Burento in Japan

Here I am again, back at this visit school with no internet, god I hate that. The last blog went up a few days after I actually wrote it…but whatever. And I can’t remember if I posted the video of Alex’s festival with it or not. If I didn’t it will appear below, like at the very bottom of this post.

I don’t know if I’ve fully profiled this school yet, this new one that I hyped when I learned about it. If the phrase “don’t believe the hype” was ever applicable to anything, it is applicable to this school vis-à-vis that blog. Don’t get me wrong, I like the teacher (singular), that I came here to teach with, but, there is another from Higashi, who left a year or two ago and she has NO CLUE what she’s doing with ALTs. And based on the level of her 3rd year (12^th grade) students, I gather she’s not quite sure what to do in the classroom either. The last time I was here, an entire class of 3^rd years (san-nenseis) couldn’t tell me the meaning of ichi-ji-kan (一時間). It means one hour. They didn’t know one hour…um, WHAT?? 6 years of English education, no clue how to say 1 hour. A few kids could actually tell me 30 when I asked what 30 minutes is in English…mad score!

The low level isn’t really what bothers me. What gets to me about this school is the general lack of respect the students have for the teachers. Like, I love my other lower level schools because I assume they’re like classes back home. A bit rowdy and out of control, some bad asses, but some smart kids as well. Not easy to control, but definitely controllable dependent on how you approach them. These kids, because of the tiered Japanese Senior High School system, meaning, “smart kids” go to “smart schools” and “dumb kids” go to “dumb schools” (NOTE: this is not always the case and a lot of kids just screw up when they’re 12 and pay the price by having to go to a middle level school). Anyway, this school is literally full of just bad assess. Not all of them, but a significant amount. And they don’t give a shit about any classes, let alone English, which to be fair is the least important for any of these kids. They walk all over their teachers, at least the tiny female English teachers they have. I actually had a kid get up and walk out of my class the very first day I taught here. 5 minutes in, he just decided, “Naw, I’m not doing this.” Got up and walked out. The JTE let him go to. She actually said, “It’s better if he leaves.” She’s clearly fed up as well and she’s only been here since April!

For the first time ever, I have come across kids that do not give a flying fuck who I am, what I say and have zero regard for myself or the JTE. Now, I know that in saying this, I sound like I’m whining and I totally realize that being here 3 years has changed my perception of students and what their behaviour should be. I saw one of my grade 11 students out at 4am and promptly told her she was a high school student and that she should go home. The next morning was definitely one of those wake ups where you say to yourself, “Did I really do that….GOD DAMN, how am I gonna face that kid now?” As if drunken foreign sensei should have anything to say in that situation other then, “Oh, hello there, good bye now.”

Sorry, got off topic there. Anyway, these kids are a challenge to say the least and every time I’ve been here, I get more and more frustrated as the day wears on. I’m attempting the stern, no nonsense; don’t fuck with me approach, which normally in any situation (in Japan) works well. I’m a big, bearded gaijin (foreigner) and that in itself normally commands the respect of the students. But for the first time since I’ve been here, it isn’t working. It doesn’t win over the classes. I keep telling myself that this is a challenge and I will overcome it. I just don’t know what to do though. With only one shot a month, there’s no way that I can create a rapport with these students and they’d rather screw around with me than learn something or even be on friendly terms with me. I feel for my 3^rd and 4^th classes each time I’m here, because by the time I go in to them, I’m ready to KILL these kids. The 2^nd year English teacher who I’ve never taught with was definitely caught off guard the last time I taught with her (my 4^th class of the day). I went in there thinking, alright, screw these kids. They will pay attention. Annnnd, they did not. We were playing a GAME too! A GAME!!! And they still didn’t give a crap. Like, it was EASY and they just kept talking and screwing around the whole time. I mean, I just gave up. Talked over them, but didn’t even attempt to get everyone into it. If they didn’t want to do anything, they didn’t have to.

How do you go about teaching students like that? I mean, I get it when it’s one or two kids and you just realize that you most likely won’t get to them. It’s a bleak outlook but there’s no way every single kid in a class is gonna give a crap about English. I understand that. But when you’re looking at a class of 40 and 30 of those kids could care less about everything and anything you’re doing or saying or teaching, it’s…well…it’s crappy. It’s just crappy.

Today I have one class, just the one, with the teacher I like and that’s it. It will be the class that has screwed around with me the most. They’re 1^st years, and that normally means, they don’t screw around. First years are normally afraid and timid and all that other good stuff that makes a class run smoothly. I have slowly been making strides with them, but we’ll see how it goes. The first class I had with them, one kid continually hit me as I walked by him…UH WHAT?? Ya that’s right, he hit me, smacked my ass, punched my arm, etc etc. I’ve put a stop to that since then, but still, how crazy is that?? The kid just felt that it was ok to hit the big, bearded, male, gaijin teacher. He didn’t know me. This school has never had an ALT and a lot of the junior high schools in the area don’t have them either. This was potentially his first encounter with a foreigner or maybe he’s had several and he felt it was ok to hit me?? WHAT? I don’t care where you are in the world, no kid is ever gonna have a new teacher and smack them on the ass…that’s just craziness. It was a male student as well.

So ya, there’s that. This was going to be a blog about what’s been up and how the rest of Mo’s family’s trip was, but it kinda turned into a rant about well, this school. I could write 4 billion pages on the Japanese education system and what’s wrong with it, but I’ll leave that for another time. The good thing is that I still have 7 hours of work day left and only an hour of that is spent in class. So most likely, the other blog I want to write will appear above or below this one. Hope Canadian Thanksgiving was awesome…honestly, I totally forgot about it until last night (Monday night). God I’ve been here too long.

B

Brief update – I have taught that one class. It was an EPIC FAIL. I have no clue how to teach at this school. Back to the drawing board.

Kunimi Matsuri