If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and it’s not your fault,
You will feel awesome and relaxed. –Kipling, more or less.

The past couple days I’ve been involved in some odd crises that effected me but none were my fault and none were blamed on me.

The first happened with my listening exam. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’ve experienced crises that were blamed on me but which were not technically my fault. I was a bit worried because this was the first year I used distorted voices to add a little flavor to the proceedings. I envisioned scores of students complaining they couldn’t understand and it actually would be my fault.

Before the exam, i was informed that there would be student taking the exams in another room but that the listening would be piped in from central control. I wasn’t sure what to do as I was given information but not instruction.

A few minutes before the exam was scheduled to start, it turned out that the tech guy hadn’t been informed about the room. It took two people (not including me) to tell him to push one button. All was well and the listening went well.

Today, though, was the JHS 1 exam and we had questions that involved interpreting maps. The problem is, the students had to notice that most of what they needed to do the section was in pictures in other parts of the exam. Most didn’t and we had a lot of questions. One proctor got frustrated enough to call in a suit.

I do not know what the fall out will be. Most of the students appear to have done well, but with a suit being called in, I suspect there will be more to it.

It wasn’t my fault, though, so I feel better than I probably should.

As we approach the final days of classes for this term at the school where I work, we’ve entered a period that involves passing out review sheets, answering occasional questions, and doing our best to stay awake.

In my case, I become much more tolerant of bad behavior than normal. I don’t tolerate sleeping in class, especially students who can’t seem to wake up when the bell rings; however, once the review sheets are passed out, I stand back and watch what unfolds.

In every junior high school class, regardless of level, one third of students will work, with one or two actually completing the assignment. They, in theory, earn free study time that some of them mishear as “Free time! Let’s PARTY!”

The next third will keep the review sheet out and, perhaps, write one or two things, but for the most part they do very little. Many of them adhere to the “I don’t understand the first question therefore I am exempt from all questions” school of studying.

The final third ignore the review sheet completely in favor of chatting with their friends. Many turn their back on the review sheet and never bother getting their pencil cases from their lockers.

Because review time is their time (and exam time is my time) I do not care if they actually study. The only thing I will do for those who’ve written nothing is encourage them to do the same on the final exam. It’s easier for all of us if they write nothing and I have nothing to mark.

Today was a work day which was kind of annoying as it interrupted a bunch of days off. All of us at the school where I work responded by running out the clock for this week.

Yesterday was Labor Thanksgiving Day in Japan which was a very nice day off. However, because it fell on Thursday this year, we found ourselves back at work today. This wouldn’t be so bad if tomorrow were also a school day. However, although it’s a school day for our students and many of our Japanese colleagues, it is not a school day for us.

This creates the unusual situation where the students are fairly active and we just don’t care. As far as we’re concerned, we’ve just been called in during a four day holiday to fill in for someone.

This means that a lot of what we did today was filler. My students got a dodgy spelling “quiz” that involved more time than they needed to write words under pictures and a “Scout’s Honor” answer check where they were supposed to look up the answers and score their own “quiz”. I made a show of recording their results, but most of what I did was only for show.

Next week is the final week and that means it’s review time. This is pretty easy. We don’t do much. We just pass out assignments and run out the clock.

My plan for my worst class was something along the lines of: assign textbook page and hand out worksheet. As long as no one started a fire or hurt anyone else, I wouldn’t care what anyone was doing.

I was not alone in this attitude.

This is the time of year where we stop caring as much as we used to care. Mind you, we probably didn’t care that much before, but now caring is right out. Worksheets are less fancy and concern for discipline is less of a concern.

This is partly because we’ve just come out of a period of holidays and special events and that has the students in a strange mood. Also, as we approach the last week before a longish holiday, students have either given up or decided they’re already safe.

Also, we are more focused on getting through all the material whilst simultaneously writing final exams. Teachers with third year high school students (12th graders) are also facing exams early to allow for early make up exams. (Third years are essentially done after this term except for some baby-sitting next term.)

We’ve also reached the end of most of the material. Next week will be review and/or final projects, which means the students are doing most of the work.

Next week I’ll talk about the final exams with the students. We’ll see how many of them actually care.

He seemed confident. Then he didn’t. He probably blames me. I blame my students.

As a follow up to my last post , the assistant home teacher–a fellow English teacher–for my worst JHS 1 class approached me to express student complaints.

I take such complaints seriously as such complaints in the past have resulted in my wearing suits and writing apology letters.

It seems that the students in the worst class were complaining that 1) the didn’t know they had homework; 2) they didn’t understand the homework they didn’t know they had; 3) they didn’t know what the homework was; and 4) didn’t understand why the hell they suddenly had even more homework.

I explained, with my voice slowly getting more and more angry as I spoke, that I’d not only written the homework on the board before the break, I’d also reminded them about it on Monday monring and had gone to their classroom during lunch time to watch them write the homework.

During that time, several of the complaining students had ignored me, gone to play baseball, or tried to play “let’s sneak past Mr. Lively without him seeing us” games. Each day after that, I’d posted “Doom Notes” that announced which students had to meet me at lunch time.

The assistant home room teacher seemed to get more and more glum and uncertain as he realized this was a student issue and not a crazy foreigner issue. (Note: with me, the two things are not necessarily exclusive.) I also pointed out that a handful of students had actually done the work which meant I must have explained it at least once at some point.

On Monday I’ll discover the aftermath of all this when the students either do or don’t pass in their homework. I’m hoping it’s a time to be nice and that we can play a quick warm up game and have a relaxed time.

I’m also prepared to not be nice, though, if necessary.

Today I had to bring in the assistance of a homeroom teacher, which is not something I like to do.

I have a student who hasn’t had his speech paper on his person since school started. In fact, until today, I hadn’t seen a single word he’d written, although I’d seen a lot of attitude. He kept insisting he’d left his paper at home and that, because he’d already written a speech, he was exempt from doing anything at all. For three consecutive classes.

I suspect, base on his actions in the past, that he was planning on improvising as much as he could. What he couldn’t do, he planned to turn into a comedy routine.

However, for the speech contest, that’s unacceptable. Therefore, today, I wrote up a “Doom Note” (long story) and rather than delivering it to the student’s  classroom, I delivered it to his homeroom teacher.

At lunch, the student showed up with a speech scribbled on a random piece of notebook paper. This means he either didn’t actually do the summer homework or hadn’t bothered to bring it from his house.

This meant my “lunch date” lasted only a few minutes. But it was worth it.

Today’s classes were bad, albeit in a kind of ordinary way.

First, my lowest level 7th graders were supposed to have performed their speech contest speeches in class today. However, one hadn’t finished and will get a lunch date tomorrow if he doesn’t finish. Others had not brought their papers and decided that exempted them from having to do anything.

They were shocked when I made them go up the front and do their speeches.

Since it was a self-introduction I felt they should have been able to do it without their scripts. However, when two started with “My name is…uh…uh…” they got sat down and got zeroes. In fact, one third of the class ended up getting zeroes and will have to go again on Monday.

In my 9th grade class students were only supposed to do dress rehearsal. However, one student has been avoiding me because he has yet to finish a speech script. Today he ran off to the nurse’s office. He’ll be in at lunch tomorrow as well, even if I have to annoy his homeroom teacher.

I suspect that he thinks that if he delays long enough he won’t have to do it. Staying after school every day next week will probably cure him of that. As I’ve said before: he doesn’t realize I do this for sport.

The rest of the class was pretty good, though. I have to give them that.

One of the tricks for dealing with bad students who think they’re really cool is to get under their skin whilst not letting them get under yours, The trouble is, by the time you feel the need to get under their skin, they’ve already got under yours. .

For example, I have an 8th grade student who’s decided he’s too cool for my class. (Note: this is one of the defining characteristics of 8th graders.) Last week, rather than work on homework when he had the chance, he spent the class playing Cat’s Cradle with a piece of green yarn. He sits with his back to me, even when I’m speaking, and today he refused to sit in his assigned seat. (Also a defining characteristic of 8th graders at the school where I work.)

Even after I told him to get in his assigned seat he just kind of shrugged and continued to talk with his friends rather than practice his speech contest speech.

During the actual speech time, when each student had to go the front and read their speech (Note: today was only practice; long story). I started calling him by the name of the student who was supposed to be sitting in the chair he was occupying. This seemed to get under his skin and make him mad, especially when I called him to do his speech. Rather than go to the front, he went back to his regular chair.

He then got mad when I told him to do his speech anyway. He gave me an eye roll and a smug look and refused to go up to the front. I leaned back and said I had all evening because the class was sixth period. I told him we could stay until 3:30 or 4:30. Either way, we’d stay until every student was finished.

Because he had me last year he knew I wasn’t bluffing and finally did his speech. He went back to the wrong seat again, but he also did the worksheet I handed out once everyone was finished.