More of My Students

I love my students. Everyone sees them as terrible 15-18 year old monsters with no respect for adults and parents alike. I don’t see that. I see cute little faces that smile wide and run to me whenever they see me. Most of these kids are good kids, some of them are just misguided simply because some of these teachers don't know how to teach. That’s not alright. If I can’t be there for them in terms of education, I can be there for them in terms of chatting to them about video games (like FFVII, Tekken, Lost Odyssey and etc), or about arcade games that they should play but never have because of no time or club activity, or even something like what I’m going to order from McDonalds. The worst class in terms of behavior, had an interview test (that I always make) and when it was just me in the classroom by myself (!)…they were the cutest little angels. Even the worst of the bad kids! I mention how they’re so quiet as I’m standing there, and I get cute, awkward smiles and nods. Okay…lol
But then, when the Japanese teacher walks in, all of a sudden everyone starts acting foolish again. What the hell? I narrow my eyes and tell the teacher to leave again since they were being so good when she wasn’t there. She laughs but is clearly grateful because they treat her the worst, and didn’t need to be told twice. Clearly it’s some kind of psychological reaction to seeing a Japanese teacher; that their mouths just start running. When it’s just me however, that mechanism turns off and they become attentive, curious students. They always ask about my tongue ring and always want to see it. I show them with a serious disclaimer of “YOU CANNOT DO THIS, NOR DO YOU WANT TO DO THIS…RIGHT?” I get the nervous nods and show them, then it’s awkward catcalls from guys, and “whoa! Amazing!!” from girls. I always explain which direction the long needle went and do a hand motion of the long needle going through my tongue and even these “tough” guys, the kids with the worst behavior at the school, they all cringe so hard and go, “Uwwaaaaaa!!! Iyyaaaa! Noooo” lol. Weaklings.

Just walking by a classroom has my students going crazy and they wave and I even manage to wake the sleeping ones up. I’m so glad that I got good students; even the bad ones are quite good when they’re not in the school. When I mean bad, I mean bad as in Japanese standard. Those kids are not bad at all lol, just extra yapping in class, but that gets Japanese teachers angry. Compared to the states though, even the bad kids would be the good ones. Japanese marine high schools though…no no no, they’re definitely on par with American students in terms of behavior lol.

In any case, it’s true that I don’t see what the Japanese teachers see and how those students are downright terrible and verbally abusive, especially to the female teachers. It’s because it’s never happened to me, and if one student tries to test the water and pick on me, even if he’s joking, all of his friends hit him or call him names; they put him in line. Not me.

In any case, I had classes today. I taught a group of 42 girls by myself. Sometimes I can’t believe that I did either, but I’ve taught by myself before. Now, normally you’re not supposed to, but I don’t mind because I like my kids. I’m able to teach by myself because of my knowledge of Japanese. If I didn’t know Japanese, then it would be impossible for me to communicate with them and help with translating the English, so the class would be a bit pointless. In any case, I went there, talked about the prom since it’s May, explained to them that a 16 year old girl and a 23 year old guy is illegal in New York (!) and made them sing that prom song by Hellogoodbye. I know what you’re focused on…it’s a big thing here. I’ll touch on that in another post.
I’ve heard plenty of stories of ALTs teaching classes by themselves and it ends up being a disaster. I was by myself and yet they weren’t rude, they were attentive and focused, something that I’m sure some of the other teachers don’t see. Of course there’s the extra chatty girl who will talk while I’m talking, and the only thing I have to do is just stop talking and look away. They get the picture quickly and tell the people talking “urusai,” which literally means annoying, but in this context they’re saying, “shut up,” so I don’t have to say it. Thanks guys!
When they see me on the street, they’re usually so excited to see me and I ask them how their day is going and what are they up to. They answer, get shocked when they see Keith, call him “hella cool” then walk (or run) away giggling. Then the next day at school, regardless of how tough they are, it’s always the same,”UUUWOO! Tatum! I saw you! You were..with boyfriend! Right? He’s cool!” I get that without fail lol. I’m happy that they feel so comfortable like that, but I don’t know how they are in other prefectures, but mine are great.





I'm doing a lesson plan on the prom for all of my students, so I showed everyone pictures of myself and Keith and my senior portrait (everyone freaked out, even teachers lol), and so I had my laptop open and a student gasps and points out my desktop background she yells out, "Final Fantasy!!!" lol I thought that was cute since most students don't know anything about video games...being into agriculture and all..so I understood. I was like "..clloooooooose...it's Kaim from Lost Odyssey..do you know Lost Odyssey?" It was close since the company that made Lost Odyssey, which is Mistwalker, has all the awesome folk from Squaresoft before the Enix merger and joined up with Microsoft to make that sick game. She shook her head, but even then I was pleasantly surprised that she knew about Final Fantasy. We start talking about Final Fantasy and she starts bragging about how she loves Kadaj from FFVII Advent Children lol. I'm impressed that she knows him. I, of course, call Kadaj a chump and declare that Sephiroth is way better. Then she scoffs at me and we get into a silly fangirl argument lol. She was like, "Eewww! Why Sephiroth?! He's creepy!" I feign irritation and tell her, "Whaaaaaaaat! Kadaj is lamer than lame! Sephiroth is way cooler and his hair is way nicer than all three of those wannabes!" Then we start giggling while everyone stares because they don't know what we're talking about. In Japan there's not much in terms of common knowledge things in terms of subcultures; if you don't follow it, then you don't know about it. She explains that she never saw FFVII Advent Children and I'm like "Whaaaat! You need to see that! Shall I make a DVD for you?" She starts jumping around like a normal fangirl, but then she starts bowing -.-, and I'm like "Alright, alright, settle down..." but I mean you get used to it lol. So I tell her to remember to get it from me on Tuesday.

So, I saw her on Tuesday and she came earlier than she was supposed to. I was pleasantly surprised but I had the movie for her. I explained to her about how to play it, and to just drag and drop since it's a data DVD. Then she asks me some more questions and I answer them, show her how to drag and drop again, since apparently she has a computer at home (which is rare in these parts....), so I told her there should be no problem with the movie. Then I told her that it's a bit illegal to be distributing the DVD (ya know..gotta set an example) and that she can take her time in watching it as many times as she likes, but she eventually has to return it. She bows a bunch of times, humbly accepts the DVD then like..hops out of the room or something. She seems happy lol.

For me it's just a regular day bonding with students, but the English teacher looks at me oddly and after asking about the illegal thing, pointed out how happy she is to see me talking to that girl. She explained that she's actually quite shy and never speaks without being spoken to and it's a very good thing that she so readily came up to me and had a nice chat with me. Well, that's cool. I didn't know that, but I mean, we had a common interest so I helped her out with something I knew about.



If I cannot stand the obnoxious teachers or get extremely homesick, all I have to do is just look into a classroom or look down a hallway to see the reason why I’m here in this school…and it makes me smile every time.