.
Moore spent several years working in Japan where his wife, Tamayo, is from, which is why he was originally asked to assist with effort when it began in 2007.
“I grew up in Franklin, and it wasn’t all that diverse then,” he said. “You didn’t run into a lot of people who weren’t from around here. I think it improves their education quite a lot to see that the world is wide. It makes us a better community because it brings more people closer together.”
Franklin Community Schools Superintendent David Clendening said he is grateful for the special partnership that Franklin has with Kuji.
These visits allow students to see the many similarities they have with their Japanese counterparts even if they live many miles apart, he said.
At each school, the students from Kuji will give presentations about their lives, families and Japanese culture. The students typically will share traditional Japanese activities, such as calligraphy or dance, Moore said.
The school district doesn’t have a hard time finding host families, Moore said.
During Christmas break, host families will be meeting to get ready for their students. They will study basic Japanese phrases and culture, he said.
The majority of the students are in eighth grade, though they have some up to 12th grade, Clendening said.
The Kuji group will spend a couple days in New York before heading to Franklin and will then spend a day in Chicago before flying back home to Japan.
The tradition of visits is a longstanding one. Last year, a group of 10 Franklin high school and middle school students visited Kuji and Tokyo for a week. Funding hasn’t been available to set up regular trips, but school officials hope to have another similar trip by 2018.
“International travel is great for our kids,” Clendening said.
