School

First of all. There are a few things that I have discovered about students in Japan. First, every elementary student knows how to ride a unicycle. Second, . And third, . Anyway, school so far as been good. Well a few weeks ago I did have this class with a bunch of wapaku boys (misbehaving). They called it the ichiban mondai class (number one problem class) for all of Shimanto. They were a little crazy to say the least. Paper airplanes and balls flying all over the place, shouted conversations across the room, jumping out of seats, etc. The poor teacher, she would go to one area to try and settle them down and the rest of the class would be going crazy. Then this teacher came in and just smacked a kid on the head and told him to be quiet. In another class this one teacher grabbed a kids arm and started yanking him out of his desk really hard and then tried to fornce him to sit on the floor in the same fashion. In other words, discipline in schools here is way different than in America. I'm still working out exactly what the rules are because it seems to be the opposite for most of the time, where the teachers just ignore the problem children and continue with class. Perhaps it was just becuase I was a guest that they were cracking down. I don't know. Anyway, in Japan, kids all have the right to be in the classroom, so if they are really bad, they don't get sent out or to the principal's office but are just ignored for the most part. I hear carious stories from different ALTs of bizarre situations like this. For example, this one ALT was in class when all of a sudden a student just took out scissors and started repeatedly stabbing the wall, but the teacher just kept teaching. Discipline is done outside of class time I guess. And it's not the parent's responsibility, but the teachers's. Even if the student gets in trouble outside the calssroom and school, like with the police, they go to the school first, not the parents. The school and teachers are responsible for a large part of raising children. Therefore, teachers are a lot more respected here and it's harder to become a teacher. Pretty different huh? Anyway, I guess I will end that there. Till next post.