The best part about the last week of school is that most class time is spent reviewing or finishing projects which means I don’t have a lot of prep work to do. The students like it because I don’t mind letting them fail.

For junior high school, I typically discuss the material that’s on the exam and give students a version of the long writing question on the exam to practice. One third of the class works on it; one third pretends to work on it but ekes out only one badly written sentence; and one third plays, talks or sleeps.

I just let everyone do what they want. I’m not taking the exam and if someone doesn’t write the essay/long writing, it saves me time and energy.

I’ve mentioned before how, in the past, I’ve stopped explaining the details of what to study when it was clear that most of the class wasn’t listening. In the worst case, I erased what I’d already written and wished them luck. Later I gave the information to the few students who were actually interested in passing and suggested they share with other students.

With high school we’re finishing up final projects and that means there are lots of excuses and pleading. Students are also prone to take 15-20 minutes toilet breaks. (As these are usually my worst students, I just let them go and don’t chase them down.) The last class is usually spent reviewing the term’s material, but I see students doing math or other classes. I also see students sleeping.

Once again, I encourage them to enjoy themselves. Tests that add up to “0” are really really easy to mark.

We’re gearing up for the last week of the term. That means anything that can go wrong probably will. Even if it doesn’t, all hell breaks loose.

The last week of the term is marked by a number of key things that often cause more trouble than they are worth: Finishing exams and chasing down students.

For the former, we have to make the exams, including the listening scripts, and then record, edit and burn the listening files. Traditionally I waste two CDs in the process of doing this. Somewhere along the way, everyone has to approve the text of the exam and, even then, once exams are in student hands, we find a mistake.

For the latter, chasing down students, this applies mostly to getting students to finish their final projects for their high school second year classes. If they don’t do it, they get the lowest possible for score for the term and have to take a make up exam. As it is, I’ve got a student who’s two speeches behind and has already earned zeros on them. I expect I’ll see him at the make up exams.

That leads to the final problem: making make up exams and figuring out the process involved with getting information to the students. It’s complicated. (Actually, it’s not, but I always get something wrong each time I have to do a make up exam.)

After all that, we get the written exams in hand and things get really crazy.

Today I read a paragraph that was so bad that I actually got mad at the student who wrote it. Luckily that student wasn’t around.

The paragraph in question was part of a course I teach that prepares students to go overseas. My job is to read, mark and assign a mark to the paragraph and then follow a complicated online system to return the document to the students.

The trouble is, sometimes the students use online translators. They enter entire sentences in Japanese, translate it into English, then send it on as original work. The problem is that translators, at this point in their development are mostly crap. The English ends up semi-coherent, if the student is lucky, or incoherent. Today’s sentences were so bad I couldn’t figure out what the student was trying to say which meant I couldn’t fix it.

I added a lot of marginal comments and an angry note.

Next week I’ll check his first, when I’m still feeling patient and generous.

About ten minutes before class I started distrusting my notes.

I had copies made and a basic plan in mind, but then the nagging feeling that I’d done all that before set in. I checked and rechecked my notes, but I couldn’t find anything resembling certainty. I decided that whatever the truth, I could probably wing it.

About halfway to class I realized that, yes, I had done the lesson before. Luckily I was teaching a lower level class which meant they moved rather slowly through the material. However, I knew I’d need more material for my sixth period class, which was the same grade but a higher level.

Then I realized I hadn’t taught a lesson for my fifth period class which meant I couldn’t yet teach the lesson I’d planned to teach.

Somehow, I got through all the classes. It taught me, though, to take better notes, or at least to update them when plans change.

The first class today was bad enough that I ended up splitting the class into “study area” and “play area”. My only hope for the future with them is to find a mustard seed’s worth of faith that keeps me from having the “play area” students in class again until they are in high school. If they are this bad as JHS 1s, they will be uncontrollable when they are in the higher grades.

My second class, which was the same grade, was much better, but a few students are starting to turn. That means more homework and some lunch dates.

My third class was JHS 3 and they divided themselves into “play area” and “study area”.

After that, the evening was topped with me having to give attitude on a few students. One refused to listen; another refused to remain coherently awake (eyes open does not count as awake); and a third decided to invent his own set of instructions because he didn’t understand the ones in front of him.

Not a bad day, really, just odd.

They let him wander for a while, which was pretty funny, but he was also pretty cool, so I felt kind of bad when I found out he’d wandered.

While he was there, I made a student do push-ups today; but I did them too, just in case. This will probably come back to haunt me.

Today, at the school where I work, we were observed by a representative of the company for which I work. (Long story.) Because I threw a temper tantrum a few years ago, I got to pick the day he showed up. (An even longer story.)

However, when he arrived, he didn’t bother to contact either us (the teachers) or the main office. As a result, we went to class while he was apparently wandering around the school.

After I finally found the representative, I led him to my class. He seemed nice enough, but he is new management, which means he should be scanned, so to speak. One of my students had  not brought his textbook which meant he had to do three push ups. However, this student apparently had never done push ups before, and I had to show him what to do.

(Note: This is the first time I’ve ever exercised in class.)

(Second note: This is not the first time I’ve exercised.)

I find the observations amusing. I’ve been teaching, in some form or another, since 1989. I’ve been in Japan for 20 years. The observer has been in Japan for eight years.

Still, he was pretty cool. I was especially impressed he used an analogue notebook rather than a laptop computer for taking notes.

Maybe someday I’ll see his report. I’ll probably ignore it, though, but I’d like to see it. Especially because of the push ups.

My students in my evening university class are wondering what happened.

The mild-mannered teacher who gave them moderate amounts of homework during the last term has suddenly given them as much homework in two classes as he gave them in two weeks last term.

Unfortunately for them, the new course is intended to develop both reading and writing fluency and reading and writing speed and that means lots of writing and then even more writing. For example, they are required to write 150+ words a day in a journal. They can choose the topic, although I sometimes give them a topic that serves them for one day’s worth of journal.

On top of that they have readings, including reading scrolls that force them to read quickly and graded readers that force them to read, well, whatever reader we happen to have on hand.

Unfortunately, it also means more work for me. None of us will find mercy, I guess.