Electives, beatings, etc.

As you may have previously heard, there's a lot of pressure to succeed academically in Japan. This pressure doesn't just come from parents or teachers, but from fellow students as well. I've observed two sides to this (potentially 3-sided??) coin so far, one that's pretty brutal and nasty and one that's downright humorous.

I'll get the ugly one over with first, but with one caveat before I begin: Japan is not America. Not all of the laws are the same, and the customs are most certainly different. Actions that you may perceive as wrong, while not necessarily commonplace here, can happen and may not be dealt with as you might like. Furthermore, I don't necessarily support every action taken here, and am reporting it primarily because it could be interesting to you. That said (and now that I've illustrated just about every use of the potential form in English), try not to get up in arms over what you read. I don't like every aspect of the Japanese education system, but it does work - to an extent anyway - as evidenced by Japan's 1st world country status and successful economy that isn't on the verge of collapse like America's.

Now that I've caveated the living hell out of you, I'll get into my first topic here, ijime. Ijime, literally 'harassment' or 'bullying,' is typically used in a more specific context to refer to bullying that takes place at school, most often junior high and high school. Of course this sort of behavior is hardly limited to Japan; students all over the world find reasons everyday to torment and beat each other. In the U.S., the victims are most likely to be those perceived by their peers as physically or emotionally weak, and thus easy targets. In Japan, though, it is the unsuccessful students (academically or in club activities) who have traditionally been the targets of torment in the hallowed halls of learning. This is made particularly easy by a system that has relied on shame in the past to encourage greater effort, by making test scores and grades public knowledge to the student body. It is only recently that Japanese schools are turning away from this trend and keeping class marks between the teacher and the student in question.
Bullying also sometimes takes place here in an attempt by students to maintain some form of "chain of command." Japan has for centuries been a Father-Knows-Best society, and schools are no exception. Students are expected to obey teachers without question, and younger students are expected to show respect to their elders. I don't want to turn this into any kind of linguistics lesson so I'll just say quickly that it's very easy by one's word choice in Japanese to convey how much one respects another, so there is rarely a question in the intention behind one's words.

This (finally) leads into one of the observations I mentioned at the beginning of this entry. Officially, younger students are expected to respect more advanced students, but Japan is no different from any country when it comes to children - kids are still kids, they go through the same developmental stages as every other child, and they are often total bastards to each other. And teachers are hardly around to observe every transgression, even if they care to play judge, jury, and executioner in each petty squabble that arises. So naturally, students take issues of "discipline" into their own hands. The event that went down here was simple enough - a 1st year student failed to speak with (what was deemed as) proper respect to a 2nd year student, and said 2nd year student shoved the 1st year's head in a toilet. I learned of most of this when the 2nd year was hauled into the teachers' room - no, this or any sort of bullying isn't tolerated here and students who get caught are disciplined - by one of the more hard-line "scary" teachers here. It started with him giving the student a stern talking to, which gradually escalated in volume to capture the attention of everyone in the room. He stood up, continued the tirade, struck the student in the chest and then upside the back of his head, and then gave him a shove toward the door with a final "get the hell out of here" or some such.

...And, now what? A silence had settled over the room, but people went back to their business quickly enough. Beyond a few quiet questions of why that had happened, no one paid the issue much attention, and so I had to wonder, was I in a position to do so? Ultimately I decided that I was not, although it was a struggle. In the U.S., striking a student would most likely be a terminable offense for a teacher. We've already established, though, that that's not where I presently am. I put a lot of thought into what I personally felt about this incident for several days after the fact. I knew that the student suffered no significant injury except maybe to his pride and I also really had to wonder if he deserved it, based on his previous behavior. Neither Japanese custom nor the law here would provide me with any support, so I had to go with what I thought was morally right. Considering the extent to which the situation went (or rather, didn't go), I couldn't justify raising a stink over it. I'm confident that my reaction would have been different if the teacher had struck a female student, or if the student had suffered noticeable injuries, but as it stood...sigh. Moral dilemmas can be such a sumbitch.

On a happier note, and one that's also much easier to write about, my students have recently been given the freedom to inject a little personal choice into their class schedules. Once a week we now have a special time for 1-2 hours where students can take an elective class that is largely unrelated to their required class material, and includes options such as flower arrangement, Japanese drums, making solar panels, traditional cooking, and my new responsibility, English speaking.
Erm, but wait...isn't that what I teach every day here? Ah, no, not quite. I've previously told you of the PTM* and the power they wield here. This is no mere spark in the night, nay. I'm talking about the moment when Arthur first drew Excalibur from The Stone seasoned liberally with the Power of Greyskull.

*Parent Teacher Mafia

Anyway, the PTM dictates that only government-stamped-and-approved English be taught to their childrens' fragile little minds, and almighty God help the poor soul who deviates even one iota from that decree. The textbooks hardly emphasize speaking at all, though, and except in the case of a teacher personally enforcing speaking requirements, a student can cruise on through three years of junior high English by reading, writing, listening, and never actually speaking a single word of English.
So, I work in as many opportunities to have my students speak as I can. My fellow (Japanese) English teachers seem to understand and sympathize; they want to teach the kids as much functional, useful English as they can, too, but are bound by the same fetters I am, plus they can also be admonished for stepping out of line. In theory I can as well, but in practice most Japanese people out in the country who don't know us foreign types are afraid of us and won't initiate a conflict unless they have to.
End result is that I'm thrilled to have partial charge of an elective class in which students can focus more on speaking and speech techniques. It's a small class, too, so it's much easier to give personal attention to the students.

So, one day recently I was talking with a few of my kids who are in this elective class. Three of them are officially in their first year of learning English, but have studied previously outside of school (they went to a private school together) so they actually have a much better command of the language than their fellow ichinensei. I asked them if they wanted to use the break after lunch time once a week to go over some more difficult English and in general learn some more interesting stuff. One immediately chimed in "Yep!" and a second followed in suit. The third didn't answer and so I asked her again. To her friend she replied, "I think I'm gonna go play this time." Her friend then proceeded to slap the holy shit out of her, shouting and calling her lazy, etc. I nearly died laughing. I swear, the little sailor uniforms and the fact that they are like 4 feet tall makes it even funnier.
The nicknames of Slappy and Punching Bag have thus been put into regular use. Expect a few more next time, now that I've gotten to know all of my new coworkers...