teaching in japan

my teaching career here in japan is coming to a close. i was supposed to be finished at the beginning of september, but as a favor to my boss - who was really good to me - i agreed to stay until they found a replacement.

my schedule was quite strange; i worked at four different schools a week. each over thirty minutes from my local jr train station. sundays i went to akashi, which is the closest. tuesdays i went to aboshi, farthest from my house and about an hour and a half train ride. fridays were at hirohata, i took the san-yo line about an hour away. mondays were at kakogawa, about forty five minutes by rapid jr train.

sundays, to put lightly, were a nightmare. not only was i the only foreign teacher there, the way the school was ran was very tight and strict. every week my classrooms were silent as a graveyard.

yes, i accept that all my students were shy and very majime - "serious" - to the point that they did not speak. like, at all. whether i asked the room at large who got problem number one, nobody answered. so i'd tell them that they don't have to speak, to just raise their hand if they were able to answer number one. a few times i wondered if they were even breathing. it sometimes got to the point that i'd yell - no effect - or be kind - no effect - or literally do nothing at all - still, nothing. so by the end of the fifth or sixth week i finally broke it down for them.

i explained that in 2020 every college in japan would have officially changed their entry test requirements.

the ministry of education decided that instead of just being able to read and write these kids must also be able to speak fluently by the time they apply to colleges around the country. so, how else better to learn than from a native speaker? at their regular schools they are taught grammar and such by a japanese teacher, but of course their pronounciation and actual understanding of the english language is nto equivalent to somebody who was born speaking it, so they (they as in companies like mine) hire native speakers to teach japanese students. especially now that the ministry changed the requirements native speakers are becoming more in demand than they were before.

mind you, most of these kids can read and write as good as a third or fourth grade english speaking kid.

i went on to tell them that yeah, maybe they're scared of speaking up and making a mistake. i was like that in school too. but, that i don't want them to try for my sake, because at the end of the day i'm not able to force them to study english - along with their six other subjects they study. i'm not the one who has to learn a new language and be able to speak in fluently in the next 4, 5, 6 years. i asked them to try for their own sake because truly, i wanted to seem them succeed. there's something about watching one of your students figure something out on their own that really moves you. or me, anyway.

still no effect. so, i just went on with the classes and stopped asking them if they understood or if they wanted me to read the question again or explain anything.

it felt like defeat. these kids either really hated learning english or were unable to utter a word in front of somebody who wasn't 100% japanese.

mondays i was supposed to be an assistant to the head teacher at the biggest school in my company. yet, he pawned off the teaching and basically all the work onto me and my two japanese coworkers because he was "way too busy to teach" so if i could do it for him it would really help out a lot. yet, every monday he'd sit in the back of the classroom doing nothing.

my two japanese coworkers - who i really have enjoyed working with - kept a smile on their face, said "yes, of course" every time the head teacher would ask them of something.

oh, the japanese and their never ending ability to hold onto their pride and keep up their tatemae. which literally translates to "standing front". it's something all japanese have - and if you don't you're weird or have issues or are an outcast because you can't conform.

for me? i would bite my tongue and do my best to not roll my eyes. i couldn't stand the hypocrisy and almost laziness of the head teacher there. apart from pawning off his job onto me, he talks slow and loud and in circles. whenever he spoke there never really seemed to be an end or a point. mind you, he was kind, just kind of... slow? not even sure how to word it.

my tuesdays were out in the middle of east jesus no where, where i had all my own classes. my second and third grade junior high school students were a blast. i'm going to miss them a lot.

fridays, were the same schedule as tuesdays. all my own classes, except for the fact that only my third graders were fun.

i learned how to teach three different curriculums working with this company. basic eikaiwa - conversation - class, a class called 4 skills english created by my boss for junior high school students, and lepton which the kids used CDs to follow along in their textbooks with.

teaching at juku schools was not something i had anticipated. juku schools are cram schools, it's sole purpose is for kids to learn how to take tests and study more than they already do for their classes at regular school. they get extra homework, extra study time, extra time at a god damn school.

my students came to class after a full day of school to study english and other crucial subjects. i had kids in first grade coming to study an extra hour and a half or two after a full school day. my junior high school kids came in after school and three or four hours of sports or band practice to stay until nine or ten at night just to go home and do it all over again.

at first i was determined to get all my kids to turn in their homework - whether it was for the eikaiwa class, lepton, or 4 skills - but watching them fall asleep at their desks, or once have a panic attack because she wasn't able to complete her homework, made me realize how fucked up the system is here.

these kids don't get a break. i'm not even sure they know what it's like to truly be a kid. they are forced to study, study, memorize, study, learn to take a test, study, memorize, just to get into an ok college to do it all over again for four years. JUST to get a job where if something happens that they weren't trained for they freeze up and panic.

the pressure put on the young generation to be perfect, model students is kind of appalling. every week a lot of my junior high school students would say they didn't do their homework. i know how many other subjects they're required to study for. so, i'd pretend to get mad, make them promise to turn it in next week, and then do it all over again the following class. because, in reality, i don't care. if them skipping doing some unnecessary english homework means they get to chill out for 15 or 20 minutes i'd rather them sit down and stare at the wall instead of bullying their brains and their mental into memorizing some english words and writing them down ten times each in a notebook.


japan will never change, i know that. it saddens me to accept it. yet, this small factor in my culture is what makes it what it is. strict, detailed, precise, nearly perfect. but, as there is no such thing people continue to strive for it here. perfection in all things. how to hold a calligraphy brush, flower arranging, putting on a kimono, pouring tea, what order each stroke of a kanji symbol goes, slicing a tuna. it even comes down to the most trivial things like how to speak on the phone, how to address people who are your senior, how to pose in a photo with your friends, how to set a table.

in a way i find that almost okay. there are so many other half's that i have met that feel the same way - like we will never truly belong to either of our countries. kids who grew up with the same mixed cultures as i did, western and japanese, which in itself is a profound cocktail that even japan has not been able to adapt to. maybe even not been willing to.

tradition is sacred. it's priceless. and watching the way this country respects and holds on to that is awing and equally dumbfounding. so set in their ways, so insistent on upholding tradition, so obsessed with image, and sometimes a bit racist, the japanese are a people i will never understand.