The other teachers were trying to figure out a movie to show the students because the semester is winding down. Last year they showed "You've Got Mail" -.-. Ugh. No. It isn't even socially or culturally relevant anymore lol. Not to mention they were knocked out in the first half hour. Awkward. They also suggested showing "Ice Age" or "Shrek." That would be fine, if this were middle school. So...I suggested "Drumline" lol. It's better than their ideas, damnit! It's a part of my culture and I think they would appreciate the "One band, one sound" ideology within the movie. So, I bought it at a giant book/game/DVD/music store here to make sure it has Japanese subtitles and gave it to my supervisor to watch over the weekend. If she likes it, she can vouch for it to other teachers and they'll be passive-aggressively convinced to show it in their classes too. I'm not sure if I'm expecting her to like it, but I can definitely say that I won't be surprised if she wouldn't want to show it. I know it's just "Drumline" and it's not even all that spectacular in the States, but it's a completely different culture, people and beliefs. Perhaps watching this might help destroy some stereotypes, but like I said, I won't be surprised if she wouldn't want the students challenging the same ideas that they were taught in high school about "foreign countries." So...standby and I'll tell you how it goes.
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Yes, March 1st is the national graduation day for high schools in Japan. It was strange. It felt different from last year’s graduation. Not better, not worse, just different. I’m not even sure why. It could be because I’ve changed since the last one; I feel as if I’ve grown, learned and understood more compared to how I was around this time last year. So, I’m able to view everything with different eyes. Of course, it was the same as last year; they walk in with music played by the band, class by class, then they sit down. There are a couple of long-winded speeches by people no one knows. Then the Principal calls out everyone’s name one by one. Once they’re called, “they say “Hai!” and stand up. Once everyone is called they bow together then sit back down. After the speeches are finished, a representative of the graduating class goes up on and stage and reads a letter from them to the Principal. The representative this year was one of the girls from the Speech contest! The one who did the environmental speech. Then they all bow together. After the proceedings the graduates march back out to music while everyone applauds. 
It was so sad. These were the only guys that have been with me from when I first got here two years ago. They were a part of the 2E class last year. I felt like I was definitely able to get to know them well enough to believe that I think they’ll be alright! Of course they don’t actually have any interest in English but at the same time, this wasn’t the day for English. I wanted everyone to know exactly what I said, as I say it lol.
After the graduation, the students return to their classrooms and are given certificates and say a couple of words. I went to each and every one of their rooms, said a couple of silly words to cheer everyone up and took some pictures. My rockstar cicada kid wasn’t very spirited. The day before, he went to his father’s funeral. I didn’t find out until yesterday. It was by a car accident. How can anyone make him feel happy about his graduation? This is his only high school graduation and to have something so tragic happen at a normally happy occasion is so sad. There’s no Japanese equivalent for “My condolences” or “My thoughts and prayers are with your family” without translating it literally, but that will come off awkward. So, in this country, it’s best to just say nothing. 
Alright, I admit it. I cried a little -.-. It’s so hard not to. I’m leaving in July so it’s safe to say that I’ll never see these kids again. These kids that made my time here so worthwhile. Especially the all girl class. About 15 of them, including the teacher were crying before I even went in the room. Then it hits me that I’ll never see these young women again and I couldn’t hold back my emotions. It’s embarrassing! -.- I was able to cheer them up with some jokes but there was always that lingering feeling that this really IS goodbye. I really do hate crying in front of people -.-.
Unlike last year, the students didn’t adjourn to the biggest classroom and eat lunch; most of them had already gone home. The last time spent in their classrooms was longer than last year, so I guess there’s no time. I was a little disappointed about that but there’s nothing I could do. I certainly feel just as tired last year as I do now; it takes a lot out of you. I saw the new students a couple of weeks ago and I’m a bit sad that I won’t get to know them like I do my current students, but I guess I’ll leave that up to the next ALT. Thinking back on my last graduation post when I said that I think it’ll be a good year, it definitely was a good year, after all. 
The day after (today), my rockstar cicada came to see me. Surprisingly, he asked for the video of his speech contest. I was so surprised because he never wanted to see it lol, until now I guess. Of course I had it so I put it on a DVD for him and told him to pick it up at the school. My supervisor wanted to see it and I realized that the quality is not that great on it, so when he got here I asked him if he had a flash drive. He owns one but he didn't bring it, so I told him to come again with the flash drive and in the meantime he can watch the DVD. Even now he actually didn’t want to watch it lol. Weird. I mean, there are some aspects of Japanese culture that are based on appearances and despite his own personal tragedy, I felt a genuine happiness from him. I think he’ll be alright.
One of my cute students got in trouble a couple of weeks ago. She was sent in to my office since I’m in the guidance counselor office, I see and hear a lot of things. Other teachers don't know because they aren’t in the office, so that automatically means that it’s none of their business. Yeah, I don’t know either. So, the first grader (freshman) sits down at the table with her head down. I’m not really sure what’s going on yet so I just go about my business as usual. She’s kept there all day, having meetings with different teachers and having all of those teachers scold her, sometimes yell. So, I’m like “Oh no, she did something terrible. I hope she wasn't caught hanging around with older guys or caught smoking or something,” but I still didn’t know what happened.
I catch a telephone conversation about a boy freshman from our school who was called to a different office and scolded there. So a little bit is made clear, she was caught doing something with a boy. Oh no. I still don’t have the full picture though, but despite that, after a bunch of hours of that, her mother gets called in and now the same teachers have to speak with her mother and scold the kid again. By this time, she’s crying, I mean she’s a 14 year-old girl; it must be embarrassing to have your mother come in when you’ve been bad.
By this time I’m still not sure what happened but someone finally tells me the whole story. She was caught…hugging a boy, at 11pm, on a bridge that leads to the city. The 50 year-old head of the Agricultural department was out jogging, and he said that he saw them hugging. So……the next day he snitches on the kids. Like, really? So, I say that’s ridiculous. Yes, they should be at home at the time of night but they weren’t even focusing on the fact that it was late! The person who was talking to me told me, “That kind of behavior is inappropriate in Japan.” ……hugging people is inappropriate? Then he goes, “Well, if it was during the day time it wouldn’t be a big deal, but to be seen at night, with your school uniform on is very embarrassing for the school.” Not to mention, it wasn’t even a real hug! They were standing shoulder to shoulder, slightly turned into one another, holding forearms. So…she’s getting all this flack….for that?
But I mean, which is it? Is it the hugging or the fact that it was late? I can understand the time problem, but his main argument of why it was wrong was because of the hug. Whatever. Great job making her resent you guys. I think the main thing is that it’s not even about the students; it’s about how bad the school would look to other people outside. I mean, if it’s at 11pm, I really don’t think people care, not to mention, it’s quite dark out here at night so it would be kind of hard to guess where the student comes from based on the uniform. So this old dude sees them and snitches. Like…does he feel better about himself? Well I mean I shouldn’t even get on him because if it was anybody else, they would do the exact same thing and snitch. It’s a Japanese culture thing. I'll get back to you on how to say "Snitches get stitches" in Japanese lol.
After the parents came in, the teachers that were scolding her seemed even more agitated. Why, you ask? Well, the damn parents KNEW that the kids were out at night! They were well aware of that fact and gave them permission to go out and see each other! So…what the hell is the problem? That should be proof that it totally isn’t about these kids, but about how the school looks from the outside. The teachers even said, “The fact that the parents knew that the kids were out makes this even more problematic….” Why? I don’t know. It’s unjustifiable because of how it was carried out. So, that girl was brought here twice, both days she had long meetings, had her mom come in and started sobbing. I only saw the boy getting scolded ONCE, for 10 minutes, WITHOUT a parent. I brought that up to the same teacher who told me what happened, and he claimed that the boy is in a different room and he’s getting scolded there so they are both receiving the same treatment. Yeah, okay. Either way, they’re both just going to learn how to not get caught. All in all, it was a stupid situation and it seemed like they just created more problems with how they went about “teaching the kids a lesson.” Whatever.
The official Sports Festival was a couple of days ago. It was quite nice! The students put their hearts into it and it went great. Even the speeches in the beginning weren’t so bad. The groups were set up by their classroom and color. The sports consisted of running, crossing the bridge, some kind of rope grab, climbing monkey, giant group jump rope, and performances.
The running is just the simple, class vs. class showdown. All of the races were interesting though. I was surprised at some fast ones. The rope grab was just a giant group of them making a huge circle around broken pieces rope and everyone had to dash and grab as many as possible. There were some mini-tug of war games within that game, but that’s to be expected. 
The climbing monkey one was interesting. A giant group of the students all tightly grab a wooden pole, two of them are kneeling, with their backs facing the runners, while the remaining 6 runners wait for the signal. All of those 6 have to dash to the pole, use one or two students’ backs to jump on and get a good grip on the pole. Then they have to climb up and stick a little flag at the top, slide down then hit the hand of the next person like a mini relay race. It’s a bit dangerous because they fall sometimes but they all seemed to have fun.
Crossing the bridge is a fun looking, but another potentially dangerous game. One person, while getting their hand held, stands up on a students’ back, and walks down a line of back of students. There are only about 6 or 7 students so they have to continually run in place. Some of them fell, but they were okay.
The giant group jump rope is exactly how it sounds. Here are some pictures for it.
The performances were great. Most of them really had it on point, while others even though they were a little sloppy were great. Two groups did a small number to Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller.’ They weren’t bad lol. I was more impressed than anything because they actually tried to do the movements. Some of them half-assed it but I think that just came from having no confidence.
In the end, the all girl’s class one, the yellow team. Of course they were crying, that’s to be expected in these things. I….participated in a race. It was alright; I mean you can’t put a math and social studies teacher in a race and expect them to win, lol. But it’s okay. It was funny that even though all classes cheered for their own color, they all cheered together when I passed by. They’re cute lol. In any case, it was a good day, despite my going to work on a Saturday….at least I get Monday off.
I’ve said this before but; I’m at an agricultural school. Not many of my students are going to college. From the start, my students are meant to believe that they won’t achieve anything but being a farmer, a gas station attendant, a convenience store worker or making ramen for some stranger (meaning a ramen restaurant not in the family). They aren’t told explicitly; it’s the simple fact that they’re in a school called an Agricultural school, as opposed to a commercial, academic or marine school. The contest was the whole Miyazaki prefecture, so students in which their academic schools have a 95% college attendance rate also attended. Bi-racial students also attended. So my Rock Star Cicada already had about 2 major strikes against him. Despite all that, he came in 5th. I am so proud of him.
I’m heavily biased but I think he should have placed a number or two higher lol. Okay, that’s all I’m going to say about that. I told him about bi-racial kids and that because of how they’re raised they might or might not have excellent, natural sounding English. I told him not to worry about it though, and that all he had to do was focus on his speech. In our case though, the biracial kids didn’t compete in our recitation, rather they were doing the long 5 minute speeches.
Despite his nervousness, the fact that he put all of his trust in me made me even more determined to push him. All of his practicing and hard work paid off. He was up against 35 other students and completely destroyed 30 of them. The ones he didn’t beat had luck on their side -.-. I had to say that I’ve never been so nervous/agitated/anxious for someone not in my family before until that day. They weren’t necessarily bad emotions but they were strong. His voice was a little low because he was a tad too far from the mic but he did very well. We had a couple of hours to wait until the results were finalized though.
I saw Chisaka-san’s speech because we were all in the same room and she did well, she said she did better than she thought she would. She wasn’t able to place though, but I’m just glad that she didn’t freak out and forget her speech or something lol.
So everyone was sitting there, waiting for the results to be called. The second name to be called was my Rock Star Cicada. I couldn’t stop the smile. He did it. He went up to receive his victory certificate then he comes back, smiles shyly and goes, “….I got it.” I taught him natural English of course, so he can use “I get it” and “I got it” in the proper situations. He’s such a good listener!
The contest was on a Friday so I didn’t get all the “Thank you’s” n stuff until Tuesday. One of the teachers said that our school never got into the top 6 until Friday. I’m having a hard time believing that, but I can’t necessarily check it. Regardless, let’s just let the Rock Star Cicada have his day. He’s graduating next March. He is part of the small percentage of students who will head off to college, to the international school at that…..yeeeessss! When I see him in class, he doesn’t slack off on the proper pronunciation of English words even though teachers won’t correct him because they speak the same Katakana English. I think the best thing about him is that if you saw him, you would think he was just like every other normal Japanese high school boy. Little does anyone know, he can act, he has progressive thoughts about visiting other countries, he refuses to use the term “half” for biracial people and can pronounce the hell out of v’s, l’s, r’s and th’s. By the time you realize his hidden talents, you’re already charmed.
I’m helping out another one of my students for the same competition. This one, however, she’s practicing for a different category. I’m not too sure if her category includes awards, though. She was selected by the teachers because she’s so good at English, but she secretly told me that she didn’t want to do the speech she has. I was shocked because…ya know… it’s her speech, so how could she possibly not want to do the one she picked? Oh..right…she didn’t pick it; one of the teachers gave it to her. Sigh. This is exactly why I try and make the students pick their own speeches because I mean based on her attitude, it’s clear that she would rather do a different one. Sigh.
So, it kind of showed when I would give her the same pointers as Kenta-kun (The Rockstar Cicada) and while he absorbed it, internalized it, and show me that he’s listening by using my corrections, Chisaka-san would make the same mistakes over and over again, at the same parts of her speech. Er….okay, but I’m just going to make the same corrections, while just explaining them in different ways. When teachers talk about whether or not a student is good English that usually just means that they do their English homework very well in comparison to other students. You would have never known if you heard her complain about how difficult the speech is, even though Kenta-kun has a much harder one, in terms of pronunciation and vocabulary level. At the same time, I can understand why she is not as excited about it, simply because the speech wasn’t her choice. 
She would constantly ask me how Kenta-kun is progressing and would ask how often he comes and practices she immediately gets all competitive and always goes, “Okay! I’ll do my best!” and work that much harder. I just don’t know why she doesn’t do the speech just for her own benefit lol..but I’m not going to knock her motivation. I can safely say that she’s doing a lot better than when we first started and she’s trying to break out of the “katakana” way of speaking English. Katakana English is just Japanesing English. It essentially used to make English words easier to pronounce for Japanese people, but I mean, they should pronounce it in the way it’s supposed to be pronounced. Every other language requires that you try to sound as natural as possible, not settling for pseudo-English. For example, “I love the view from here,” in Katakana English is, “Ah-ee rabu za byuu furamu hee-ya.” That’s not English!!!
........ I think I’m going to do a class on proper consonant and vowel pronunciation. Yeah, I’ll do that when school starts again. Now, I’m well aware that there are plenty of different ways to speak English, simply because there are so many different languages in the world. HOWEVER, most of those other countries more than likely insist on sounding as natural as possible. I know that most students write words out in katakana so it’d be easier for them to pronounce, but that isn’t how it should be. Why? Well, the Japanese language doesn’t distinguish l’s from r’s and b’s from v’s. Even their way of making the v sound is “bui.” What’s that!!! You know….I’m gonna stop here since this isn’t the main focus of this entry lol.
In any case! After she got tired from using so much English, we usually end up chatting. She’s quite bright and simply adorable (like most students at MY school ☺)! I asked her about her other schoolwork and how she has been doing. She’s always complaining about things being “too difficult” or “troublesome” but she has no choice but to do it. The students here have a lot of homework to do during the break…which would make sense if they didn’t have to come to school during summertime! She and the other students have an outrageous amount of school homework. She has to do about 10 pages of Japanese, 20 pages of English, 10 pages of Biology, and about 15 pages of math problems.…kinda makes your high school summer reading list seem like fun, doesn’t it? lol
I look at all the work she has to do and she tells me, quite honestly, that she hasn’t finished it, nor does she want to….like most high school kids. I sympathized with her, but she’s well aware of the fact that she will be tested on all of those subjects in the first week when she gets back, so she NEEDS to finish that work. Then she says, “Hey sensei! Since we’re speaking Japanese and you know so much kanji (-.-), me and everyone else thought that you must be some sort of a genius. You can LITERALLY do anything right?” I immediately get suspicious, but then I realize that she ACTUALLY thinks that because then she whips out her math homework and asks me to help her!
Wait, wait, wait. My being here is SO completely unrelated to your math homework lol. Not to mention, foreigners speaking Japanese DEFINITELY doesn’t make that foreigner a genius. Also, what does my speaking Japanese have to do with any mathematical knowledge?
So, after laughing, I explain that it’s likely that I have no idea how to do her difficult math proble--- wait! I looked at the problems and realized that, after drudging up what I can remember from high school, I can actually help her! It was only multiplying binomials, quadratic equations, linear equations and multiplying fractions. Phew! I was expecting some outrageous SAT like math, but it wasn’t bad.
Unfortunately, I don’t know much math related Japanese so I had to ask her some questions before I can actually help her. Her main issue though was that she makes little mistakes so while her work is correct, the final answer would be off. Also, she didn’t really seem to understand the fundamentals of multiplication and division. As in, she would know HOW to get to an answer, but couldn’t explain it to me. Like no, 25 over 25 is NOT zero and no you can’t divide anything by zero, a negative minus a negative is still negative, and the best way to do most of those problems is to remember that you’re searching to isolate the x. I also taught her FOIL for the binomials since they don’t use that method here. Why don’t they use that! After I helped her out with math, she tried to push Biology on me and I chuckled before pointing to the door, telling her to leave because it’s 1pm during the summer and she’s at school with her uniform on!!
I tried to break things down easily for her because she refuses to see her math teacher about it. I completely understand lol. He’s a jerk. I told her that she should get a group of her friends together and do math and science in a group. It’s the easiest way to properly do your work if one of your friends knows how to do it, right? She says that she’ll try and get them together, but she doesn’t know if they’d want to meet up just to study. Okay…lol. 
I remind her that it’s summer and how she’s still in her uniform, so she needs to go home, change, and go have fun somewhere. She agreed but she didn’t have any idea of where to go. I mention the giant amusement and games place that Keith and I always go to. It’s 10 minutes by bike from our school. It’s an awesome place to play the newest arcade games or do coin pusher, crane games and pachinko. One floor is completely dedicated to bowling, since apparently it’s gotten quite popular here. It also has a pay section in which you pay 10 dollars for 3 hours of arcade games and sports like rollerblading, golf, badminton, pool, basketball, darts, fishing (!), soccer, tennis, archery and they even have a batting cage with pitching practice at the top floor. They also have a relaxation and spa section where you can change into some slippers and sit down in an expensive massage chair with the other people in that room and just watch tv. There’s also a giant kids section where there are more of those awesome massage chairs for the parents. However… her eyes widen and she quickly shakes her head and freaks out, telling me, “No! No! No! That place is way too dangerous and scary! Tatum-sensei, do you really go there?! Aren’t you bothered by the people there and do scary people come up to you?” You know?.…I’m going to just leave that alone lol.
Well…of course not in a literal sense, but I’m preparing him for a speech contest in September. There are different sections of the speech contest, his is just a recitation, but he still competes with other students in his category. When he first came to me, though, it was quite awkward. Another teacher and I decided his speech. I mean at first the silly teacher was trying to force him to pick something from “An Inconvenient Truth,” and I frowned at her so hard! -.- Like what are you doing? That’s obviously her interest; forcing him to talk fiction about the environment won’t go over well with anybody, especially the JET judges. I tried to explain that his book is only meant to scare people like her by using sensational imagery, but then she misinterprets what I was trying to get at and said, “Yeah! It’s very sensational right? I mean he was able to gather so much information!” ….sigh. Anyway…no. No, I will not let you use one of our students to spread sensational environmental fiction. Just… no.
So then whenever I asked him what he wants to speak about, he’d just cock his head to the side with his head down so I won’t be able to see his face…..okay. Wtf do you want to speak about? lol It was so frustrating for me because HE’S the one that's going to be standing there in front of all those people when that day comes, so I don’t want to force a speech on him if he doesn’t want to do it. I’m not okay with picking something that I would think he likes. I want to know what he likes. He mentions Harry Potter and how he has most of those books in English so I said great! Then I tell him to pick his favorite section of any book, take a 3 minute passage from it then bring it in. Seems easy enough right?
Next day, he comes in with a sad face and lets me know that he couldn’t find something because he gets tired when he has to read all that English. lol…what? Well I can understand what he means because I get tired of reading Japanese newspapers. So he indirectly left it up to me and the other teacher. It just felt inherently wrong that another teacher and myself made this kind of decision for him, but he didn’t say anything! Sigh. It was clear that we had no choice in the matter, so we looked for something for him to do.
Some English books here have little passages in which you’re supposed to guess what or who the speaker is based on the speech. As I was flipping through the books, I found a story of cicada that’s a flirtatious rock star. It’s simply one of the cutest things I have ever read. It’s done so perfectly well! The cicada rock star brags about how he did the underground scene for a bunch of years, how he is in an intense competition with the other chump cicadas because they have the nerve to think they are rock stars, how he’s hot and that no one sings like he can. Of course you’ve noticed this by now, my student is nothing like that rock star cicada, but that’s what is so funny about it! 
He said it was too difficult, but then I pointed out that since he’s smart, there’ll be no trouble and that I’ll help him. When he first read it out loud to me, I realized that I had to turn him into a rock star cicada for a month and a half. I didn’t know if he even wanted to go that far, but then he told me that he really wants to win. So, I taught him “rock star” hand gestures and natural movements that coincide with his speech because I warned him that just standing there and reciting what he practiced isn’t going to win the judges over. I also helped him with his confidence and helping him give off the idea that he’s the best cicada on the planet. I explained that this rock star cicada is arrogant as hell, like most human ones, and he’d need to aggressively get that point across when the day comes.
Somehow we got into a conversation about music, then I started talking about Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy and how he has the typical attitude of an arrogant rock star (without having any real talent), while the ACTUAL lead singer, Patrick Stumph, doesn’t embody a rock star at all. I mentioned it in passing, but then the next day he tells me that he really likes Fall Out Boy (!!) and he would like to hear more bands of the same genre that they are in. What the hell lol. Okay! Sweet! I think stuff like this is necessary though, to help him get into the mindset of a rock star cicada since the whole passage is written the first person view so clearly the speaker is the cicada. 
Then he asked me about accents and how singers with accents sound. I had him listen to The Klaxons and some of Corrine Bailey Rae because of how you can hear their accents when they sing. He wasn't able to pick up on it so I helped him out by pronouncing the differences in some of the words. He caught on quickly after that!
So, before I realized it, my cute student walked off with burned albums of Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco and My Chemical Romance while I’m sitting there wondering if I came on a bit too strong with the whole music thing. lol But it’s okay! He told me that it’s his favorite genre of music and it’d be “amazing” to hear it in English and it’d be good English practice for him. Oh…okay then. lol
He’s been progressing so well! It’s so obvious that he really enjoys what we’re doing and likes pretending to be a rock star cicada because he reads his lines with such confident arrogance! Lol I told him as long as he keeps his new found arrogance for the cicada, then he’ll be fine. The main problem that I’ve been helping him with is how to put emotion in his words since English isn’t spoken in a monotone, especially with a rock star cicada as well as how to pronounce certain words. I’m so glad that he’s taking this seriously; well then again of course he is because he signed up for it. 
It just makes me nervous because I know he really wants to win but we are an agricultural high school. There are a lot of academic high schools in where English is treated as serious business because most of the students in those schools are heading for college, and English knowledge is necessary for college entrance exams. So, there are students who already sound like native speakers and will have no trouble with consonants and vowels, but we can’t be pessimistic.
If he wins in his category, he gets to be in the news and that is the main reason for his hard work… just to be recognized. Well then damnit, if that’s what you want, I’ll try and make you as natural as I can! Stick with me kid, and I’ll make you into the most arrogant cicada rock star that the contest has ever seen! lol
Today was quite alright. The final exam is coming in a couple of weeks and it’s my job to do the listening section of the exam. Not a problem. I only had one team teaching class today, but if I have only one class that means that I’m sitting around for the rest of the day. I wouldn’t mind doing that, if I didn’t feel so guilty -.-. Some people like getting paid to do nothing, but it makes me feel like a fraud, not to mention I really don’t mind going to a class and being an assistant for 50 minutes. All I have to do is stand there and look foreign while helping out with pronunciation and telling them small differences about Japan and America.
A strange class that I have this year is the 1L class. The L classes are all girls. 1L, 2L and 3L are all girls because L stands for our equivalent of home and careers. I think the L stands for life…probably. So yeah, normally the L classes have the smartest and most energetic students in the school. However, this class is a little bit different. They’re just as smart as they’re expected to be, but…..they’re so….quiet. Now if you’ve been at a Japanese school, you’ll realize that Japanese girls are just like any other kind of girl; loud and borderline out of control when it comes to their noise making. I always look forward to L classes simply because I know it’s going to be a fun and engaging class where translation from the teacher is rarely even necessary because some students can translate for everyone else. This year’s 1L class clearly understand everything I’m saying, but….they’re unbelievably hesitant to say anything. Huh. Why the hell….
I think I figured it out though, seeing as how they’re just as…quiet…with every other teacher. The female JTE told me that she thinks that they’re all under a lot of pressure and they think that they have to be serious with every class, including English. That’s…actually quite great that they’re taking it seriously. However, they’re taking it to the point in where they don’t really practice speaking English because they’re afraid of making a mistake. Okay…that’s not too great but I see where they’re coming from. They still need to speak English…for ya know…. communication. So, we have to do something to get them just as energetic as any other class. That’s usually why if I don’t have any team teaching classes, I’ll go to the 1L class and assist in hope that they’ll be more inclined to use English if they see me at times where I don’t have to be there. So far it seems to be working and it’s gotten to the point where they’ll actually yell my name out and tell everyone that I’m coming, or I’ll get “Oooooooo….” If they see me walk in lol. Ah….it’s an adventure everyday.
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.