Getting Physical

I’ve been uncomfortable in the teacher’s room before as one of the teachers berates a student for something.  Normally it involves some yelling and a kid nearly in tears.  Today took things to a new level.  I have no idea what was going on, but one of my 8^th grade boys came in and was talking to his homeroom teacher (who yelled at him last week.  During that conversation I caught the word “lazy” several times).  I left the room and when I came back the two of them were talking to the head teacher.  Then the P.E. Teacher, who is also linked to the 8^th grade class got involved.  I’ve never seen him so angry.

I was sitting at my desk, desperately trying to distract myself from the spectacle before me.  The boy already looked on the verge of tears and I really thought he was going to lose it once the P.E. teacher went off on him.  He yelled loudly at him, which any other student walking by the teacher’s room could have heard, and then he pushed him.  I was convinced I hadn’t seen that at first.  I thought maybe he had just backed up because it was an intense situation.  But then he pushed him again.  And a third time. 

I understand that there are some kids who need the fear of god put into them by someone in order for them to straighten out.  But this boy is not that type.  He’s a shy, quiet boy.  I can’t imagine anything he could have done that excused that kind of behavior. 

I know that my reaction to this is greatly colored by my own culture and that it isn’t my place to judge.  But it made me incredibly uncomfortable and it was really hard for me to just sit there and not do anything about it.  I’ve wanted to go hug kids after they have been berated by teachers, but this was a lot more than that.  He did not hurt the student.  The pushes were forceful and serious, but only enough to make him take a step back.  He bumped into one of the desks and knocked some things over, but that was the worst of it.  Still, the idea of a teacher laying a hand on a student who didn’t seem to have it coming really bothered me.  I’m almost afraid to ask what he was being yelled at for.  I’m not sure if they will even tell me as it could be a private matter. 

I’ve only seen a teacher get physical with a student one other time.  In my first year here I went with the Japanese teacher up to the 9^th grade classroom for lunch.  She asked one of the boys to go downstairs and get my lunch.  The boy made a big deal about it and threw out his arms and yelled “Shit!”  The teacher, who was one of the nicest ladies I have ever met, promptly smacked him in the head and told him off for such inappropriate behavior.  The student calmed down and went and got my lunch.  Later, when we were brushing our teeth in the teacher’s room the Japanese teacher told the art teacher about what had happened.  She was really embarrassed by the whole thing, mostly because it had happened in front of me.  She turned to me and smiled apologetically and said, “Amanda-sensei.  Not every day.” 

At the time I thought it was a great thing.  He had totally deserved it and she had not struck him hard.  Just enough to get his attention and let him know that he had crossed a line.  But the student today didn’t seem to have done anything that required such a reaction.  He wasn’t talking back or not paying attention.  He already looked like he was going to cry, implying that he understood the seriousness of whatever was going on.  But I have to trust that the teachers involved know the situation better than I do and try to put it out of my mind.

Teachers don’t take sick days

When I first got to Japan, we were all told that although our contracts granted us sick leave, it might be slightly difficult to use it.  Two months went by before I needed my first sick day.  I called the school, as I knew I was supposed to, as soon as I knew that I wasn’t going to make it in that day.  They said they would inform the BOE for me.  So I spent the day sick in bed, and the next I felt better and went back to school.

Later in the month, I noticed something strange on my attendance sheet.  It’s a calendar like sheet that I stamp for everyday I’m at work.  It’s located at my base school, so I only stamp it on Monday and then on Friday for the rest of the week.  I had left the day I had been sick blank.  Because I didn’t work that day.  The problem was, when the Vice Principal was doing the records at the end of the month, he counted it as one of my vacation days. 

I was unsure as to how this had happened, as I had told them I had been sick.  If you miss three days or more in a row you have to get a doctor’s note.  But one day doesn’t require any documentation.  I asked my Japanese English Teacher about sick days and he wasn’t sure what I was talking about.  Even when I said the Japanese word for sick day (byokunen) he still looked confused.  He thought about it and told me that the principal and vice principal probably didn’t know what that was.  He thought that maybe one teacher had taken it years ago, but only when he had had to stay overnight in the hospital.

So now I not only felt kinda bad for trying to take a type of leave that Japanese people apparently reserve for serious illness, but I didn’t know how to fix it.  I emailed one of the program advisors and he was able to help walk me through how to fix it.  He told me this type of problem was very common.  Japanese teachers do not take sick days.  They use their vacation days if they absolutely have to miss school. 

Japanese teachers are so busy that they often are not able to use all of their vacation days.  ALTs however, have nothing to do over the breaks, and need their vacation days to travel back home to visit family.  When you consider that basically two days of every trip overseas can be chalked up to travel time, it all adds up.  And our employers understand this.  It’s the reason we even have sick days in the contract. 

After I got it sorted out the first time, it hasn’t been a problem since.  It’s just another interesting example of how the cultures differ.

I actually got sent home once from elementary school.  I wasn’t feeling great, but I thought I was well enough to get through two classes.  Apparently I looked like I was about to die.  This seems to be the case whenever I am slightly under the weather.  They took my temperature at the school.  It was a tiny bit high, but not a fever.  Fearing for the health of the children, I was asked to go home and “take a rest.”

Another interesting cultural difference is that every time I feel a little sick, one of my teachers offers to take me to the hospital.  This always strikes me as odd, when I only have a little cold.  Who goes to the hospital for a cold?  Japanese people apparently.  It seems to be the general standard that if you feel sick, you go to the doctor and get medicine.  I hate hospitals and will avoid them at all costs.  I avoid going to hospitals in Japan because I don’t like not understanding what’s going on.

The one time I did go to the hospital, I had been feeling bad for several days.  My doctor who spoke a little English told me, “I don’t think you have Influenza.  I think you have the common flu.”  I’ll let that one sink in for a moment.  I didn’t bother bringing up the fact that, as far as I was aware, InFLUenza was the common flu.  I just nodded, assured in the fact that my doctor didn’t think I was going to die.  He gave me medicine, including my first ever powdered medicine.  That’s right, powder medicine.  I was lucky I had seen my teachers take such medicine or I might have been confused on how to take it.  You might think that it should be mixed with a drink.  But no, my friend.  You simply pour the powder into your mouth and then drink some water to wash it down.

A final note on Japanese hospitals.  The word for hospital is byoin.  The word for hair salon is biyoin.  When I learned that I couldn’t help but imagine some foreign guy who had been shot hailing down a cab and desperately asking to go to the nearest hospital, only to be taken to get his hair done.  Granted, I’m not sure how you would get shot in Japan, and I’m not sure how the cabbie would miss the fact that you were bleeding all over his seat, but you get the idea.

Fortune slips

Back in January, Eric and I went to Fukuoka to meet some friends.  The next day we were wandering around looking for places to shop and instead found a shrine.  As you do in Japan.  Kushisa Shrine to be exact.  We wandered around and took a bunch of pictures, which may be posted at a later date. 

Then I noticed people inserting money and taking papers out of a little box.  These papers are fortune slips or called omikuji, and for a small offering, you can take one and see what kind of luck you will have.  Since this shrine is in a big touristy city, it not only had slips for native Japanese speakers, but also had sections for English, Korean, and Chinese fortune slips.  I should also mention that this is entirely on the honor system.  The sections containing the fortunes are not locked or latched in any way, but I can’t imagine anything being worse luck than stealing something from a shrine.

So Eric and I each inserted our 50 yen (about 50 cents) and drew a fortune. 

Our results are as follows.

Mine:

Eric's:

If your luck is bad you can tie the fortune slip onto a nearby tree or metal wire on the shrine grounds to wish for your luck to be better.  Ours were good though, so we kept them. 

Different Roles

In America it is up to the parents to instill values into their children.  If a child turns out bad people assume that they were not raised “correctly” by their parents or guardians.  Here in Japan the responsibility of raising children and turning them into productive adults is divided a little differently.  My students take classes in moral education as part of their normal school lessons.  Important daily habits like always brushing your teeth after eating and eating balanced meals are strongly reinforced at school.  I have heard that if a student gets into serious trouble the police go first to the school and then to the parents.  Here, if a child were to behave badly I think that people would ask what school they went to and would think that it was a bad school for not teaching the children how to behave properly. 

One day, while I was sitting in the teacher’s room at junior high one of the first grade (7^th grade) girls came into the teacher’s room to talk to the English teacher.  He was also one of the first grade homeroom teachers.  All of the teachers at my schools are assigned to one of the homerooms.  I don’t know what all their duties are, but at this school those teachers handle the homeroom periods in the morning and before the kids go home or to club activities, eat lunch with that class, check their daily diaries, make announcements that concern that class in the morning meeting, accompany that group on school trips, and are just generally responsible for those kids and their activities. 

So this little girl comes in and before long I realize that she is being yelled at.  Now, he wasn’t shouting, but he did raise his voice (which is rare for this teacher) and sounded really mad and went on for quite a while.  She looked like she was about to cry and I just felt really uncomfortable sitting there at the next desk.  I was wondering what she could have done to deserve such a talking to.  And I couldn’t understand enough to really tell.  At the time I thought it might have to do with English class (where she is one of the weakest students), but now I’m not so sure.  Because a few weeks later it happened again. 

This time it was the Japanese teacher who was yelling at her.  And she is one of the nicest ladies ever so it was really odd to see that side of her.  This incident happened right after the students took their term tests.  From what I did pick up on in the one sided conversation I can only assume that she did abysmal on most if not all of her tests.  Again the student stood there and looked miserable and responded on cue and averted her eyes.  And it was at that point that I realized why I felt so uncomfortable.  I felt like I was watching a parent scold a child. 

I felt like one of my friends had just been called over by a parent and was being severely scolded for something.  Or that I was watching one of my friends eat into one of their kids for something I didn’t understand or didn’t think was all that bad.  I’m sure everyone has been in this sort of situation.  Watching someone scold their children in public is never fun and always makes me a little uncomfortable (unless they are being scolded for annoying you, then it is slightly satisfying).  That’s something you expect to happen at home, not out in the open.

And the same was true here.  I didn’t expect to see something like that at school.  Now she wasn’t being paraded around in public or anything.  She was in the teacher’s room and it was after school so there were fewer students about.  They weren’t doing it to publicly embarrass her.  It also seemed out of place to me because I don’t normally associate that kind of tough love with teachers.  I expect it from parents or a guidance counselor.  And then I remembered that we don’t have counselors in schools in Japan.

I started thinking back to my high school days and how much work my counselor did for us.  On top of general encouragement for all and individual attention for those in need of someone to talk to, she did a TON of work in order to help us all succeed in college.  She gave us scholarship handouts and reminded us of deadlines.  The teachers here have to do all that kind of work themselves on top of their normal teaching duties.  I already knew that sometimes my teachers have to miss a day of school to go deliver forms for my students to take high school entrance exams.  But it didn’t dawn on me until then that that was the kind of thing I would normally associate with a counselor’s job and not a teacher’s. 

One of my third grade students asked me the one day, “What were you doing yesterday?”  I told her I was reading a book and asked her the same question.  “I was taking a test,” she answered and by that she meant her entrance exam for a High School in Kumamoto City.  “Was it difficult?”  “Yes.”  Then she turned to the English teacher and asked him the same question.  He laughed and said “I was waiting for you!”  She smiled and said, “Thank you for yesterday!”  It was adorable.

Everyday my students write in their school diaries.  Each afternoon they write the next day’s schedule in the notebook, along with any preparations they are supposed to have done for that class (homework and such).  Before they turn them in the next morning they also write a little note to their homeroom teacher about how they are feeling and the other things going on in their lives.  Concerns, hopes, achievements, progress they are making, that kind of thing.  And every morning the home room teacher collects them, reads them, and writes a response to every single one of the students. 

Now this isn’t optional; the student’s have to do it or they get in trouble.  But to me, it seems to help the teachers play the role of parent.  An actual parent would probably talk to their child over dinner or during some other family time, but the teachers are almost always busy.  They certainly don’t have time to seek out every student for some quality conversation time.  But the teacher’s really connect to the students through these journals.

This week several of my schools let out early to allow for parent teacher conferences.  In Japan, it is not the parents who come to the schools.  Instead the home room teacher goes and visits the student’s homes in order to meet with the parents.  I’m not exactly sure how these meetings go but I imagine it really lets the teachers see what the home life of their students is like. 

Compulsory Volunteering

One day at school my JTE approached me and let me know that in the afternoon the students would be doing volunteer activities.  They would go to the homes of elderly people and help clean.  They do this twice a year, but this was the first time I had been invited to go along. 

The group I tagged along with was washing windows, but I saw other groups with gardening tools and other cleaning supplies as well.  My JTE and I were supervising two groups of three students.  We followed the first group through the maze of little alleyways to a nice looking house.  In Japan the front area just inside your door (known as the genkan) is seen as public domain.  So we just opened the door and the kids took a step inside and called out to the woman who lived there.  They identified themselves as the volunteers from the junior high and waited for a response.  We could hear a TV, but no sound of movement.  So we waited and kept trying.  After a few minutes we finally heard someone moving about.  Since Japanese houses seem to be made of doors I’m not sure if she had stepped out and just returned or if she had been in the back of the house and hadn’t heard us. 

She greeted us cheerfully and we got right to work cleaning windows on the inside and outside.  The house was a very traditional Japanese house and it was really cool.  Both my JTE and I were marveling at it, probably because we both live in tiny apartments.  After a while my JTE and I stopped cleaning and told the woman that we had to go check on another group of students.  Our departure was delayed however when she revealed she was making us coffee.  We didn’t want to be rude, so we sat down and drank a little of the coffee before we skedaddled out of there.

We met the other group of students on our way to the house they were supposed to be at.  They had waited a very long time, and, besides a loudly barking dog, no one seemed to be home.  We went back to the house to check again, but still no one was there.  So we headed back to the first house and basically started looking for some windows that were dirty so the kids could wash them.  After they did at least a little work we headed back to the first house.

The wonderful elderly lady welcomed all of the kids and, since work was over, sat them all down in her living room.  It was cold, so we were all huddled under the wonderful warmth of the kotasu (a magical little heated table that makes winter so much more bearable) and she served us all snacks and drinks.  She was excited to talk with the students and kept bringing out food for everyone.  We found out that her daughter had done the English recitation contest when she was in junior high school and that she now lived in Tokyo. 

After a pretty long while we all packed up and headed back to school.  I commented to my JTE how nice it had been.  He told me that while the cleaning is the reason they go out, he feels that visiting with the older people is much more important.  He told me that every year it’s the same, a little time cleaning and then a lot of time sitting and talking.  He wasn’t sure if the students really appreciated the experience but I think that a good number of them did.  They all had big smiles and really listened when the woman shared her stories with us. 

In America I had some similar experiences with Girl Scouts and Sunday School, but I can’t remember doing volunteer work as a part of school.  The student council did some volunteer work, but it was optional.  The only required volunteering I can think of was, just before high school graduation, we went and helped put out flag in the cemetery for Memorial Day.  This is just another example of how Japanese schools teach things that I wouldn’t traditionally think of as school subjects like morals and values.  I’m glad the students seemed to enjoy their out of classroom lesson and I enjoyed taking part in it with them.