SkOoL

School
Im sitting here right now killing time as I have about 6 hours to kill. My ass hurts from sitting so much this week. It gives me lots of time to observe the inner-workings of the Japanese school system, well that and veg out and daydream. I have organized my laptop, looked through all my photos, labeled all my 2500 songs on my ipod, as well as plan out the rest of my life. And I still need to find stuff to do. Do I think they want me on my laptop? Probably not, but its pointless to stare off in space when they don’t have anything for me to do. The Japanese seem to be very unconfrontational. For example, our janitor at my apato saw my NAU banner in my room and thought it was a poster. We cant put tacks or nails in the wall so he called my boss. Instead of calling me he called my neighbor who came over to ask me if I was using tacks. Seems like a lot of steps instead of just asking me.

As Eric, a current English teacher in my building taught me, do what you want. Basically, don’t be uncomfortable for their sake. So for example, the Japanese teachers will stand for 4 hours straight. I on the other hand want to cry like a baby after standing with my shoes off for 20 minutes. So instead of enduring this torture I now just grab a chair. F im really bored with nothing to do, instead of going to ask 5 different people if its ok if I walked around campus, I just go. Much easier this way and makes school somewhat more enjoyable.
An average day I get up at 530, walk around the block to wake up, shower, get ready, eat, check my email real quick, and head-off to school arriving just after 730. I then find my seat and begin filling it or the day. As I walk up to the school, all teachers have to stand at the entrance and say good morning to every student as they enter. It’s a lil intimidating seeing ALL teachers staring at you and whispering as you walk up but I just smile and say, O haio, go zai I mas" back to them. It means good morning. I then park the Silver Bullet, also known as my rusty noisy trash bike and head to the entrance. Their I find my indoor shoe locker and place my shoes in there and get out my Teva sandals which are my shoe of choice at school. Comfy yet airy. I began the first day wearing black dress pants, a white longsleeve button-up collared shirt and black tie.

This was only for my first introduction to the school at a ceremony hey held welcoming students back. I then began to wear khaki pants and a polo shirt everyday. However, after sweating out of every orifice possible due to the humid as hell weather and the vice-principals refusal to turn the AC on. I switched to what almost all male teachers wear: track pants and a t-shirt or polo, ladies dress a lil nicer. So I have been wearing my warm-ups track pants and my Stay-
dri or Under Armour t-shirts as they are somewhat comfortable in this swamp feeling teachers room/ The Principal and his sidekick, I mean the Vice principal, where dress pants, white short sleeve collared button up and slippers. I think they are stingy with the AC as every time he leaves the room, one of the teachers will hurry over and turn down the AC. When the Vice comes back in he will raise it right back up. Not caring that everyone in here, including myself, is using there lil handfans to keep from dying.

Then they have a morning teachers meeting where they go over all the events for the day then each grades team leader breaks down what is going on in each grade level for the day. Total time is usually 20 minutes. I used to just sit there with a lost/look on my face as I know they know I have NO clue what anyone is saying yet don’t bother to have anything explained to me. Now I just pull out a book and read. I’ll stop if the principal is talking very briefly then go back to what was doing. I allow them to interrupt my reading once in a while.. They don’t seem to mind me doing other things during these meetings so I don’t either
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The I usually "help" with anywhere between 1-4 classes a day.. I mostly sit there but yesterday he had me read the words for English word BINGO. Exciting I know. But at least it was something to do. They don’t want you speaking to the students in Japanese as they say it doesn’t help them.

The students actually do like the stickers I brought. Most are bands from America, such as 50 Cent, Good Charlotte, Weezer, Starting Line, etc. They have no clue who they are but compared to the "nice Job" stickers that are the size of a dime they get from the other teachers, they are kinda cool. I’m gonna run out soon so I better get some more sent over here or I will be out of items to bribe their responses with.

The students don’t know much English at all. Most can say. "Hello, my name is yoko ono. I like basuball." Then you say nice to meet you and they say, "nice to meet you too." IF you say anything else they don’t know it and will just smile. I would do the same so I cant say anything about that. Some cant speak anything and a handful can say more than this simple phrase, however none speak sentences or anything.
They all wear uniforms. Different colors for different grades. Boys always stick with boys, and the girls with the girls. Rows are divided by sexes but classes are co-ed. I haven’t seen any boys talking to girls yet..


Discipline:
The students have more respect than in the US, that or they are just scared shiteless of what will happen to them if they talk back. Outside of class in assemblies or anything being around a teacher they know they are not to goof around. Many wont even speak. They bow and are very respectful to all teachers. Yet to some of the "nice" teachers, I sit there while kids talk over t hem the whole time and ignore there pleas to stop. It gets pretty bad sometimes and I just want to tell the to shut up. I then start talking to the class and they keep talking. I raise my vice thinking that will help and just end up talking really loud over an even louder class. They do march in order into the assembly hall and stand and bow and say something before they leave class everyday.

I have noticed some teachers really rip into these kids verbally. One young lady teacher, who mind you is about 4' 5'’ and 90 pounds soaking wet, likes to get the kids to cry by standing 3 inches from there face like she was a drill sergeant and making them feel dumb. I also saw her smack a kid who had his head down while a speaker was talking pretty good on the back of the head. The same teacher saw a student wasn’t straight enough as the line leader and kicked him in the shins. Many of the guy teachers act just like a drill sergeant, screaming at the kids. They intimidate me just listening to them and I don’t know what they are even saying.


The Kids
Some of the kids are really cool. Everyone who I say hello or konichiwa with ALWAYS says it back. My first day, a lil punk named Shinji came by and was poking my shoulder and bugging me. He always acts like he’s punching me in the face. At first I was like, "What’s this hoodlums deal?", but know I just mess with him. When I see him scrubbing floors during cleaning time, I walk up and point to the floor and "say you missed a spot" and laugh at him. I call him Yakuza and e laughs too. He’s actually a funny kid.
Kids are quite nice though. They always say "Hellooo, Mr. Daniel". And ask "how are you?" They just like to show off that they know English I think. After you answer how you are they cant say anything else so the conversation ends. But they are still very cute and I thought all junior high kids were sent from ell. At least my experiences in AZ taught me that. I know none of the names except for maybe two or three. Everyone else’s name is quite long and all sound the same so its quite hard to remember. I know Kiche, Yakuza, and Sam. An American kid who lives with his dad, but cant speak any English. He looks like even other kid in the US so you want to say Hello and such but he just looks confused.