The View From My Desk: Kitayamada JHS

Ooh, been a while since I wrote one of these. Truth be told, the winter cold has slowed the pace of not only my activities but the town as a whole: no children frolic at the riverside, so obviously up to no good; the frenetic soccer games have vanished like so much of the grapefruit juice I just drank; and there hasn't been a festival in a 25-mile radius since near Halloween. I did just find out though that there will be a Xmas/New Year festival in a couple weeks in Mori, which is always a blast. Not only is it my favorite part of town, it's also going to be attended by my students from Mori JHS who are the most fun in and out of class. I almost feel guilty about choosing favorites, but hey, tough break all you other schools. Try harder.

In fact, one of those schools that probably needs to try harder is my subject today, Kitayamada JHS. Located in the western reaches of Kusu-machi--though not as far as Yamaura JHS--this school is one of the more picturesque campuses I get to visit as it's located at the narrowing of the valley before the walls get ridiculously steep and the road needs to cling precariously to the mountainside or tumble into Kusu River heading towards Amagase and Hita. From the balcony of our second-floor teacher's room we have a pretty sweet view of Kagami-yama and its wind farm, plus some interesting terraced rice fields. Nearby is a waterfall whose name I have been told about ten times and can't seem to remember, but nonetheless is a sublime place to hang in the summer, has gorgeous maple leaves in the fall and even an onsen for the winter. I don't know what they have in spring yet, but it better be good since they're 3-0 now and I'd hate to blemish that record. Free money or hot chicks room would be nice.

Back to the school though, Kitayamada is, like so many other Japanese schools, located on the top of a hill looking down on the rest of its community. I have no idea why the Japanese do this, set up their schools as if they were hilltop castles. I noticed it on the school trip while we were heading to Hiroshima via bullet train. Through Fukuoka, Yamaguchi and Hiroshima Prefectures most of the schools we were flying past were up a hill, like Kitayamada. As a result of being on a bit of a slope the building is the tallest of the schools at four stories, which just means that I trip while walking up the differently-spaced-than-in-America steps here more than any other school.

I like Kitayamada physically, despite the stairs, but its students are a handful in a not-entirely-cute kind of way. Oddly, the third grade students here aren't of the usual jaded variety you find at my other schools and are no problem. In fact, they're among the most outgoing third year classes I have anywhere. No, it's the first and second graders that are off-the-walls bonkers. There's not much to say about the misbehaving first graders except that they are just that, misbehaving first graders. They don't listen to Matsunari-sensei, the English teacher of Kitayamada, virtually at all and they only listen to me if I walk over to them and act like a control rod to their miscreant designs. I can jump start individuals into listening and taking notes only if I physically go over, open their notebooks for them and take a pencil out of their pen case. I hate this though because A) I would have hated someone to do that to me when I was young and B) it's the same every week thus I know that the days I'm there are outweighed greatly by the days I'm not when they just revert back to being little shits.

The second year students aren't what I would call conventional problem students in that they are disruptive in class, instead they're like a group of super villain geniuses. They're very very bright and curious and are so obviously bored to death in class that they can't be bothered to pay attention. With the exception of a handful of students it feels like I'm talking to a wall with them. As at least the assistant teacher I know it's my responsibility to change their attitude, now I just need to figure out what activity will get them moving.

Another incident happened with the second graders a couple months ago though that sort of led to the "super villain geniuses" label. Well, the "villain" part at least. The day of the Kusu-Kokonoe JHS sports tournament I was eating dinner at Joyfull and ran into the Kitayamada basketball team (all second year kids) who were celebrating their victory over some flunky school in the town over. We chatted a bit, I went off to enjoy my dinner and read a book and they left after about fifteen minutes. Not long after, a staff member appeared and asked me if I knew the boys and was here with them, to which I replied that I wasn't with them but was their teacher. She explained that the boys had gone and pulled a classic dine n' dash--all told they skipped out on an 8000 J-buck bill. My kneejerk response was to bust up laughing, right up until she started demanding I talk to the principal about it and get her company's skrilla out of the kids. Whatever, I'm no squealer. To this day I haven't told her a word.

I'm not angry at the students for committing their petty little crime (between them all it was less than 10 J-bucks), per se, what I am mad at was the aftermath that brought me to the uncomfortable realization that I'm part of, well, almost a caste here--the teacher's caste. I don't like many of the rules of this caste, particularly that I'm the state-appointed parent of the students between the hours of 8AM and 4:30PM and am thus virtually as liable (or equally as liable in some cases) in the eyes of society for their failures and misdeeds as their real ones. As the staff member was briefing me on the situation, I could feel and see the eyes of those in earshot upon me with that "why didn't you stop this?" look. I was having a Holden Caulfield moment in my head as she went on. I wanted to stand up and yell at everyone, "Who the fuck do you think you are to look at me like that, you who think we men and women that spend, at most, two hours a day with your sons ands daughters to impart our academic knowledge on them are able to tailor their behavior and even morality into what society considers the norm? If daddy beats her or mommy doesn't love him and that twists them up in the brain I can offer a shoulder to cry on and point in the direction of real help, but I can't be held responsible when they knife some convenience store clerk or jack $80 of food from a diner."

Well, it's off my chest now.

--Matt