Gaz: Big in Japan

Towards the end of the third term, everyone stops  caring. The graduates all upped sticks and away, the entrance exams over and most of the textbooks now completed, it’s merely a coast to the finish. It’s usually around this time that I start really start losing my patience with kids who fuck around too much, to the point that I have a reputation for it at one of my smaller schools.

The reputation is deserved to say the least. There are a number of kids in this school who just fuck around and undermine the teachers authority. Ms. M who is a great person and has a wonderful relationship with the kids is only held back by her lack of discipline keeping ability. I guess it’s because she’s young and hasn’t gotten up to speed with class discipline yet – so I’ve been taking free reign to force it on the more unruly members of the class by: taking their stuff, yelling at them, physically escorting them back to their seats if they decide to fuck around. It’s actually starting to have an effect too .. I’ve probably lost my friendly foreigner image a lot but there’s no reason to be friendly to those who respond with fuck wittery . I’ve gotten so unfriendly towards certain students in fact that conversations like this are common:

Principal: I see N is in a bad mood today.

Teacher: Yeah, somethings up with him.

Principal: Gareth, did you yell at him today yet?

Oddly I hadn’t, but it seems that this one particular kid has complained about how much I yell at him for what he feels is regular activity.

I wouldn’t say there’s a general lack of discipline in schools here, I think to an extent issues are dealt with using the most even handed approach possible, but the issue is the lack of consequence for ones actions. suspension, expulsion and detention are never options, even banning from club activities doesn’t seem like something teachers are willing to revert to. In many cases of bad behaviour the parent will often also launch to blame the teachers – refusing to believe their child has done anything wrong. Japan also has a massive problem with truancy, not in the “going to school and then bunking off” sense that we are familiar with in the UK. The problem is kids simply staying at home and their parents giving in to the refusal of the child to go. Being British I find this unthinkable, as we all know consequences for not adopting that posture are possible arrest for the parent(s) and juvey for the kid. But in Japan it’s all “Aah, he/she’s just a bit weak, it can’t be helped.” or “He/she struggles with the system, the atmosphere doesn’t work for him”. Piece of bad news there then: You’re completely fucked unless you get over it! Seriously. What are you going to do? Live off your parents for ever? Just not go into work? What? These are things you have to do and kids who don’t go to school (and their parents) need to figure this kind of stuff out. It’s not rocket chemistry.

I recall Theo telling me about one of his worse schools where a student once punched an elderly lady teacher during class. The punishment? Having to make a weak verbal apology later in the staff room. Not even in the class in front of the other students. Where is the fucking point? Physical violence met with an insincere private verbal apology? I wonder if Japan’s discipline system has fallen too far too fast. When Mayumi was in school corporal punishment was still allowed, that was only 12 years ago and now they can’t even dish out a lunchtime detention!

I hasten to add as a footnote that this it is not all bad. The majority of places I go have little if any discipline problems and the studnets are very well mannered and a joy to teach. I am impressed by many schools’ ability to lead by example and try to calmly educate the right way of doing things into the students rather than carrot and stick them into it. I also imagine that there are probably more youth culture problems in the UK than Japan, despite the range of punishments availabe to British teachers. Perhaps there is something in that, I wouldn’t like to venture an opinion because I don’t think scapegoating a single entity is going to work frankly – so lets just blame courgettes for now (or zuchini if you have the custom of calling it so), because they are a blight on humanity.