I  try not to prejudge classes, but as the school year comes to an end I’ve already got them figured out so I can’t help it. That said, what happened may have been my fault.

Today was the first day of speech contest speeches for my high school second year (11th grade) students. The speech order was chosen by lottery, but as an experiment I let students have their scripts available whereas in the past they’ve had to memorize it completely. I did add the rules that 1) they had to memorize the first half of their speeches and 2) if they needed help after that, they couldn’t read.

This turned out to be a mistake.

The first student looked up for one line then started reading his script. The next four students didn’t even bother to look up. They just started reading. Having the script available gave them the chance to be lazy and they took the chance.

As they did so, the percentage for memorization rose from 20% to 40% of the final score and their scores suffered. After the fourth student read, I pointed out that no one who had spoken had received higher than 40%. There then ensued a brief panic, especially when I pointed out that even if everyone got a low score, I’d still send at least one student to the speech contest at the end of the term.

A couple students did better after that, but I can tell they think I’m joking about sending someone, not matter what.

In my afternoon class, things went much better. Students referred to their scripts but didn’t read. However, the real problem came because a couple students were absent. This meant a student who hadn’t finished his speech was called on to perform his speech.

He then made huge mistake. Because he’s used to bullshitting his way out of things, he claimed his speech was too long for the time left in class. Since I’d seen him play with his smartphone for two classes under the guise of “using the dictionary” whilst not actually writing anything, I muttered something along the lines of “bullshit” (in fact, I may have actually said “bullshit”) and assured him that since it was the last class of the day, he had plenty of time to finish.

He admitted he had no speech, which means he failed the speech.

The next student did okay, but I may be seeing a lot of students at the make up exam at the end of this term.

I didn’t mean to be snippy but I was. I don’t think they meant to be rude but they were.

The young men in the class I teach on Sundays play well together which means they like to play a lot. Eventually, however good they are at the beginning of the day, after lunch they start to get excess distracted energy and look for ways to burn it.

The first guy who, by colossal coincidence, was almost thrown out last week, has a habit of trying to make jokes out of questions. When I asked him, as the assignment required, how much he typically paid for a haircut, he responded with “one dollar”. I then asked him where he got his hair cut and he repeated “one dollar”. He tried to escalate the joke from there but I cut it off. I promised him I’d never call on him again, which, of course, means he won’t get any participation points.

The second guy went into parrot mode which meant every time I spoke he thought it was funny and repeated what I said. This is a default mode for male high school students in Japan, but it won’t serve him well at a US university.

Finally, when I said the word “cheaper” (we were studying comparative adjectives) he started repeating “cheaper, cheaper, cheaper” and laughed as he did it.

He may have been trying to impress a young woman, but it was my time to make an impression. I stopped class and got his attention and asked him if there was something wrong with my pronunciation. The conversation went something like:

Him–What?
Me–Is there something wrong with my pronunciation?
Him–What?
Me–After I said “cheaper” you started repeating it and laughing. Did I say it wrong?
Him–(after a long pause/translation help from the young woman he was trying to impress) I’m sorry.

The funny part is, after all these years in Japan, my pronunciation probably was pretty bad. I kind of wish he’d helped me out.

Saw a group of students today and reminded them that the next time I see them will be their last class. Or maybe not. It depends on the weather.

One of the schedule quirks at the school where I work is that entrance exams for junior high and high school muck up the schedule. Some JHS 3 classes meet six times. One meets three. Some classes meet each week. Some meet twice this month, once next month.

My first and lasses classes today both had their second classes of the term and I reminded them, as I sent them away, that the next class would be their last class, and that we’d talk about the final exam.

The only catch in this is marathon day. If the weather is bad, the marathon will be cancelled and we’ll have regular classes. This is the only day that students hope they can have class.

As for me, as useful as the extra class would be, I’m hoping mother nature sends us a gorgeous day.

They were happy for a bit, then I told them what had really happened and they didn’t seem as happy.

The students in the class I teach two evenings a week got a present of sorts from me when I declared that today was the last day they’d have to write journal entries. Since class started last November they’ve been required to write a 150+ word journal entry on any topic they like. Occasionally I will give them a topic but they are mostly on their own to come up with topics, leading a couple to “improvise” a questionable solution. If my math is correct, and they wrote every day, they should have written over 10,800 words.

Hearing that today was the last journal entry brought a lot of smiles but then I revealed that the reason I’d stopped the journals is so that they’d have time to do research for the their next writing assignment. Their research can include conducting a survey if they feel so inclined.

The smiles went away and now we’ll see what happens.

Some are young men; some are still boys. Those that are still boys will be young men by the end of summer.

Third term at the school where I work is odd. There are entrance exams; some classes meet only three times whilst others meet seven times; different grades finish at different times and everyone sees themselves as a grade older than they are because in a couple months they will be a grade older.

My first year at the school was the first year it accepted junior high school students. This created a funny contrast between the taller more mature high school students and the tiny seventh grade kids in over-sized blazers. Every year those tiny seventh grade kids got taller and the blazers smaller whilst a new batch of tiny kids in over-sized blazers entered every year.

Now, in third term, some tiny kids have hit their first growth spurt and abandoned their jackets and others still can’t quite fill out the jackets.

What I find the most fascinating is the change in temperament. The biggest change is the first year students. The third year students will be gone next week (more or less) and the second years already see themselves as upperclassmen. The first years, even though there is actually no one below them, also see themselves as upperclassmen.  This means they have a casual attitude about classwork and there really aren’t that many threats I can make. That said, with the end of the school year approaching, there aren’t that many threats I want to make.

Today, in my worst class, they got some work done, but my worst student spent time lying on the floor again and another student did nothing at all, but copy the work of others. In his defense, that is an improvement.

Next year, they’ll be worse, which is a tradition for second year junior high school students (eighth graders). They’ve figured out the scam (they can’t fail) and, after the summer, they will be unrecognizable as the last of them hit their growth spurts.

Luckily, at least after summer, I’ll still be interested in making their lives miserable. Then it will all change again.

One student couldn’t stop laughing. Another pretended he was dead for half the class. Otherwise it wasn’t that bad of a day, all things considered.

My voice this morning was two parts Yoda, one part Chewbacca and three parts the sound your expensive new sneakers make when you drag them on concrete to stop your bicycle. (There were also traces of the shriek your mother makes soon after witnessing the latter.)

I, of course, opened with my worst class. They snickered at my voice. One student stared at me in stunned amusement as if he was waiting for a punchline. They were pretty good, though, as most of them did the work, with a little prodding. My worst student, though, thought it would be fun to feign death by lying down on the floor. Since that actually quieted him down, I let him stay there. Also, since the floors in the school get dirty rather quickly because the janitors clean at odd hours, he was lying in several hours worth of dust and crud, which might, in fact, hasten his death.

My next class went well, as did my third class. However, one student in that class burst out laughing every time I spoke as if I was delivering the punchline the student in my first class had been waiting for. Although I’ve been at this job for over a millennium (I started teaching in the second millennium AD and it is now the third millennium AD–do the math) it is still disconcerting to have someone laugh at me when I’m trying to give instruction.

My evening class went well as my voice has begun to recover. Also, I gave them lots of reading and writing to do, which helped quiet them down a lot.

Today was unusual because I met students I’m only going to see three times. I also got mad at students I wish I was only seeing three times.

One of the quirks of scheduling at the school where I work is that during the winter term, different grades finish at different times. We are marking and passing back exams whilst still teaching other classes. There are also long periods of “self-study” when the school is locked down for entrance exams.

This term, my Friday third year junior high school classes get entrance exams and the marathon. (Note: this latter can be cancelled because of weather so four classes is possible.) I’ll see them this week and next week and then a month later for their final class before the exam.

Both of my third year classes were good. The problem was the one I’ll see the most. They are a first year junior high school class that has started to become rowdy. Granted, they can’t help it. They’ve just received a dose of chemicals that has scrambled their brains and will render them unteachable for at lest the next seventeen years (aka puberty).

That said, it is unusual for them to be bad the first day back. One student seemed to think he could sleep and was annoyed when I woke him up. He then served as the ring leader for the problem students.

All this means they will have new seats next class. And homework. Lots of homework.

Today was the first day of actual work after the winter holiday and it was a nasty one.

It all started first period, with one of my worst classes. Luckily, they didn’t turn out to be so bad. Then I had a good class and then a bad class. Somewhere in there a student questioned his grade from last term. I showed him how he earned the score and how he could do better.

Then I had to stay for high school club which involved an interesting discussion, in English, of whether or not English should be the official language of the club. (Long, long story involving the club meeting on different days with different teachers.)

Then it was the mad rush to my evening class where I found myself slowly grinding to a halt. As it turned out, I ground down less slowly than some of my students, which was good, because I ended the class by giving them some pretty rough homework, and that required some extra time be spent explaining/justifying it.

Then, to top it all off, the train home was delayed.