Monday 28 June 2010

Enforced applause

This is my last week of teaching. Probably. Things are never 100%, and there may be a random class or two after exams that I'm asked to do. But basically it's my last week. Since I'm not needed (or wanted, rather) at my scheduled classes at Kagikou tomorrow or Thursday, I only have one more day of teaching. Probably. And one of the classes on Friday was moved to today, so I only have one more class before the end. Again, probably.

In my classes with my supervisor, Mrs. Mountainbase, she's announced to the students at the end of the lesson that it's their last one with me, and asked me to say something to the students. Yesterday I wasn't prepared for it and ended up waffling, and I'm not sure the students understood much of it. She had to tell them to applaud afterwards. Today I expressed myself more clearly, and managed to get them to applaud of their own free will. I was actually starting to well up towards the end of the spiel. Then Mrs. Mountainbase got the class leader to stand up and say something. All he could manage was, "I am happy." which I could take offense at, but I'm sure he meant he was happy to have had the chance to experience J-time every Tuesday and would be sad to say goodbye. Some of the girls chased me out the room to say goodbye after class, which was touching.

In other news, in a class I was in this morning, the homeroom teacher came in to take one of the students away (apparently to talk about a bullying issue). This teacher, Mr Ricefieldnorth, is perhaps the most intimidating-looking in the school. He has the body of the Hulk and looks like a yakuza enforcer. He came into the class and spotted one of the students from the Judo club, which he coaches (probably because there's no sumo club at the school), with his head down on the desk, apparently sleeping. He walked quietly over to him and slammed a rolled-up notebook down on the boy's desk so the sound startled the whole class. The boy lifted his head up in a daze, then the Mr Ricefieldnorth did it again. Perhaps he didn't think the boy looked alert enough already. In the meantime, the JTE and I just hung around the blackboard awkwardly. The atmosphere of the class had been quite jovial up to that point. After Mr Ricefieldnorth was apparently satisfied with the judo boy's state of wakefulness, he called the boy he had actually come to see, and they both left.

Even here, at the end, I'm having new experiences. Good times.

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