Four Things I Learned from a Japanese Middle School

Weather update: At 10:30 at night, it is a comfortable 83 degrees, and may get down to the low 80s in the daytime on Sunday! Has Hades been vanquished? 

1. Japanese schools kind of look like jails. 

Take Chuo Middle School, for example: 

Drab, concrete building suggests joy-sucking properties. Notice the gate surrounding the building, cutting off avenues of escape, as well as it being set apart from other buildings. All that's missing is a "no hitchhiking" sign. 

Despite the external similarity to a detention center, the inside of the schools is a very lively place. Central to the school I worked in the past few weeks was one of three air conditioned havens, the teacher's room. We even have a tea lady, who serves us mugicha! 

Now, if you are nerdy enough to have seen Battlestar Galactica, you might think that this middle school looks Cylon-esque:

Not like I would know or anything. 

2. Having a schedule doesn't mean it's right.


The first day of school, I was sitting in the teacher's lounge, when I suddenly noticed that nearly everyone had disappeared. Where had they gone? Was I supposed to go, too? I consulted with my handy schedule only to find that the entire day was completely blank. 


Great.


I decided to sit there for a while and see if any teachers came back, or perhaps follow the next teacher to leave. After a few minutes, one teacher managed to escape out an exit previously unknown to me, leaving me alone with the school secretary. 

"Um," I said awkwardly. "Is something going to start soon?" 


"Yes, the school assembly starts in a few minutes," she answered.


The school assembly...where I was supposed to be introducing myself to the entire student body. Good thing I was told about when it would be in advance, right?


Instead of going over my short speech in my head, I spent the minutes leading up to it racing through a few hallways, trying to figure out where the gym was. 


Apparently, there are some things that have to be learned by osmosis here. Not everything is spelled out for the benefit of the new foreign teacher, for better or for worse. That leaves me with the option of just following people like a stalker or asking incessant questions. At the risk of being clingy and annoying, so far I've chosen the latter.

3. Teaching children who don't speak English without uttering a word of Japanese is really difficult.


Before my first day, I went up to Nishibata Middle School with my city hall supervisor to be introduced to the principal. The principal is a very nice man who fits the stereotype of the absent-minded professor. Along with some conversation, he repeated several times that he was looking forward to me only using English in the classroom, but being able to use Japanese with the teachers when I am safely hidden away in the teacher's room. 


I took the hint to mean no using Japanese in the classroom. No problem, I thought. I'll speak simply.


Unfortunately, I could repeat "Please be partners. Please answer the questions. Then, please introduce your partner" until I was blue in the face, but it wouldn't make my requests any clearer to my poor students. 


Using a little Japanese tends to make things go a little more smoothly, especially when sandwiched by English, so they can (hopefully) pick up a few new words. It's a lot easier to get things done when the kids understand what they're supposed to do!

Plus, the students feel more relaxed to know that we can actually communicate pretty well, even if they can't speak English, which helps in cases like Alfred's....

4. Some children are absolutely terrified of speaking to foreigners...even in Japanese. 

This last lesson I learned during one-on-one conversations with students. They were tasked with memorizing a conversation to practice with me (What's your name, welcome to Hekinan, what's your favorite color, etc), and then answering three questions I posed. One-on-one conversations were more difficult for some students than others, especially students like "Alfred." 

Alfred is a very cute 8th grader with the Japanese equivalent of a fro. He's the kid spouting snide remarks from the last row that you can't help but laugh at, even when you're the butt of the joke.  


Put him in front of me, though, and he can barely string a sentence together. 


Poor Alfred approached my desk with the enthusiasm usually only reserved for death row. Even after helpfully angling my script so that he could read it and reassuring him several times that he would be fine, he looked as if he would keel over at any moment. The kid couldn't even look at me.


"Poor guy has test anxiety," I thought, and went easy on him.

The next day, it was my turn to eat lunch in 2C (there's no cafeteria--students eat in their classrooms, and teachers join them). Guess who sat next to me? Alfred, of course! "Now we can talk in Japanese, and he'll feel a little better," I thought. 


Wrong. 


Poor Alfred nearly fainted when he saw that I was sitting next to him. He tried to get the everyday teacher to put me somewhere else without success, and was teased mercilessly by his classmates that he would have to speak in English the whole time. I tried to joke around with him a little and managed a few responses...until he turned his chair around and refused to even look at me for the entire rest of the period.

Thank God they didn't put me next to the girl who cried.