Once a month I teach students who aren’t mine so that they don’t get confused.

That’s the theory anyway.

On Sundays I teach students who are preparing to study at universities in the USA, Canada or the UK (with special appearances by Australia). My regular class meets, well, regularly three times a month. I teach the higher level class.

However, once a month, I swap classes with the teacher who teachers the lower level students.

These students are interested in studying outside of Japan, but live outside of the Tokyo area, which makes it harder for them to study in a classroom. Instead they study prepared videos and texts and trek down to Tokyo once a month.

The other teacher and I decided to swap because it gets confusing (for us and the students) trying to keep track of who’s studying what and which speech can be used for each class. (Note: all of my regular students have to attend, but a few others are added.

Unfortunately, many of today’s students asked their regular teacher last week about my class this week. His response was the appropriate “How the hell should I know?”\

I was worried; however, all but one student came through. They did their speeches and managed to stay awake for all six hours of the course (not including lunch).

I won’t see them again for another month. However, there will be new students present next time I see them. That gets confusing.

He had the nerve to act surprised.

I told this student–let’s call him Akuma–last class that he was going to his speech first today. He responded with this usual performance of turning to the rest of the class and going “Okay! Okay! Okay!” to everything I said.

Then, today, I started to explain the next lesson (for various complicated reasons the lessons are overlapping) and several students were talking. I stopped, passed out the assignment, and told the loudest student (not Akuma this time) that he was second. I also told the class that they could refuse to do their speeches exactly zero times. “If I call you name and you say ‘no’, you get a zero and have to do your speech later anyway.”

After a 10 minute practice, I told Akuma it was time to do his speech. He said “Okay!” I repeated what I’d said and he said “No. I’m not ready.” I said “Then you get a zero.” He said “Okay!” and I called the second student.

At that point, someone translated what I’d said for Akuma. Suddenly it wasn’t “okay!” But I ignored him.

The guy who went second did a good job, though, and then others started lining up.

Akuma hasn’t done his speech yet, and the longer he puts it off the less time he has to do part two. It will be interesting to see if that’s okay or not.

Today I found something in common with my students.

We’re all happier not seeing each other, even if we’re supposed to see each other.

I should probably be more dedicated, but any chance to avoid my worst class is a bon chance (that’s French for “hallelujah”. Something like that.)

This means, that after having a couple hours off thanks to a sports festival, my first question to the vice principal was “do we have junior high classes tomorrow?” It turns out we don’t, which changes my day a lot, and made me do a little dance. Well, not really, and I didn’t even smile, but I was smiling inside.

In the past, we’ve not only had classes on the second day–if the students don’t do well in the sports meet, they end up having regular classes–we have, on occasion, had the first day of sports cancelled and had to actually do our jobs, which is kind of annoying when you were already thinking about doing something else.

Note: normally all you lose is a couple classes during a jhs sports festival, but if you have enough junior high classes, well, let’s just say things get more interesting…

Although I make out well tomorrow, I still have my evening class, which steals from the day.

That said, I’ll enjoy the schedule changes when they happen.

Today’s post is brought to you by WordPress image upload errors that have forced me to delay the post I’d intended. Note: that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

They may have reconsidered.

It’s always ego-boosting when your students admit that they hope you continue as their teacher after the term ends.

However, after today, I they may have a different opinion.

There are two classes left in the current term for the class I teach on Sundays. This means that the next class, which, oddly, is three weeks away, will be the day they present their final project.

After I explained the project and all the requirements I could tell that they were less interested in seeing me continue as their teacher.

However, one of the games we teachers play is to turn each other into bogeyman. Because of this, the other teacher’s class is afraid of me and my class is afraid of him.

However, now my class may be afraid of me.

Oh well, that’s part of the fun.