How To Be a Mean Teacher

I love most of my kids students. The afformentioned naughty 4 year old being the exception. All of the others I can handle to varying degrees of success.

For example, I have a Jr High kids class that absolutely refuses to speak. Even in Japanese. They are fans of simply sitting in dead silence and avoiding eye contact. There has been some improvement on that front. The one boy who falls asleep in my class has been staying awake and actually answering questions. But I would like for the rest of them to make some noise. So far I've got two making shy nervous smiles. I keep terrorizing them with my energetic antics. I am at my craziest when all I get is silence.

Apparently this is the typical behavior of Japanese Jr High School kids. Which still just strikes me as bizarre because all of my others have been chatter boxes. Maybe not in English but its better than nothing.

But I did have to punish my talkative class this week. Its the 5th week in a row that all 4 boys have not had their homework for me. Not to sound strict but this really shouldn't be an issue. I mean, seriously, this is not supposed to be a problem.

Why?

Because they took the class already. And if they did their homework the last time it is as simple as copying it out of the old workbook. I've even said as much. There is no way I'll be able to tell the difference. And the exercise of copying alone will help refresh their memory, even a little.

So with this continue failure to comply, I resorted to following through on my threat. I may not have had time to finish the lesson because we wanted to chat in Japanese instead of pay attention. But I saved enough time to have everyone stay after (everyone without homework) and write me a speech.

It went something like this:

Dear Teacher,
I didn't do my homework because:
1. reason
2. reason
3. reason
I promise to do my homework by next week.
Or I will (insert punishment here - ex- will not play video games).
Sign,
signature

After they read them to me I made copies of the letter and returned them as a reminder. I'm hoping this will inspire some improvement. But if not, then we will start to write longer and longer speeches for me.

The thing about writing, is because it is still hard for them, they can't really talk and write at the same time. I will either get my homework or improve their multitasking skills by the end of the class.

Why am I so strict? Because this is the last leg of the "kids classes" before they should be able to graduate to the adult classes. In those classes, their classmates will not want to joke around in Japanese. They want English for their jobs, or to get jobs, or to get a raise or travel abroad.

Though maybe it would be a good thing for them to face scorn and disapproval from others that do not find them cute or funny. No one is fully immune to a sense of public shame, unless of course they are drunk and beyond being aware of much of anything.

Japanese People are so Polite . . .

So just when does it happen? The politeness I mean. When does it kick in and how can I get it to kick in faster?

My one 4/5 year old today was a bit of a terror. He drew on the floor while my back was turned, he called me an idiot, pulled down his pants at one point (that was when I played dumb and told him to go to the bathroom) and started spitting. Thankfully not at me, but he was hocking big ones on the floor. I picked him up and put him in his chair and said no. So he sat in the chair and spat. I actually left the room and got a Japanese teacher to come help me. Thankfully she didn't have much more success than I did so the sense of defeat wasn't so great. But a second pair of hands let me focus on the other three boys. I still failed to really do the lesson and that I regret.

My little helper last week was a bit of a handful today. One boy wrangled my trouble maker last time and its sad but I was glad the four year old was scolding him. He ran around grabbing my things, erasing anything I wrote on the white board, and basically imitating my habitually naughty child. It seems my one children's class is going to be very Jekyll and Hyde. Even the manager offered to have the teacher sit in again. So as polite as she was being she was sorta disappointed that I was acutally having more trouble that with Sakuya. One boy I had enough arms to hold on to. I could put him under one arm and hold the vocab cards in front of him. Not letting go to he stayed in the class room. But with four boys, there is not enough me. And one boy cried, I think, because the others weren't paying attention so we couldn't play games. That was what made me feel awful. That I couldn't keep enough control to make it fun for the other two.

But I don't want to put another teacher out and have to help me babysit. I should be able to control 4 four year olds right? Thought I'm not sure why they think they can go wild with me and climb on things and crawl under tables . . .or spit. Possibly because I don't scold them in Japanese and I may not understand exactly what they are saying but I can understand their intent.

But I'm just not scarey enough I guess. I don't want to yell. But my firm is not cutting it. Grrr. I guess I am doomed to fail that level of class. I am also considering becoming very unfun and making them all sit at the table. We will see if stickers will have any effect. But I feel doubtful.

What You Can't Put on FB

. . .for example, I don't really wish to broad cast to staff and students that I wear a wig to work everyday. I used to not care back in the states. In fact having a new hair style each day was fun. But my previous job didn't require me to be smiley and approachable in person. . .and I still had more hair then.

I gave up trying to "keep what I have" when I came to Japan. Mainly because taking a small bottle of liquid on a plane is sure to get you detained by security at the very least. My hyper active imagination also generated horror scenarios of being cavity searched and being put on terrorist watch lists. (Most family and friends already know the story of my back pack being mistaken for a terrorist threat . . in my small farm country hometown! Really?!)

I was also uncertain I would have the same means available to me while abroad. Not that I would be able to read the instructions. So I decided to concede defeat. The first month was pretty bad where it seemed like the hair on the top of my head was making a mass defection. Every touch brought away a few more strands and the reinforcement that there was no turning back. It was a shock at first, compared to my mutinous hair's usual stealth method of slipping off onto my pillow while I slept. It seemed like all out war for a while there. One that I was losing badly. And then it stopped.

Or at least slowed down.

I'm 26 with grey and white hair in the manner of a man in his 50's. I've been losing pigment and hair since 16. And I have my good days and my bad. Some days it can still be depressing, and most days I wonder why I don't chop it all off and be done with it. In a twisted sense of revenge against my own defective hair. But the resolve to go all Mia Farrow on my hair was a little less Emo and more practical.

The children in my Orange class (5-6 yr olds) saw a bit of grey poking out from under the wig. They were so shocked by the site of it that they completely ignored the lesson as they felt it imperative to point it out to me. As if I some how missed it in my daily appointments with a mirror. I somehow missed it when I brush my teeth, wash my face, put on make-up and, above all, when I put on my wig. I think the shock to them was the fact that none of their other teachers have grey hair. Even the older teachers were perfectly consistent with their black or brown hair. No one else was sporting such a typical indicator of old age.

And that was what did it. I finally caved to the media endorsed and society pressured obsession that I must not look old. I must spend time and energy fighting age with every tooth and nail. With every fiber of my being I must protest the progression of time and its reflection on my person. Since I am already older than most that decide to spend time abroad teaching I prefer not to look the part. (My younger cousin already completed that part of her life years ago. But that's just one of my many quirks, I do things a bit late.)

My small problem is that I can't read katakana or hiragana so buying hair dye and using it is out of the questions (for now). So I took the scissor and cut away with wild abandon. There is a bit of therapy involved with physically shedding something undesirable. However once I cut my hair to an alarmingly short length I was faced with my real hair color. Something I hadn't seen since college. And that was when I learned I was not going to be one of those fortunate people who go solid white or solid grey. That would at least have been cool for someone my age. But no, I'm what they call salt and pepper. A little color here, a few splotches of white there. Mature for a man, haggish on a woman.

I have cut away my grey to appear more my age should my own hair slip out from under my wigs. Frankly, despite the teaching part of my job, it really is more like an English Host Club. An image that is difficult to fight against when the manager, and all but one of the teachers, are female. The majority are young unmarried teachers and even the married ones are physically appealing. I don't want to be the one rotten apple in the bunch.

But Japan is said to be humid and horrible in the summer. I fear what I will do other than suffer and sweat to death. I am proud of the fact that without lying to anyone I have kept my wig wearing a secret. They just assume I am super image conscious when I go to the bathroom every morning when I arrive to fix my hair. What they don't realize is that I am taking off the wig and furiously fanning myself to cool down before I start the day.

I haven't yet figured out what I'm going to do when I want long hair again for winter. Is there a plausible excuse for rapid hair growth?

What Happened to this Blog?

Well there is an egregiously long story about that, that no one will want to hear, and frankly, is mostly excuses.

I can at least blame part of it on not having cable internet for nearly three months. But then I rediscovered this thing called FB. And it was so easy and I could do it from my smart phone. Which is frankly the only way a lazy person like myself will be bothered with social sites.

However I have decided the bring the blog back to life. . .
                              . . .now that my students are FB stalking me.

It's one of those, "Crap did I say anything mean about them in previous posts?", and, "Well now I really have to behave."

(Not that I didn't in the first place, and still do. The internet is far more incriminating that IRL - I don't know any other scenario where our every thought is written out for the record. Unless you go around with a personal stenographer.)

Which is not the intended purpose of social sites. You are supposed to forget that anyone and everyone can read your comments in spite the safety of reporting them from a keyboard rather than saying them to someone's face.

But every now and then I would like to say something in English I can't possibly get flack for. Or that my manager can't read. (I accepted the friend request. Otherwise - that might be rude.)

BTW, when did FB become the new awkward means of rejecting someone? Classic Hollywood tells us that the, "I'm washing my hair," was the preferred rejection of the classy lady. Now a days it's the highly suspect proclamation, "I don't have a FB account."

My mother has a FB account and so did my father, for a brief period there.  Dogs have FB pages. Really, we've all caved to peer pressure and made a FB account at one point or another. Now whether we quit while we were ahead or continued to feed the addiction is another matter.

But now a days you have to come up with new lies to passive aggressively discourage the less desirable people from knowing just how little you wish to converse with them. One of my students gave that particular excuse to another older gentleman who was too old to be asking for her contact information. And that example is one of the prime reason I am bringing the blog back to life. I do want a bit of an outlet to talk smack about some of the people I come across without offending the Japanese sense of politeness.

And it is not so much smack as I would like to use cynical remarks and biting wit without an unfortunate lost in translation moment.

So to conclude this overly long post - Hello world. I'm back at it. Be very afraid.

Sometimes Less Is More

What I have come to discover on my path to traveling abroad is that I am not the first nor the last to do so. Not really a surprise, but I was under the assumption that in a small town the would run into one or two people. No matter whom I've come across they seem to have a sibling, child, cousin, best friends 3rd cousin twice removed on their mother's side that has gone abroad.

Such stories are helpful when they include amusing anecdotes and tales of adventure complete with breath taking photo albums. The fact that the person in question is not being spoken of in the past tense is certainly helpful when assuring parents that you are not going off to a certain demise in a foreign land.

But please, good story tellers, omit the part about your children/obscure relation, not returning after their trip. It may seem cute to joke how they have fallen in love with the culture or found a romantic interest they could not part from. But for the family of those leaving, like myself, this is a very real terror that keeps them up at night. Your cute stories of love overseas are not helping.

My father is seriously considering having me sign legal paperwork, preferably in blood, that says I will come home after the year. His scenario involves a long distance phone call where I say something to the effect of, "I've met this boy Mitsubishi, we're in love, and I'm not coming home. *click*"

To which I remind my father, I am a modern woman, the boy follows me. I also maintain that said hypothetical Japanese boy will most likely be built like a Japanese car. Small and compact enough that I could smuggle him back in my luggage without having to shell out for an extra ticket.

I am a cheap b@stard at heart. A romantic but cheap.

Not There Yet - but close!

Hello world, this is Manda-chan! Currently reporting from an undisclosed location in the states. Because no one cares where in the USA I am (and if you do you may have some stalker tendencies you'll want to quash to avoid a restraining order in your future).

They always say it is the journey and not the destination that is important. However my destination is the purpose of this blog. Manda-chan will be in Japan by December 2nd! Not for an ill timed family abandoning vacation of sorts but for a whole year of working abroad. Granted it was a bit sooner than I had anticipated. When you are told an early spring assignment that suddenly becomes the first of December - there are some adjustments to make.

Try telling your mother you wont be around for Christmas. Try it without tissues on hand and you are in trouble.

In missing the family Christmas I am pretending I am getting the entire country of Japan as my early Christmas present. Demented, delusional and foolish - yes. But it beats being depressed over losing a Christmas (Japan has not yet fallen prey to this gold mine of consumer manipulation).

In theory the idea of moving halfway across the world for a year did not seem as insane as the practice is showing it to be. I had a general idea of what I would need to do and then found out I had the equivalent of a stick figure drawing compared to the big picture. To mention a few, there is the pre-flight prep of trying to compress your life into a few small bags that can be no bigger than 62 linear inches or weigh more than 50 pounds. Or that international baggage fees are waived to Japan, but applied in all other Asian countries by adding your total weight of checked baggage and carry on. One may only visit the Japanese Embassy for an Entry Visa after obtaining the Certificate of Eligibility. Which took a fair amount of paperwork and individuals vouching for me and promising that I have a place to go and a real job. The postal service was never happier than when I got my paperwork and stopped camping out by the mail box or stalking their carriers in eager anticipation. On the plus side I have finally discovered what professional business attire is and that I had nothing of the sort. (Apparently my co-workers in their leggins and Uggs were not displaying 'business professional'.)

Not everyday is going to be exciting and warranting a blog post. I also have a little catching up to do. There have been some sweet things said to me, some incredulous looks and disparaging statements, and a growing list of things I should have been considering before hand.

I can promise you a few things. Most days I will be upbeat and trying to crack the occasional joke. Whether it works or flops is your misfortune I'm afraid. I am of the mistaken opinion that I am funny. There is the potential for some anxiety ridden rants as I adjust to my new life abroad. And finally, you will have the privilege of noting the irony of my teaching conversational English when I make enough blunders with my own.

Hello world - nice to meet you - and goodnight.