Untold Story 1

Here's a post that I started to write in June and never finished until now. Please enjoy...
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There are certain scenarios that ALTs come across. For one, ALTs are asked typical questions by students and coworkers. Among the common ones are "do you have a boyfriend?" and "do you know how to use chopsticks?" Those are silly and maybe annoying, but easy enough to answer. Sometimes, we're faced with awkward questions. It is not unheard of for ladies to be asked, "what is your bra size?" and for male ALTs to be asked, "how many centimeters?" I won't elaborate any further, you get the picture. Along with being cultural ambassadors, ALTs must come up with quirky answers to questions that are just plain awkward. It's a rite of passage, so to speak, and only when we succeed in coming up with witty answers are we getting closer to becoming clever ALTs that can avoid embarrassment  The true moment of victory is when we can sense the questions forming and create a diversion to change the subject. Unfortunately, I haven't reached that point. Some of them still catch me off guard.

In addition to the questions, there are certain incidents that occur at school. ALTs may witness other teachers softly (or loudly O_o) smack students on the head -- a situation that would be met with nothing short of a lawsuit in the States. ALTs also have the pleasure of observing teachers clip their fingernails in the staffroom, or of listening to teachers gargle and rinse their mouths in the staff room sink. To be fair, these don't happen on a regular basis, but that they do happen is my point.

Then, we hear stories of violent behavior in the classroom that have happened to "a friend of a friend," but that we don't often see. We wonder whether they really happened or if people embellish the truth. I can tell you for a fact that they do happen.

In the beginning of this semester, things got a little crazy in Hyogo. It was a lovely spring day in April, and everything was moving along smoothly in class, when a student decided to add excitement to my day. All morning, I had been asking students to introduce themselves in front of their peers. Most students were enthusiastic about participating and received their first participation point for their "passport". The "passport" is a thin, handmade booklet used to keep track of participation points. Students can earn stickers, and in doing so, move through countries. It motivates students, and even the least enthusiastic students like collecting the stickers in order to "zoom across the world".

During this first lesson, my day took an unexpected twist after second period. We were finishing up student introductions, when the bell rang. I had just made a student stand up -- seconds before the sound of the chime -- and he thought he had gotten off the hook. However, I surprised him when I told him to do his introduction anyway. The student resisted, and when he saw that I wasn't backing down, he slid his passport away from him. The JTE pushed the passport back towards the student. The student then crumbled his passport, and started talking back to us. It was then that I awkwardly announced to the class that we had finished for the day, and rushed to the front of the classroom for the closing greeting. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the student kick his chair and we all heard it hit the ground. I couldn't tell you who was more shocked, me or the students. Now, this is the kind of story that circulates the JET community, but that not everyone experiences. After all, we're  told that Japanese students are among the best behaved students in the world... Teachers made the student apologize, and he very humbly did so during lunchtime. I accepted his apology, and since then I cautiously ask him to participate. I must admit though, I secretly fear he's going to through a chair at me when I pass by his desk...

A few weeks after that, I was unprepared for the sudden crying that began in the middle of a lesson. I don't remember what kind of activity we were doing, but one of my female students had started crying and wailing for no apparent reason. And there really was no apparent reason -- this student is prone to anxiety in unfamiliar situations, but the teachers aren't too sure about the main triggers. Everything about my classroom is unfamiliar: I'm a foreigner teaching a foreign language in a classroom that they only come to once a week. I didn't know about her anxiety at the time, so I wasn't sure how to approach the situation, especially since the JTE was already by the girl's side, trying to calm her. I tried to continue teaching, but it was impossible to practice pronunciation, or anything else, when all we could hear was crying and all of the sounds that accompany it. At that point, I went to talk to the girl and suggest that she go to the bathroom for a breather, or to the nurse's office if she wasn't feeling well. However, the girl reported that she wanted to stay in the classroom. I was really lost at that point. The student went to the back of the classroom and sat on the floor, and eventually calmed down. She completed all of the worksheets, and occasionally we would hear whimper-like sounds coming from the back of the classroom. The JTE never left her side. It was the first and last time it happened in my classroom, but I really wish I would have been in the know about my student's bouts of anxiety.

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My job might have been repetitive, but there was hardly a dull moment with these kids.

Imagine

“Imagine there's no countries.... Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.” - John Lennon.

Last week, I prepared a special final lesson for my third year students. Although they graduate in February and are officially graduates in March, it was my last lesson with them for the school year. The night before, I wrote each one a short “good luck” letter. For the quieter students, I had to think back to a prior lesson where I had them write about themselves, and remember what kind of plans they had for the future. For the outgoing students, it was easy to fill the note with some inside jokes that we came to share during the past six months. In addition to giving them letters, I wanted to prepare an interesting lesson with a video clip or song. I couldn't think of any appropriate songs that weren't too hard to understand, but finally, I found a Glee cover of John Lennon's “Imagine”. I thought that the students would enjoy it, and I also hoped that it would evoke a positive message about internationalization, which is one of the JET Program's goals after all.

Before showing them Glee's interpretation of “Imagine”, I showed them clips and pictures of a typical American graduation ceremony. I mostly emphasized the cap and gown, the token graduation speech, and the overall less solemn mood of the American graduation. (Japanese ceremonies tend to be a lot more formal and serious than American ones.) After I finished this introductory portion, the teacher I work with asked me to sit in the back of the classroom. He wanted the students to write me individual messages. I wasn't supposed to pay attention to what they were doing, but I couldn't help but peek at the board. I saw that the teacher had written helpful phrases, such as, “thank you for teaching us English.” I figured that I would receive sixteen cards with the same message. When the time limit was up, the teacher had each student walk to the back of the room and hand me my note.

The messages were not all the same. Each student added his or her own touch. Some of the students that consistently wore convincing looks of boredom wrote that they really enjoyed the class. I wonder if they were being sincere, but I appreciate the sentiment anyhow. I also thought it was cute that many of the students wrote “I love you” or “I love Kelly” in their note. One of the students wrote that she'll never forget me. I'll never forget her either. She's the type of girl that I always wished I was more like in high school. She's confident enough to have a unique haircut. In a place like Japan, where individualism isn't necessarily applauded, this is confidence. She wears no makeup, likes rock music, and says that she wants to own a motorcycle one day. Cool and confident, something I never mastered when I was her age. (And something I'm still having trouble with :p). I was pleasantly surprised when the “pretty girl” of the class (think American cheerleader) wrote about something that I had once said in class. I didn't think she was listening, since she was always picking her nails or doodling on her paper, but I guess underneath that “too cool for school” façade, she really did care about the class. In fact, she cared about many things other than looking her best everyday, and I started to notice this about her after I read her New Year's resolution. She had written that she wanted to have her own will. I think the message was changed a bit in translation, but I think she's aiming for her decisions, not others', to control her life. As a response to this resolution, I wrote in her card that she should always believe in herself.

I had one student in the class that always struggled to stay awake. But one day, I noticed that he was very peppy and awake. I mentioned this observation to him, and he said that he had slept through all of his earlier classes, in order to be awake for mine. I hate to admit that I was pleased, YET I was not comfortable with the idea of him sleeping through all of his other classes. I had to be very tactful in asking him to stay awake in all of his other classes, because I didn't want him to think that I didn't appreciate the effort...nor did I want him to be sleepy for mine. This student is a real character and the only one willing to risk politeness. Example, he never hesitated to tell me that my Japanese pronunciation of certain words is absolutely wrong. We had a lot of fun while he corrected my Japanese pronunciation. The funniest moment came from him trying to teach me the correct pronunciation of butatama during a food lesson. (Butatama is a type of okonomiyaki, or savory pancake.) When he handed his note to me during this last class, it was really funny to see that he had written butatama in it. Especially, because I had done the same in his letter.

One of the students was always quiet and serious in class, but every time I saw him in the hallway and waved, he would smile. I guess you can crack the really quiet ones. In his note, he said he wanted me to learn more about Japanese culture. No worries, I'm already well on my way...

Just as there is the “cool girl”, the “class clown”, and the “pretty girl” in every class, there's the “class flirt.” In my class, it was a male student and he always flirted with all of the girls, and one day even decided to blow kisses at me (which I stopped immediately). Well, this “class flirt” didn't spare me his charm on the last day. He wrote in his card, “Kelly is a very beautiful teacher” and signed his name in cursive. I guess he has a reputation to preserve.

I have a student that is very skilled in English conversation, my "star student" in English so to speak. His hobby is to watch You Tube videos, in order to learn English. In his message, he told me that his plan is to go to Los Angeles when he's twenty-four years old, and therefore he'll see me again. He signed the note with an “I love you.” I always told this student that he should study abroad one day, and that he'll excel at the university level. In fact, I tell all of my students that they can study abroad, but I think this student is more motivated to sign up for a program. My students are always quick to tell me that they love me, and I'm not sure what they mean by it, but I know that love comes in many shapes and forms. I love my students (even the loud and obnoxious ones, though I won't hesitate to give them attitude from time to time). O_o

After receiving my notes, we had about ten minutes left, within which I showed the class the “Imagine” video. With the help of a dictionary and the teacher, I translated some of the key words. I wanted the students to understand the message of love and unity, despite differences. I was pleasantly surprised to hear one student sing along, though I wasn't surprised that it was my "star student." In a way, those lyrics represent how I live in Japan. I overlook the fact that we look different, that we think differently, that we are from different countries, and that we practice different religions. Instead, I see us as “one”, the human race. Some people wonder how I can live in such a homogeneous society, void of all of the different ethnic groups we find in the United States. But I don't let it bother me, because we can all look different or we can all look the same, but it doesn't change that we are all “one people.”

So I handed my students their notes and left them with a message of living as “one”. They'll probably forget all of the English I taught them if they don't continue to study English. Even if they continue to study English, I only taught them for six months, so they'll probably still forget everything I taught them. If there's one thing I do want them to remember, it's this optimistic message I shared with them all term.

“Imagine all the people, sharing all the world. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope some day you will join us, and the world will be as one.”