...looking on the bright side

So I think that my last post was after a particularly bad stretch of classes, when I was particularly annoyed with "the little shits" that I teach. Recently, classes have been going quite well. I think I've come to the realization that it's not that the kids don't listen to ME, it's that they don't listen to any of their teachers (well, at least at elementary school, anyways). Well, that's not entirely true, there's this one fourth grade teacher that does not put up with anything from his kids. I'm secretly frightened that he hits them or something (and one time, he took this one kid that wasn't even acting that bad out of the class, and when he came back, the kid was crying), because all it takes is one look, or a finger to the mouth, and the kids immediately behave like little angels. Although somewhat unnerving, teaching that class is a dream.

I tried a little experiment for one of my classes at elementary the other day. I taught the vocab and grammer for that day, then explained the activity, and let the kids start doing it. Then, I just kind of stood back to see what would happen. The Japanese teacher, who is actually responsible for discipline, and getting the kids to do the activity, completely lost control of the class. At one point, she just gave up, sat at her desk and started doing some marking, while the kids were clearly being extremely loud, and not doing any work. So, it turns out that I have actually been getting more respect than they give their own teacher. That's kind of messed.

So, the next week, I did the exact same lesson plan, with another class that is equally rowdy, but instead of trying to control the class (or letting it go to shit), I just did the activity with one of the groups for a while, then switched off to one of the other groups. Although the kids aren't speaking English all the time, at least they all get some one-on-one time with me.

Also, I've resigned myself to being an entertainment monkey. The classes are more fun when I do the whole slapstick routine anyways. I have also decided to design activities that will get the kids to entertain me as much as possible too (while still learning English, of course). I'm sometimes surprised by the funny stuff they come up with when given some space for creativity.

So yeah, this week was a good week (maybe because I've been super-busy with other stuff that I'll talk about later too, and I'm not just sitting on my ass doing nothing).

Ok, off to Hokkaido (if we can sneak on the ferry).

Later

Does this make me a jerkface?

So I walked into my first class today, and the kids actually started to cheer. You see, they didn't think that they had me today, and when they saw me walk in, they were happy/excited at the prospect of having a "Louis" class. I, on the other hand, was not nearly so happy to see them.

I think one bad thing about having so much free time at this job is that it gives me too many opportunities to reflect on how much I dislike my job. Don't get me wrong, my life here in Japan is great, but my job just sucks the life right out of me. The way I see it, they are basically paying me to be an entertainment monkey for a group of no-fun kids (getting them to participate in any game that many Canadian kids would love to play, if only as a break from routine, is like pulling teeth) who don't want to learn English anyways is kind of a tough spot to be in. But the pay is nice, and I get to travel lots, so I can't complain.

Speaking of which, I went to Hiroshima over the weekend. The museum was perhaps the most sombre and depressing thing I've ever seen. If everyone visited that place, though, I think there would be a lot less conventional bombs going off in the world, and no one would ever think of using a nuke on a city again.

I'll post pictures sooner or most likely later.