All things considered, he wasn’t too bad. But he did try to play games.

Today was our first day back after the three days of Golden Week holidays. Students, although most of them have been attending club practice, had easily gotten used to the idea of coming to school without going to school. This meant that classes were a bit rowdier than usual and a few students, at least in my class, tired to get away with things they hadn’t tried to get away with before.

In my first class, during the warm up (which involves students standing to answer questions, getting to sit when they answer, and the last man standing starting the new row) one particularly rowdy student decided he could blurt out the answer without raising his hand or phrasing his answer in the form of a sentence.

When I ignored his answer and chose someone else he got pouty and refused to answer the next several questions. Eventually he seemed to realize I’d keep him standing all class until he answered and he quickly raised his hand and answered in a sentence.

The rest of the class went well and that student tended to finish his work quickly. After that he took advantage of his “free” time to put his head down and take a nap. (Since he was finished I let him rest, especially as he would disrupt the class if awake.)

The rest of my classes went well, although every class had someone try to cause trouble. A JHS 1 decided he didn’t need to do any work at all and another JHS 3 decided he could sleep before finishing, This act earned him the first of his classes “yellow cards” (more on that in another post).

Now it’s time to settle into the weekend and very briefly ponder what the students have in store next week. Then I’ll quickly forget what I pondered and enjoy the weekend.