最高の視察・Best visit yet
先日も書き込みしましたが和歌山県の小学生が視察に来られました。お母さんと妹さんも同行していましたがやはり主役が依頼した4年生。きっかけが何かと聞いたら、最近行われた市民マラソンに参加した時、スタート・ゴールが和歌山県教育長が去年鳥取方式で芝生化した田辺市の近野小学校だったそうです。走る前と終わった後はずっとそのほぼ完璧な芝生で遊んでいた小学生が家に帰ったら、マラソンの自分の成績よりはその芝生のことばかり話をしていたとのことです。 「自分の小学校の校庭を絶対同じように芝生にしてほしい」との意気込みで、インターネットで調べたら、GSTに辿り着きました。それは良いとして、視察はその一家だけの参加となり、今までの120件以上の視察と全く違う雰囲気で進めることが出来ました。普通は大人達(県や市議会議員、教育委員会や公園緑地関係の公務員、学校関係者、スポーツクラブ関係者等)が多くて、技術的なこと、行政へのクレーム、予算の組み方、事業の進め方,先入観をいかに払拭するかといった具体的な話が多いけどこの日はその話は無しでした。だって、4年生には先入観もなければ、それらの課題に対して無関心だからです。一貫して校庭芝生の恩恵を受ける当事者である小学生の目線で話が出来ました。行く場所行く場所、妹と裸足で走り回り、話をすることは「ここの芝生の感触はどう?」ばかりでした。最初の場所で野球が大好きという少年が走り出したと思ったら、いきなり全力のヘッド・スライディングをやってくれました。前の晩から降り続いていた雨で芝生が濡れていましたけど、それを全く問題にせず、まぶしい笑顔でのヘッド・スライディングでした。「土でこのようにお思いっきり良く出来ないので、つまらないけどこれは最高!!」日本中の行政に見せて上げたいです。今日の血圧は結構下がっていました。直生君,有り難う。As I mentioned in a recent posting, a Grade 4 primary student visited Tottori recently to study our grass project. He was accompanied by his mother and his younger sister but he was the star of the day.When I asked him what triggered this intense interest in grass, he told me that the start and finish point for a fun run he entered was Chikano Primary School, a school that the local prefectural education board converted to grass last year using our method. Apparently, when our lad returned to his home that night, he spoke of nothing but how fabulous the grass was, with nary a word about his results in the run.Driven by an intense desire to convert the grounds at his own primary school to grass, he started investigating on the Net, which led him to GST.That as it may be, this family were the only participants in this grass study tour, which had an entirely different atmosphere to any of the 120+ tours conducted this year.Normally, the participants are adults, either public servants in the education board or parks department, school officials, sports club officials and the like, so we tend to talk a lot about technical aspects of grass installation and maintenance, about problems with local administrations, about budgetary issues, about how to progress with the project, and about how to rid participants of their pre-conceived notions about grass. But this day, we didn't talk about any of these issues.Well, a Grade 4 student has no pre-conceived 'prejudices' and is not interested in all the other issues.For the entire tour, the conversation was at his level, as befits the fact that he is the person who directly benefits from grass in the school grounds.He and his sister raced around barefoot at every place we visited and all we talked about was how the grass at each place felt.At the first park, Greenfield, this lad, who apparently loves baseball, suddenly raced off at top speed and launched himself into a full-length dive as if he was doing a head-slide into first base. The grass was still wet from the incessant rain of the previous couple of days but this did not faze him at all. His smile as he slid along the ground had enough volts to light up a small town."I can not do this at top speed on our dirt ground, so it is no fun but this is brilliant!!"I wanted all the nation's bureaucrats to see this.A welcome side-effect was that my blood pressure today had fallen significantly.Naoki-kun, thank you.