Today, anything that could go wrong didn’t, but something did. Kind of.

At the school where I work I am in charge, sort of, of the foreign teacher part of High School English Club (there’s a Japanese teacher in charge of the entire club). In the past the club has alternated between “good” and “why the hell are you in English club?” (Answer: because I need the points for graduation–said in Japanese of course.)

This year, we’ve got an excellent group and we also have a new school full of fancy equipment, including laptops and computer projectors in each classroom and two Computer Assisted Learning Labs (CALL). Unfortunately, we also have an old school background and teachers are only slowly figuring out ways to use the equipment as more than distraction.

For reasons I don’t fully understand, a volunteer with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA aka the Japanese Peace Corps) in Tanzania got in touch with the  school and set up an international internet chat between our English club and Tanzanian students. Although this seems simple, it immediately became a big deal with everyone at school being invited as well as a representative from JICA in Japan.

This meant our boys had to be on their game; which meant they’d have to step up their game.

To get ready, a couple of my colleagues used their turns in club to help prepare the boys to ask questions and follow-up questions and to answer questions. Unfortunately, the first problem was the boys in the English club didn’t rise to the occasion and come up with clever questions. “Are you a food like?” is not an appropriate question. (Note: this was not an actual question. It is just an example of things to be avoided.)

Extra meetings were required.

Today at 4:00 p.m. japan time (10 a.m. Tanzania time?)  it was show time. Or, it would have been if there hadn’t been some Skype issues involving not being able to make a video connection. Luckily this only lasted 10 minutes or so and the connection was made. Every student got five minutes to chat with a counterpart in another part of the world. Our boys did a great job and one even proved he could break dance (on carpet no less). The Tanzanian students were a mix of boys and girls whose questions ranged from “What subject do you like?” to “How does Japan elect its Prime Minister?”

Everybody seemed to have a good enough time I suspect they will want to do it again. Well, at least everyone who’s not a boy in the club, Although they had a good time, they were really nervous.

There were not one, but two spies at the school where I work.

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t work for the school where I work. Instead I’m assigned there by a different company, let’s call it The Evil Empire (not its real name),  that grows rich and fat whilst I grow, um, older and heavier.

For a while we had almost the perfect existence. The Evil Empire left us alone and we repaid the favor by neither asking for attention nor causing a need for attention. We didn’t miss school (I’ve personally only missed two days of actual teaching in the 14 years I’ve worked at the school) and, for the most part, we only went to the main office to sign our contracts for the next year and listen to the glorious range of excuses for why a raise was neither necessary nor forthcoming.

Unfortunately, someone moved the cheese which caused the mice to become cannibals and destroy all other mice in a seven state region, or something like that (although I may have misunderstood that book). In our case, the Evil Empire has slowly begun creeping into our lives.

The most visible example of this is “observations” which happened one per decade in the first 10 years of the 21st century but which are now occurring twice per year, once as an ambush.

Today’s observation was not an ambush, but it was still very odd. The first observer was our new sales rep, who is one part of one tier of actual decision makers in the company. He was there mostly as a meet-and-greet as he’s only been with the company for two months, but he did jump between three classes then left. He was followed by the second observer, our immediate powerless supervisor/handler who stayed all day.

The problem with observations are many, especially if you’re not new at the job. The best that can come out of them is a chance to talk the immediate supervisor, but you’re in a case where your words can be held against you (as well as the research you’re doing, hypothetically, for your football pool during your breaks) and the observers, to justify their existence, have to find fault. I don’t mind feedback and suggestions but I’m not a big fan of “my job is to say bad things” (which, technically, is my job during exam time now that I think about it).

That said, this was a pretty painless observation. I don’t change what I do, although the students do behave a little better when the observer’s around. Especially after I told them the Japanese Sales Rep was a cop observing the lesson.

A couple boys were being boys today, which means I had to throw them out of class for a few minutes.

During an attempt to check answers to an assignment, I called on a student, let’s call him Koji. Koji gave the right answer but I mistakenly said he was wrong then corrected myself. This caused my worst student, let’s call him Abaddon, to stand up and start mocking him for being wrong. I told Abaddon to sit down and shut up–or, even better, shut up then sit down–and he condemned my soul to hell but sat down (something like that).

During the next assignment, when I was reviewing my notes and assigning a few marks, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Koji throw a pen at Abaddon who was teasing him again. I got them both quiet again and Abaddon vowed that demons would eat my heart in hell and that someone’s mother sews socks that smell (something like that).

Not a minute later, when I was helping a student realize that, yes, he too had to do the assignment, I saw something large fly through the air and heard a loud thump and crash. Koji had thrown the entire contents of his desk at Abaddon, including an electronic dictionary that ended up so mangled and bent I think it now counts as an iPhone 6.

As they moved toward each other for a real fight, my voice went to 11 and I told both students to get out of my class. Koji stormed out and sat in the hall by door at the back of the classroom. Abaddon suddenly got quiet. This meant he knew he’d crossed a line because usually he puts on a show for the rest of the class. I forced him to sit by the closest door and told both not to talk. They could come back when they were calmed down and ready to work.

Eventually they both came back and after class I marched them down to the teachers’ office to find their homeroom teachers. When I couldn’t find the homeroom teachers, I told the vice-principal what was going on and he went from happy-go-lucky to bad-ass in only one breath. He berated them until a homeroom teacher arrived.

Both boys confessed (although Abaddon only confessed to teasing Koji but didn’t say what he’d actually said that set him off) and the homeroom teacher explained that apparently they’d hated each other since junior high and this was just one in a long line of confrontations.

I told them that next time they fought in my class they’d get more homework than they could possibly imagine.

I also told Koji to just go over and punch Abaddon next time–unless he was really hoping to get a new dictionary.

No, I didn’t say that, but I was thinking it.

Today’s post is brought to you by the letters T and D and by the number 19.

T is for Typhoon:
If you’re keeping score, this is the second typhoon in a week and the 19th of the season and, just for fun, it’s more powerful than last week’s typhoon. Also, for the record, Number 19 sounds scarier than the official name: “Vongfong“. (It’s the difference between a ski run called “Death’s Door” and one called Number 2. Think about it.)

The frequency and lethality of the storms has prompted the Japanese press to dub them “Suzumebachi Typhoons” or “Japanese Giant Hornet Typhoons.” The Japanese Giant Hornet is a particularly nasty beast that seems to be an unholy hybrid of hornet, bird, and demon that feeds on human corpses. (Something like that.) They also tend to attack in swarms.

D is for Dilemma:
It currently appears as if the worst part of Typhoon 19 will pass North of us, but we’ll get a lot of wind and rain. This brings about a dilemma.

One of the problems with mandatory schooling is that the people who force others to be there don’t go there; the people forced to be there don’t want to be there; and the people paid to be there like neither the people forced to be there nor the people forcing them to be there and want to somehow to get paid for not being there. Anyone paid to be there who actually wants to be there when they don’t have to be there is either weird or an a$$hole.

On the other hand, every now and then a perfect storm (sigh, yes, I know, but you’ll see) of factors combine to show the people paid to be there that it might be better if they actually go there.

In my case, last week I assigned a big project to my high school third years and they are supposed to present it tomorrow. If they don’t, it messes up the final project in a term in which they’ve already got few classes and I’ve had to cut some of my regular material. It’s actually in the best interest of my sanity that I actually go to work tomorrow. (Weird or A$$hole? You be the judge.)

Also, if school is cancelled, the terms of my contract require me to produce some kind of “material” or “evidence of work” or I lose a day of paid holiday. This is easier than actually going to work but it also means that our oldest and our youngest will also be home which means sister fights and oldest vs She Who Must Be Obeyed But Teenage Daughters Think They Are Exempted fights.

That said, I’m always happy to work from home. I just hope everyone stays safe.

It’s weird for me to say, but I benefit from government incompetence.

If the Japanese government were at all good at making an effective English curriculum and education teachers, I’d probably be out of a job.

When I first came to Japan the thing I noticed right away was the huge difference in English levels between my younger colleagues and my older colleagues. The older colleagues had little interest in English–many of them hadn’t wanted to be English teachers–and generally followed the official government textbook. Fortunately for them, the Japanese English teaching system, even in 2014, allows a teacher to teach English without ever having to speak it. (More on that later.)

Instead, people like me were brought in to provide “real” English and develop speaking activities.

My younger colleagues, though, were more interested in English. They’d made conscious choices to become English teachers but found themselves managed by the teachers who couldn’t care less. They were also hindered by the odd Japanese English system.

The textbooks–with a few exceptions–are designed by committees following strict Ministry of Education rules. The rules dictate how many new vocabulary words can be taught in one book. Any book that fails a rule, is sent back for revision.

The result is several textbooks with different titles but identical teaching plans. Every textbook is a bizarrely disorganized mess that teaches grammar in a scatter-shot way by focusing on grammatical structures rather than verbs and verb tenses. “I am” and “you are” are taught in one unit but “He is” and “She is” are taught later in the book even though they are the same verb tense. The books also teach relatively complex grammar “My grandfather is a man who likes to play darts in the pub as he enjoys a pint brewed by a man who is an expert at making beer.” (Note: that sentence is not actually from the textbook.)

The books also require the teachers to teach at the same pace in the same order. If they don’t, students will have difficulty on the mandatory exams. This kills any real possibilities for new ideas and modern teaching techniques. When I was still in Niigata, I would stop teaching junior high 3rd year classes (9th grade) early in October because 1) my spoken English lessons did not fit the curriculum and 2) my colleagues didn’t have time for my lessons.

The result is students who study English for six years in junior high and high school and a year or two at university but can’t speak English.

It’s all silly and a waste of resources, but I hope the curriculum planners never get their act together.

For a few minutes today, I kind of wished I had a stun gun to use on a student.

Every year, the school where I work puts on a couple speech contests. Junior high students get the assignment before the Summer break and high school get it before Winter break. Almost no one actually writes it during the holidays but at least the first year junior high students (7th grade) take it somewhat seriously.

The problems begin in second year (8th grade). By then, students already know, within reason, who is going to win the speech contest. They also know they can’t fail for doing badly on the speech. (Well, they can, sort of, but not until they try to go to high school.) Therefore the incentive to do a good job is somewhere just above zero percent for most students, especially if they are in a lower level class.

To get the speeches turned in we implement detentions and get the homeroom teachers involved. Then the problem becomes getting the students to put some energy into their speeches.

Unfortunately, today, in almost every class, we all had some kind of problem. Oddly, the problems tended to occur in the “higher” level classes.

In my case, a third of the students showed up without the “show” part of their “show and tell” speech. This means they have to do the speech twice. Other students feigned surprise that they had to memorize the speech. (Two days of practice and constant reminders to memorize it apparently didn’t register. For the record, I have a teenage kid, so I kind of understand that.)

Instead of listening, some students were talking and making lots of noise. One student was especially loud and I was trying to figure out if I needed to be closer for the stun gun probes to be effective. He dragged a second student into it.

When the second student almost started a fight with a third student, I ended up having to enact a rule I usually don’t have to use in higher level classes: IYANYAN (If You Are Noisy, You Are Next). This rule applies even if you’ve already finished your speech. (The record is three times.) I called up the second student and made him do his speech again. Then I made the first loud student do his speech.

Things were a bit quieter after that, but I think a stun gun would have been faster and more impressive.