Teaching and Screeching

So I’m a teacher now. Like that’s my actual job. I often forget, because I’ve done it so many times as a half job. I’ve been a camp counselor, a teaching intern, a substitute teacher, and some kind of baby watcher. So I’m very used to this kind of job, but I find it hard to fathom that I am now an actual paid-by-the-city teacher. A sensei even. Actually, since my paycheck comes from the city and not my school, I’m actually considered a public servant. Pretty cool, eh?

Even so, I sometimes don’t think of myself as a teacher, much less a sensei. Sensei (I’m told) literally means, “honorable master.” So as an “eigo no sensei” I am considered an honorable master of the English language. I like English a lot, and I studied it more than other kids in my high school, but I’m really no master of the language (as you can tell from this blog). Still comparatively speaking, I am a master in Japan. Just as any Japanese three-year old is a Japanese master to me.

There are a few things that are expected of every teacher. 1.) Teach the thing you’re hired to teach and 2.) keep the kids in line. Number one is not a problem. I speak English. I can wing it. Number two…that’s another story.

Every ALT has a predecessor, someone whose job they take over. This predecessor is supposed to answer all the questions specifically pertaining to your school. My pred (as the cool kids say) was a super nice girl named Christina. She answered all my questions, including my most burning one. “What are the kids like?”

“They’re nuts,” she said. “They basically run the school. And you’re in the biggest middle school in Shiga, so there’s around nine hundred of them.” She proceeded to tell me a number of stories about her lovely children, which really scared me up a notch. I’d dealt with rowdy American kids, but not very well. How was I going to deal with nine hundred kids who didn’t speak my language?

This began to bother me. It bothered me at home, on the drive to Maryland, during pre-departure orientation, on the plane, in the hotel, at Tokyo orientation, in my dreams, and up until I moved into my new apartment. That’s where I met my next-door and upstairs neighbors, Katie and Nikki.

Now, if you haven’t met Katie and Nikki, they’re great. The end,

So the three of us went to an izakaya during my first week there. Nikki is now on her second year, and Katie is on her third collective year in Japan. So they know what they’re talking about. I asked outright, “What should I do about crazy kids who don’t listen to me? What if they can tell I’m a dork?”

“Japanese kids are just like American kids,” they said. “They want to be cool and want to show you they’re cool. So all you have to do is outcool them, which isn’t hard because you’re foreign.” Be cool. I could do that. Besides, no one knew me here, so I just had to hide the fact that I was a nervous buffoon. Piece of cake.

“Also,” Katie added, and this is important. “Don’t be afraid to freak out the squares. If the kids want to act a fool, just act a fool bigger than them. That’ll shut them up.”

“And,” Nikki added to the add. “Be yourself.” Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. I had to act cool.

So with those words ringing in my ear chasms, I headed to my first day of school. On the bike ride to school I got nervous. I arrived, parked my bike, and turned around. It was a sea of baby-type Japanese kids. Everywhere. Some looked at me. Some laughed. Most whispered. “Be cool,” I thought. “They don’t know you’re not cool.”

“Sup, dogs?” I said. No response, of course. It didn’t matter. I was emanating hipness.

Strutting down the hall, I felt like Sister Whoopi Goldberg when she first walked into that inner-city school. Kids were doing whatever they wanted, however they wanted. Many kids wore street clothes instead of their uniforms. One kids was punching a wall for unknown reasons. It was time to kick the coolness up a notch.

I did some funky fresh nodding to the kids that passed by. “Hey. Sup, yo. Morning, sucka.” They didn’t know what I was saying, but I sure was cool. “Whatevs,” said my strut. “Holla back,” said my one raised eyebrow. And into the teacher’s room. Safe among other nerds. All I had to do was keep up this cool act for two hundred fifty plus days and I’d be home free.

During the morning assembly, all nine hundred kids gathered in the gym for the start of the second term. I had to introduce myself in Japanese by reading a speech Katie wrote for me. But I had to make sure I was cool! This was going to be at least eight hundred kids’ first impression of me. Cool factor five, engage!

And it was cool. They called me up to the stage. I was nervous, but I showed no sign as my sock-covered feet nonchalantly bounced up the polished steps. I sashayed over to the podium. I slapped my speech down and proceeded to be the Will Smith of Japanese speeches. Inside, every organ was pumping every juice possible to keep my nervousness from spontaneously throwing my body into a frenzied panic. But outside, I was like John Wayne eating a hot dog.

The speech was done. No problem. My legs were shaky but I headed offstage. It should be noted here that God has an interesting way of teaching us things. This was a particularly funny way, in my opinion.

I made for the first step and my shaky, nervous, sock-covered foot slipped off the top step. Never one to be the outsider, my other foot decided to slip too.

CHUNKITA-CHUNKITA-CHUNKITA-BOOMF! went my hiney down each stair and onto the floor. I sat in complete shock. “It’s okay, Michael,” I thought. “You can salvage this. Just jump up and say ‘ta-da’ or do something funny. Ready, go!”

I stood up. I looked at the silent crowd. My voice squeaked, “merp…” Silence. I shuffled off to the side wall, where I prayed to find some asbestos to choke myself with. But the building was up to code. Crap.

Back in the teacher’s room, I prepared for my first lesson. It was the self-intro lesson using the videos I had in my last blog. I had been really excited about seeming cool up to that point, but now I was deflated. I couldn’t be cool. Everyone saw me for what I was. A clumsy square. A Doofy Von Chessclub, if you will. And nothing was going to change that. The kids would never respect me and I would never be able to settle their rowdy behinds with an outcool-type nature. Epic. Fail.

But, no matter how much I wanted to crawl into crisper drawer of the staff refrigerator and die, they were still paying me. And I had to earn my keep. So I schlepped off to my first class ever.

I arrived early to set up the video, load my powerpoint, and do other type things. I observed the class and the class observed me. In training, we were told that to control a class, you just have to control the rowdiest student. If he is in line, the rest of the class will be. It wasn’t long before I spotted the rowdiest student, mostly because he was standing on his desk, yelling obscenities.

The teacher arrived and I started my lesson. The lights went down and I turned on my computer to show my first slide. “Hello, everyone,” I said meekly. “My name is…” YELL! The rowdy kid yelled something in Japanese and the class burst in smatters of giggling. This was total teh suck, and it was only first class! The one country where it’s assumed I’m cool because I’m American, and I blow the ruse by falling off the stage! Why couldn’t I catch I break?

Then some words rang in my head. “Freak out the squares. Be yourself.” I looked around the room. They were just kids. I looked at Mr. Rowdy. I couldn’t outcool him, but I could definitely outcrazy him. If there was one thing I was sure of, I could outcrazy any kid any time.

I stood up straight. Meekly I announced, “My name is…” I clicked to my first slide. This picture:

























“MICHAEL!” I yelled, sporting the same pose in the picture. “Wicka-what, ducklings!” The class laughed, but the rowdy kid laughed loudest. I clicked to my next slide, a mishmash of Americana. “I am from AMERICA. America’s got planes!”

A kid in the back mimicked me, “Pureinsu!” I threw some crazy at him.

“That’s right, I said PLANES!” I pointed to him with a hand behind my ear.

“Pureinsu!” he yelled back.

“That’s right, y’all! Every child like planes.” I moved on.

Throughout the rest of the lesson, I yelled things, danced around, high-fived entire aisles, and covered kids’ heads with maps of the U.S. They liked the videos too. All in all, it went over pretty well. Some kids came up to talk to me afterward, and even the rowdy kid talked to me a little bit.

I’ve been doing that in every class ever since. Most classes it works really well, and some it doesn’t. The important thing is I’m having fun. I’m not scared of what a bunch of junior high kids think of me anymore, because whether they like or not, I’m going to be my crazy foreign self around them. Most of them like me and some of them don’t, but thems are the breaks.

In the end, I’m really happy about falling down the stairs. If I hadn’t, I might still be trying to keep up that cool crap, and I know now that it never would have worked. The kids expect cool, but they don’t expect crazy, and that’s what keeps them from thinking they can get away with stuff. And every so often, I’ll be in class or at my desk and I just start laughing. Silently at first, but then noticeably louder. Because falling down in front of nine hundred kids at once is just plain hilarious. Especially if you’re trying too hard to be cool.















And here's my Halloween board! Sorry if I seem pushy about showing this to people, but it took a long time. And I actually like it, unlike most things I make.