As a rule, on this blog, if I’m writing about school or the day’s events, it’s because I’m too lazy to write about something else. However, today is the exception to the rule.

As I’ve written before, at the school where I work we are in the middle of school trips and random science field trips. Unfortunately, because of the trip schedule, i had one class today and my students were not in the mood for class. At least they weren’t at first.

When I arrived at the classroom, a student insisted that the doors were closed. I think he meant locked because when I opened the door, there was a particularly rowdy student laying on the floor. He had, as near as I can tell, been holding the door closed. (Note: another student must have been holding the second door.)

The student, whilst sitting on the floor and blocking my path, said hello and I had to tell him to move three times. Right as I was planning a “step over with the left; accidentally kick/graze him with the right move, he scooted out of the way.

This was  a hint of the way the class was going to go.

My mistake was bringing the wrong visual aids, but after I retrieved the correct ones, I told my students to fetch their poster (they’d started the “design your dream neighborhood” project last week) and write and memorize their required ten sentences. They had 20 minutes.

I had to repeat myself a few times and by the third repetition, the students had yet to leave their chairs and were, instead, mocking me by parroting what I’d said.

At that point, rage and orneriness took over.

I picked up the bundle of dream neighborhoods and, after repeating that they should find their poster, I hurled the bundle across the room, in the general direction of the student who’d been blocking the door. I repeated they needed to find their posters and start memorizing.

At that point they moved “expeditiously” and found their posters.

At that point they began violating the “memorize it” requirement, but it was fun to see them panic…

It should have been bad but it wasn’t. Well, not completely.

I’m not sure if I’ve just become too cynical for my own good and am therefore not giving my students or myself enough credit.

Today was the day our junior high school students at the school where I work begin their annual “camp”. As I understand it, this is a time for bonding/getting out of regular classes and clubs that will be the last trip they take for a couple years. (Note: at the school where I work students take extended trips ever couple of years; between those years they suffer.)

For reasons I don’t fully understand, the school cancels afternoon classes for jhs 1s but leaves the morning classes in place. This doesn’t bother me that much as I also get a break, but it also usually means the morning classes are terrible as, in their minds, the students are already at camp.

However, both classes today were pretty good. Students actually did work and, for the most part, participated in activities.

However, they were rowdier than usual and there was a clear cut off in both classes–at around the 40 minute mark–when students in both classes all seemed to decide they were finished. At that point they became more rowdy and most of them stopped listening to any words I said.

However, because I knew what was happening, I mostly let them get away with “retiring” early. I couldn’t give them homework and there was no way to keep them after school. If I withheld the punishment until the next class, the reason for the punishment would be lost somewhere in the past. (It would be, if I’ve done the math correctly, the equivalent of punishing me for something I did over four weeks ago which is something that only happens in marriage, not in the real world. Something like that.)

Next week I’ll be dealing with the aftermath of three different school trips. That, however, is a problem for another post.

They don’t understand me yet, and that could end badly for all of us.

One of the things you watch for as a teacher is which class is going to be “that class”. This is the class that makes your hair more gray and makes you consider actually having a secret bottle of hooch in your desk rather than just joking about it.

The students in “that class” will try to challenge you and won’t give up until they get a reaction.

For example, in my high school second year class “that student” called my name and, when he had my attention, said “sex”. (I asked him how much money he had which led to a discussion of me being prostitute which stepped all over whatever joke he was about to make/had made.)

Despite that, however, the early contender for “that class” appears to be a junior high school first year class.

They are the first JHS 1 class I’ve ever had where students are consistently tardy. One student has been late four of six class meetings. He also likes to take 10 minute toilet breaks after five minutes of speaking Japanese and me either telling him to sit down or just ignoring him until he finally asks me in English. His English doesn’t appear to be that good so he’s not just a bored returnee who grew up in the USA or the UK. Also, students don’t look at him for translations of what I’m saying.

Other students are just loud, including a couple who’s English skills appear weak enough that they’ll end up being sent to the lower lever part of the class. (More on that in another post.)

One kid apparently never bought the book.

Another student justified not working by saying the Japanese word for “penis” several times until I started to escort him to the vice principal.

In their defense, they did manage to cobble together a conversation and memorize it in time to actually earn some marks. Eventually they will push harder and discover that I’m more than willing to keep them busy at lunch or after school. In fact, I do this for sport, especially early in the year when it establishes a necessary precedent.