Is Our Children Learning?

Today saw my first near eruption at a class and school officials over in-class disruptions. I'm not sure how my friends and colleagues in the city schools, where these issues are much, much worse I'm told, are coping with it. Maybe my skin is too thin and my standards ridiculously high, but I'll let you judge that.

My Tuesday school is Kusu JHS, the town's largest one and located just across the street from my apartment. Not much to add about its state of decor or how many cracks line its concrete walls, but the behavior of the students has certainly taken a big messy fall. Let me preface this whole thing here and now by saying I know how old and crotchety this will make me sound using words like "disruption" and "behavior", but I tell it like I see it and work with the tools alloted. So, anyways, a recent trend with Kusu JHS has been to schedule me to teach for all six school periods plus sitting at lunch with one of the day's classes. That means from 8:45AM to 3:40PM I am in constant contact with the students with no break and while that has led to some good relations with a handful of students, by and large it saps me of all strength, willpower, bodily fluids, etc. No teacher--I repeat, NO TEACHER--in the town teaches every period and of all the JETs I've asked none of them teach more than four periods a day. If I did this at Mori JHS, the second largest in town, there'd be no problem, but then again the students there are chill.

As I teach at different schools of varying size it's been fascinating to watch the complexity of the social structure as it rises and falls in proportion to the number that make up the student body. Some of the really really tiny schools like Yamaura JHS and Hiju JHS don't have any social roles or pecking order at all since the third-year students don't have much choice than to befriend the first-years. These schools with no bullies or pariahs to speak of are like a utopia and speak bounds to me about keeping communities small and tight-knit. Then there are schools like Kusu JHS with seven classes of 30+ students and things get complicated. In each class, in each level, a ringleader pops up invariably and can be a force for either good or evil, depending on what their Dungeons & Dragons-like alignment is. At Mori JHS they've all ended up running the gamut from lawful good to lawful neutral, however Kusu JHS is a pack of neutral evil and chaotic evil with the exception of second-year, classes one and two, whose ringleaders are both chaotic neutral.

Leaving the wacky D&D analogy for the time being, ringleaders have their assorted lieutenants and minions, all of whom torment one or two students per class. This is part of the reason Japanese student suicides are the second highest in the world (per capita) next to Russia, the other part being the harsh exam-centered academic life.

So what am I really mad at today? Three things in particular: certain individual students at Kusu JHS; the Japanese educational system; and finally the practice of education/raising our kids in general. The story starts on a day in Oita Prefecture where the driving rain is cold enough to numb the skin in seconds while stubbornly not being quite cold enough to turn to snow. In my first class with third-year students it became apparent within minutes that someone had decided to remotely activate the dormant "misbehavior circuit" inside the ringleaders' skulls, inciting them to lead a class-wide non-violent resistance movement against doing or saying anything to Ms. Suehiro and I. It didn't help that she was in a foul mood (and told the class!). Before my next period began I found Yuki, one of the girl I chaperoned at Universal Studios Japan on the second-year student trip, huddled next to the staff room heater, her eyes shrink wrapped in tears. I find her here every week between certain periods and recently found out she's the target of her class' bullies. She's in 2-2 and all her friends are in 2-1, but is there even a chance of a class reassignment? This is sit-on-our-hands Japan, folks--of course not!

Next class, 1-2, and the students are either not answering simple questions or they're shouting them at the top of their lungs into our faces. We ask them to copy something off the board and most do, but some just close their notebooks, smile and look straight at us, challenging us to do something about it. I go over there, open their books, watch while they write a line or two, but when I walk away the same thing happens. Usually they then try to talk to people taking notes or throw things around the room. I don't care if they want to fail--can't fault me for being honest, cold as it may be--but I take umbrage when they disrupt others.

Next class, 3-1, and the shit starts to hit the fan in my brain. We're doing a group activity and the class' two ringleaders get separated, so one goes over and physically latches onto the other and won't sit down despite "warnings" from Ms. Suehiro. I put that in quotations because as much as she warns and threatens there's nothing she can do: Japan does does send its students to the principal; there is no detention; there is no extra homework or writing lines on the board; and corporal punishment was done away with some time back. She blows hot air for a minute or two and moves on, but the class is in an uproar now and not paying attention. I don't move on. I walk over to the two and physically tear them apart and take the one back to his seat like a soulpatch-sporting bailiff. Don't worry, I won't get in trouble. The class shut the hell up after that.

The only bright light in my day is fourth period and class 2-1. Their English level is atrocious, but they're ever so fun to teach. Their favorite activity is to steal the hat off my head and secret it away somewhere in the room--they've all the mischief of a chimpanzee and the hiding powers of a squirrel in them. At lunch I refused flatly to go to a class and ate with the staff. I must have looked pissed because nobody talked to me. It was better this way.

The class after lunch is where I really almost lost it. 2-3 is absolutely the worst class of all the schools I teach at as it has two ringleaders, their two lieutenants/cronies and two pariahs. Tormenting doesn't stop during class and neither does whatever conversation the four jackasses were having beforehand. Through fear of violence the two ringleaders force the class to eat or not eat at lunch, whether or not to return our greetings in the hallway and class and whether or not to torment the two pariahs. It's pathetic. Today they were walking around class at their leisure, talking at normal levels while the class was taking notes and once even left the class entirely. Again the teacher, Ms. Sakio this time, lobbed threats at them and again they ignored her. It wasn't until one of them chucked open scissors at someone's face that Ms. Sakio went to fetch the vice principal. Yes, that's the level of behavior that must be reached before any real disciplinary action is taken--possible loss of eyesight!

Sixth period with 1-2 was a blur due to fatigue and blinding rage at the events of the past period, however I still smiled and read passages like I didn't want to put my fist through glass. I hid in a changing room during the cleaning period and took a fifteen minute nap then reflected on the day's events.

So I'm pissed off. I'm pissed at the bully ringleaders and their cronies, that's obvious enough. I'm partly pissed at the classes that harbor and condone their actions instead of standing up to them too, but they're kids, not revolutionaries and thus I realize it's unrealistic to hope for...more, or whatever.

I'm pissed at the Japanese education system for tying the faculty's hands and having no discipline system in place, instead looking the other way and muttering under their breath about superior Japanese morality and cultural respect for teachers. Bullshit, that ship sailed 25 years ago. I don't propose using fear to keep students in line like in America, but there have to be some consequences to back up warnings or they're just a load of rubbish words. And then there's the case of Yuki, the bullied girl from 2-2 whose friends are in 2-1--LET THE GIRL MOVE CLASSES, FOR FUCK SAKE!!! Do it now before she becomes another of the nearly thousand students a year in Japan that jump off a condo roof or slit their wrists!

I'm pissed at education in general, and a good deal of parents too, for NOT TELLING US AT EVER STEP OF OUR EDUCATIONAL CAREERS WHY THE HELL WE'RE EVEN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE! "To learn" is not good enough, we should be told explicitly what the fruit of our efforts will be. Two simple explanations would suffice I think, one practical and the other a bit more romantic. First is the dry-yet-practical reason that the more we learn the more opportunities we have to seize upon our personal dreams, or to even find out what those dreams really are. The second reason given should be that the world is just an amazing and fascinating place and education can only help us appreciate its grandeur while we stride upon it. I'm happy to say that my parents and certain educators, whether they knew it or not, bestowed the latter romantic reasoning on me at some point and it stuck.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to drown my sorrows in spaghetti, rice pudding and hot bath.

--Matt