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.
A classic.
Thanks to everyone for all the messages of congratulations, can someone confirm I have caused the double upset of getting married before Rae and entering the paternal cycle? Does that make a Maverick?
I had something deep and meaningful to say about my time in Japan, I thought it up today whilst talking to the social studies teacher, it was like an epiphany – and then I got beaned in the face by a rogue balloon being used in a game of balloon volleyball. Needless to say in the ensuing match I forgot what I was going to write. So there you are, almost an epiphany, you heard it here first.
In other news, the world still collapsing as random 5 digits numbers become 4 digit numbers and big 4 digit numbers become smaller 4 digit numbers. I sometimes wonder what the overall energy saving is on having a stock market with a lower value. Possibly not enough to warrant a global finance meltdown, but its certainly a gamble worth taking once. It’s not like George Bush’s presidency could get any worse. Unless….
Yesterday I was roped into “student safety patrol” work. Which meant for one night only, all the teachers and parents clad themselves in flourescent colours (as a child I would have called that “flozzy colours” …anyone else do that?) and walk the kids home looking for suspicious folk about to pounce on the chillun. Thanks to this once a year measure, Misato has consistantly maintained a rate of “no attacks on anyone ever”.
I completed GTA4. I don’t really know what to say about it. Certainly, it was a fun game, and the graphics were quite intense. But, it was like they’d left a lot of what made Vice City and San Andreas truly great out of the game. The game as a whole seemed more linear to me, Nico Bellic was nowhere near as customisable as CJ and not as interesting as Tommy Vercetti. There were less side quests like the owning of businesses. The storyline just didn’t seem to touch the epicness of San Andreas, and although there were multiple ways the game could develop, given that their are only two different endings it didn’t feel like it made much of a difference which choises one made. Also, Yahtzee made a good point when he said “I think what disappoints me most is that we’re back in Liberty City again.“. This rings true throughout the entire game, die hard fans probably got a kick out of seeing certain bits and thinking “oooh that was in the first game”, but for the most part it just felt like a let down given how far one could go in San Andreas.
That said however, it is a decent game overall. The game entertained me for lengthy periods and the combat system has been greatly improved since San Andreas. The graphics are almost beyond belief in HD and the radio stations have some great tracks kicking about (although the talk shows are far less entertaining than previously). Anyway, that’s my piece, I think my next adventure will be “Little Big Planet” – it looks quite charming.
It’s rapidly getting cold in the mountains, the duvets have been broken out and it’s long sleeves to work. My contempt for the cimate is dissapating into what may well be a mother of a winter. If I recall last year I remember even as late as mid November saying things to the tune of “Man, why is it so warm still?” – of course no one replied being unable to understand that level of English. But nevertheless here we are in the ass end of October and I find myself unable to sleep at night under the thin summer blanket that got me through summer. For a miserable cold loving bastard like me, it’s a happy truth.
This post is finished, begone!
Have another:
Filed under: Daily life, Entertainment, Politics | Tags: AGoT, Mccain, Obama, school
Do you think the McCain campaign vet anything before they throw it out there? Or is that part of being a Maverick?
The debate yesterday was great fun, frankly it was the only one worth watching, and it was mostly thanks to McCain, both for his ramped up aggressiveness, which worked well early on making him look assertive and presidential, but made him look like an angry old man in the latter stage as “No Drama Obama” just yawned off a lot of what was being thrown at him. Watch one of the inifinite replays if you can; the format was much more interesting that the previous two.
Todays zen:
Kenta: Hey, Gareth, do you know Maho?
G: The Maho in my selection class I’ve been teaching for over two years? The Maho in your class of 17 that I visit two times a week? The only Maho in a school of 50?
Kenta: Yes.
G: Yeah, I recall her.
Kenta: She loves you.
G: Oh really? Well I’m married.
Kenta: Your clothes are cool today, she’ll be pleased.
G: Your clothes are ….. completely normal. I’m sure she won’t give a rats ass.
In other news, I really really need to focus my mental powers on constructing a decent AGoT deck. I spent a while staring at my cards last night trying to find inspiration but nothing came, a recent trouncing at the hands of Theo and the oddly handy Terence left me floundering desperately for some kind of wild strategy.
Today in politics, nothing you didn’t already know:
I’m going to miss Cindy McCain when the campaigns are over and done with.
Filed under: Daily life, Politics | Tags: Mccain, Obama, Playstation 3, school
YES:
I got offered a contract lasting until August of 2010 in this job. This is good news, I’d like to try and ride out the impending recession in relatively secure local government employ. According to the contracting manual, the offer of a fourth year means I have performed my job to an “exceptional level”. However, what it actually means is that I’m not terrible enough to justify spending around 500,000+ yen plus paperwork on a new ALT when extending my contract is free (it’s a little complicated, but it involved subsidies etc. for the town management). I’m not surprised by the positive development, but it doesn’t stop me being pleased about it. I figure if I can manage to extend it all through to August 2011 my Japanese will be pretty fluent (it damn well should be).
NOOOO!:
My Playstation 3 is broken. Yup, had it less than a month and already the laser has stopped working. The irritating thing about this is, whilst its still under warranty. It’s one of those irritating “send to maker” warranties, the store I bought it from won’t touch it. I suppose I should feel lucky, over all the consoles and computers I’ve ever had it is the only time I have ever had any kind of problem. Still, irritating none the less, I’m currently in the middle of enjoying being a crime lord in GTA4.
Yay?:
An extension of NOOOO really. Of course, as a result of the PS3 non-functionage I have to phone the technical help line in Japanese. Whilst my Japanese is decent I didn’t really want to have to go through the pains of negotiating with a help centre flunky in any language other than English. However, with little choice in the matter I went ahead and did it, and it went quite well I think. I managed to explain the problem and arrange a pick up and repair dealy, so yay for me. I’m now officially competent enough to return broken video games consoles.
..meh..:
The Presidential debate was an anti-climax; no one really talked about anything at all save the same pre-scripted splurge we’ve heard for weeks. I don’t think either candidate really came out on top, McCain seemed to finish slightly stronger but he did get blind-sided by Obama when he turned McCain’s “he doesn’t understand” jab into a chide about how “the thing he doesn’t understand is why we went to war with a country unrelated to 9/11″. Aside from that and one or two other moments it was a terrible dull affair, although I really do think that Barack Obama should adopt the use of “That One” or perhaps morph it into “The One” or something like that. Jonny Mac did him a favour I think, check out this website.
Filed under: Politics, Teaching | Tags: Japan, prime minister, school, Taro Aso, Yasuo Fukuda
Every year some kid discovers the internet and becomes slightly stupider. Kids in their naievety think that by discovering an online translation website, inputting all of their scrambled Japanese syntax into the application and pressing “translate”, they’ll have an award wining novel. What they actually get is 200 words of garbled literary diarrhea. It’s actually quite fun shooting them down.
Scene: Teachers room
Me: T, did you write all this yourself? About your holiday in Osaka?
T: Yes!
Me: Wow, this is long.
T: It took ages.
Me: However, it stinks.
T: What?
Me: What does “It was the most terrible turning of the pen that was amazed” mean? In Japanese please.
T: ….ehm…
Me: And this part: “my friend he does and does” ?
T: ….
Me: The jewel in the turd crown however is this part : “He was the behind of celluloid board and sticker posted too. Red ink to my skin was afixed duely” …what the hell were you doing on holiday?
T: I uhm…
Me: Did you perchance stumble across a translation site and think you could completely avoid doing your summer homework?
T: ……yes…..
Me: Then you’ve won the chance to play the “let’s do this again” game. Hand it in tomorrow, all written in your own hand to win the chance to not be picked to sing solo at the English speech contest next month.
Regretably, the self done effort wasn’t a massive improvement, although noticably shorter.
In more relevant news, once again the Prime Minister of Japan has resigned, with little explanation save that “he doesn’t want to do it anymore”. Since Jun-chan’s, enormously popular reign came to an end, two Prime Ministers have risen and fallen, both in less than a year. His direct replacement Shinzo Abe was deeply unpopular, but seemed to catch a lot of the blame for the Japanese pension crisis, which frankly I can’t understand as he wasn’t there long enough to cock it up, unless he went down to the office himself and burned all the records to create more space for desk lamps following the opening of IKEA in Osaka. After a year he quit stating “heatlh issues” and was replaced by Yasuo Fukuda, who is about as interesting as John Major and slightly less interesting than HB pencils. Fukuda suddenly resigned after not quite making it through a full year, stating that the Democratic party (opposition) make things too difficult. Stupid democracy. Anyway, the new guy is likely to be manga loving Taro Aso, having tried for it the last two times only to lose the in-party popularity contest, probably because he’s an otaku and smells.
Anyway, here’s to you Aso, and whoever replaces you when you burn your tongue on hot coffee and your toast falls butter side down.
-GaZ-
- They should rule who are able to rule best.
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Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), Politics
