Any outsider – on finding out the working hours of the average Japanese worker might assume that the Japanese working population are a haggard, work weary, sleep deprived, aged group of souls who have lost touch with the true meaning of life.
But the reality is startlingly opposite to that. The Japanese nation, on average, to my eyes is a picture of health and vitality. After being at the office until god-knows-what hour being busybusy, teaching classes, team-teaching with me, with A LOT of energy and enthusiasm, staying late doing things I would never know about, meeting parents, running tea ceremony club and all the rest, my supervisor heads home for about 9 pm. There she will be responsible for cooking her son, hers and her husband’s dinner, and doing the housework, before heading for bed, and then getting up at 5 am the next morning, for another similarly relentless day. This is what I can gather is my supervisors daily routine, and probably has been all of her adult life. (Except up until this year she ran tennis club for 2-3 hours every day after school and 4 hours on weekend days – she stopped this to be able to spend more time with her son because of his stage in the last year of junior high – a key year). My supervisor is a vision of health. She is energetic – running around the teachers room, always. She is hysterical – always laughing out loud. I never really see her trudge around with tiredness. And it is the same with many other teachers. This hardcore intense lifestyle seems to suit them in some unfathomable way to me. How they manage to keep it up is a mystery to. Maybe it`s something in that rice that they eat.
But – I`ve been eating Japanese rice for nearly 3 months now and I still trudge around. It is indeed a mystery. I wonder if I will ever discover it …
Tuesday, 4 November 2008
E-ju-cay-shun
The club activities are clearly a major difference between the job of an English teacher and the job of a teacher in Japan (see previous post).
Taken aback is too strong a word to use, but I was mildly surprised at teachers behavior towards students in general. It wasn`t just one teacher but I notice it with nearly every JTE I teach with. And the fact I noticed it, a small difference, is important. Japanese teachers have a much more hands-on contact with their students compared to English teachers. If the student is slumped over their desk asleep (as many often are) the teacher will touch the student, and shake them to get them going, hit them (gently!) around the head – almost in a coaxing sort of way. Teachers in Japan have a lot more person-to-person contact with their students. I`m sure that if this occurred in England, students would view it as strange, and probably some smart-arse student would say it was paedophilia/ child abuse in a joking way. Even though in jest, this would cross the minds of English people – the students, their parents, their teachers. But, in Japan this would not cross the mind of anyone. This is just a normal way to be in the classroom.
It reflects a deeper, overall divergence between the style of Japanese and English education. Japanese teachers are much more similar to parents in many ways, concerning the amount of input they have into the raising of children into young adults. Many times in the teachers room I see students talking deeply to teachers about matters that are probably quite serious. This is not just a few isolated cases, but I see it relatively often, in all of my schools. When I speak to teachers and ask how they can possibly find enough work to do to keep them in the teachers room until late into the evening, the teachers often state that they are speaking to the parents of their students on the phone. That that are meeting with the parents of the students. These teachers play a hugely important role in the upbringing of the children. They spend so much time with these children through the school day, and as part of the club activities, meeting the students individually to discuss their work (and having more personal conversations too is what I guess from seeing some hushed conversations here). Naturally, because of all this contact, the homeroom teacher of a student knows that student extremely well, perhaps almost to the level of a parent in some cases. It was interesting for me to find out, that in Japan if a student ever gets into trouble with the police, the first thing the police will do, is to call the school, to get the student`s homeroom teacher to come down to the station! The teachers do have this level of involvement in the moral upbringing of their students.
But, this role similar to a parent has led to problems I believe with the maturity (or lack thereof, as the case may be) in Japanese students. Because the teachers have such a close parental-like role the students can become very dependent on them. Never afraid to ask for help from their teacher-parent (and never will this help be turned down).
It crystallized for me after I had been to Hitachi-kita school for a couple of weeks. Hitachi-kita is my high level school. As is logical, in the higher level schools the students are more serious about school, the teachers are more serious about school. Therefore, the relationship between students and their teacher is perhaps intensified compared to the lower level schools (where the kids view school as purely a social occasion). Hitachi-kita`s aim is to get maximum kids into maximum good universities. They are the 3rd best ranked school in Hitachi and because of this aim there is pressure, pressure, pressure – on the teachers AND the students.
These teachers take few breaks as far as I can see. Even during lunchtime students are frequently in the classroom talking with their teachers, receiving personal help with their school work. Teachers do this because they are so motivated by the university pressure, but also because of the general attitude of heavy involvement in the students` academic and personal achievement and development. A couple of students come and ask me to check over their work during lunchtime. I do it, I correct it, as all teachers do (because these kids are keen – want to study English at university, and to reject them would be seen to discourage them). But, I just think and imagine the situation if this were to happen on a daily basis in an English staffroom as it does here (a stream of students coming into the staffroom to ask for help with their work). Fuck off, let me eat my lunch in peace! would be the response I reckon.
Is this a good thing? This personal help. It might improve them in the short-term. Having your teacher standing over you, making you work, giving you detailed personal help will surely increase your marks, but I would say it is a problem in the longterm. These kids are going through school extremely immature. Teachers do comment that Japanese students are immature, and this heavy involvement in their students lives is I`m sure, part of the problem. When they leave school and study at university it must be a big shock. To work individually without such close teacher help. To work without the knowledge that a teacher is standing over you, and will act as a big motivating force in you getting your work done. To work without knowing in the back of your head that your teacher will correct your work if you ask for it.
It is this kind of personal work that takes so much of a teacher`s time. I remember talking to Tomota-sensei. Leaving school at 5.15 pm. She would be working on a student`s speech contest speech that evening. The student had made some crap attempt at it, but Tomota-sensei was going to rewrite it because she didn`t think it was good enough. She even emailed it to me to check it as well. The dedication of these teachers to their students does astound me. (And for a teacher to write a student`s speech is entirely normal by the way. I judged a speech contest last weekend – and knowing the standard of high school student English there is NO WAY that most of the students had written what they wrote).
So, how has this method of teaching – which in my view tends to produce immature students, come about? Why are these teachers taking on a parental role? It`s because of the wider Japanese working culture. Japanese adults all work late. If both parents work – what happens to the kid? Teachers take the parent role, because the parents often hardly have time to! If the kids don`t spend all their evenings and much of their weekends and their holidays doing club activities who is going to look after the children? Working parents certainly don`t have time too. So the teachers take on this pseudo-parent role. To fill the role that working parents do not have time for, because THEY are at work. It`s a little sad really.
To summarise it is the never-ending commitment to the club activity and all that it entails (coaching, refereeing, driving the club to matches all around Ibaraki – and beyond, if your club is good), and the intense personal attention students receive from their teachers, on top of the regular lessons and lesson planning, that account for the way Japanese teachers work the hours that they do.
Taken aback is too strong a word to use, but I was mildly surprised at teachers behavior towards students in general. It wasn`t just one teacher but I notice it with nearly every JTE I teach with. And the fact I noticed it, a small difference, is important. Japanese teachers have a much more hands-on contact with their students compared to English teachers. If the student is slumped over their desk asleep (as many often are) the teacher will touch the student, and shake them to get them going, hit them (gently!) around the head – almost in a coaxing sort of way. Teachers in Japan have a lot more person-to-person contact with their students. I`m sure that if this occurred in England, students would view it as strange, and probably some smart-arse student would say it was paedophilia/ child abuse in a joking way. Even though in jest, this would cross the minds of English people – the students, their parents, their teachers. But, in Japan this would not cross the mind of anyone. This is just a normal way to be in the classroom.
It reflects a deeper, overall divergence between the style of Japanese and English education. Japanese teachers are much more similar to parents in many ways, concerning the amount of input they have into the raising of children into young adults. Many times in the teachers room I see students talking deeply to teachers about matters that are probably quite serious. This is not just a few isolated cases, but I see it relatively often, in all of my schools. When I speak to teachers and ask how they can possibly find enough work to do to keep them in the teachers room until late into the evening, the teachers often state that they are speaking to the parents of their students on the phone. That that are meeting with the parents of the students. These teachers play a hugely important role in the upbringing of the children. They spend so much time with these children through the school day, and as part of the club activities, meeting the students individually to discuss their work (and having more personal conversations too is what I guess from seeing some hushed conversations here). Naturally, because of all this contact, the homeroom teacher of a student knows that student extremely well, perhaps almost to the level of a parent in some cases. It was interesting for me to find out, that in Japan if a student ever gets into trouble with the police, the first thing the police will do, is to call the school, to get the student`s homeroom teacher to come down to the station! The teachers do have this level of involvement in the moral upbringing of their students.
But, this role similar to a parent has led to problems I believe with the maturity (or lack thereof, as the case may be) in Japanese students. Because the teachers have such a close parental-like role the students can become very dependent on them. Never afraid to ask for help from their teacher-parent (and never will this help be turned down).
It crystallized for me after I had been to Hitachi-kita school for a couple of weeks. Hitachi-kita is my high level school. As is logical, in the higher level schools the students are more serious about school, the teachers are more serious about school. Therefore, the relationship between students and their teacher is perhaps intensified compared to the lower level schools (where the kids view school as purely a social occasion). Hitachi-kita`s aim is to get maximum kids into maximum good universities. They are the 3rd best ranked school in Hitachi and because of this aim there is pressure, pressure, pressure – on the teachers AND the students.
These teachers take few breaks as far as I can see. Even during lunchtime students are frequently in the classroom talking with their teachers, receiving personal help with their school work. Teachers do this because they are so motivated by the university pressure, but also because of the general attitude of heavy involvement in the students` academic and personal achievement and development. A couple of students come and ask me to check over their work during lunchtime. I do it, I correct it, as all teachers do (because these kids are keen – want to study English at university, and to reject them would be seen to discourage them). But, I just think and imagine the situation if this were to happen on a daily basis in an English staffroom as it does here (a stream of students coming into the staffroom to ask for help with their work). Fuck off, let me eat my lunch in peace! would be the response I reckon.
Is this a good thing? This personal help. It might improve them in the short-term. Having your teacher standing over you, making you work, giving you detailed personal help will surely increase your marks, but I would say it is a problem in the longterm. These kids are going through school extremely immature. Teachers do comment that Japanese students are immature, and this heavy involvement in their students lives is I`m sure, part of the problem. When they leave school and study at university it must be a big shock. To work individually without such close teacher help. To work without the knowledge that a teacher is standing over you, and will act as a big motivating force in you getting your work done. To work without knowing in the back of your head that your teacher will correct your work if you ask for it.
It is this kind of personal work that takes so much of a teacher`s time. I remember talking to Tomota-sensei. Leaving school at 5.15 pm. She would be working on a student`s speech contest speech that evening. The student had made some crap attempt at it, but Tomota-sensei was going to rewrite it because she didn`t think it was good enough. She even emailed it to me to check it as well. The dedication of these teachers to their students does astound me. (And for a teacher to write a student`s speech is entirely normal by the way. I judged a speech contest last weekend – and knowing the standard of high school student English there is NO WAY that most of the students had written what they wrote).
So, how has this method of teaching – which in my view tends to produce immature students, come about? Why are these teachers taking on a parental role? It`s because of the wider Japanese working culture. Japanese adults all work late. If both parents work – what happens to the kid? Teachers take the parent role, because the parents often hardly have time to! If the kids don`t spend all their evenings and much of their weekends and their holidays doing club activities who is going to look after the children? Working parents certainly don`t have time too. So the teachers take on this pseudo-parent role. To fill the role that working parents do not have time for, because THEY are at work. It`s a little sad really.
To summarise it is the never-ending commitment to the club activity and all that it entails (coaching, refereeing, driving the club to matches all around Ibaraki – and beyond, if your club is good), and the intense personal attention students receive from their teachers, on top of the regular lessons and lesson planning, that account for the way Japanese teachers work the hours that they do.
Working Hours and CLUB ACTIVITIES
The Japanese education system is different from education in England in so MANY ways that I hardly know where to begin with this blog post.
But, I will start, logically, with my initial incredulity from my first few days in Japan (which continues today, and I`m sure will continue until the end of the year) at the teachers who remain at school late into the evening, everyday. This is a different case from the reason they all come into work during the school holidays (which relates to the fact that teachers are public servants in Japan. The public expects that they work hard, and not slack off. Just because there are no students to teach doesn`t mean they shouldn`t be at work!).
No, during the school term, it is not like the holidays. Teachers do not draw out their time at work for good appearance to the public (though I am sure that not appearing lazy in front of your colleagues by going home before the average, is a part of it). Teachers remain at work late into the evening because they genuinely are THAT busy, and have not completed their work.
The time at which teachers will break out and leave the teacher`s room does vary from school to school. One JTE at my low level school leaves at 5.30 pm. (NB – all Japanese schools “finish” at 3.30 pm). This seemed very early to me. My supervisor at Taga typically leaves at 7 pm, and a JTE at a higher level school leaves at 8 pm. I am convinced that many teachers remain longer than this though. Certainly when I returned to school one day at 6.45 pm ish the teachers room was as full and lively as at any time during the school hours, and not many were showing signs of readiness to leave yet.
I am exemplifying typical timings here for everyday, normal days. However, Japanese schools have sports festivals, culture festivals, generic school festivals, a lot of effort for which is put in by the students and the teachers alike. Staying until 9.30-10 pm is the norm for my supervisor on these days. (And she only went home because her son was getting hungry(!)).
I am so curious about the teacher`s working hours that I like to ask as many people as I can, their daily schedule. The biggest shock I received was when talking to a junior high school teacher. He stated that typically he left work at 9 pm everyday (having arrived at work at 7 am by the way), arriving home to eat supper at 11 pm every night.
Why do they all work like this? The reason is they do not only plan lessons and teach lessons. That forms half or less of a teachers work in Japan. Admittedly, I have been told that junior high school teachers do have a slightly fuller schedule of lessons to teach in comparison to senior high school teachers who may have more free periods. But, these teachers are busy.
A major contribution to their busy-ness is the infamous “club activity”. Club activities are hugely important in Japanese schools. Every teacher should have responsibility for one (and those that do not, ARE looked down upon as not contributing significantly to the school life, and may even be moved on to another school soon).
Dedication, turning up to the club everyday for practice earns you respect. It is valued highly in Japan. Not only in the sphere of club activities but widely as a whole. In a way how dedicated you are to your club sport is more important than how good you are at the sport (though the two are obviously linked). My supervisor’s husband teaches at junior high level and had moved schools a few years ago. At his previous school he had been in charge of baseball club but at his new school he was to replace the teacher that had been in charge of basketball club. SO, what else was he to do – but learn the rules of basketball! He bought a rule book, he studied it. He turned up to the practice with the students. They respected him as their team coach BECAUSE of that dedication to their team. That is what is important in Japan – participation, dedication to the group, the community.
The teachers participation in the club activity is definitely given a lot of recognition by all the teachers and senior staff (well – you`d hope it would be, given the effort teachers make on this front). Japanese teachers are required to move schools – they are not allowed to stay working in one school for ever and ever (that would just be too kind – to allow a teacher to get comfortable in their school, perhaps live relatively nearby etc). They must stay in their schools for a minimum of 4 years and a maximum of 12 years. Though, a period of just 6 years at one school is typical. Teachers can only make a short list of 4 schools and they will be assigned to their next school by the authorities as where to go next. (The final decision as to where the teacher will teach does not rest with the teacher). But, it was interesting for me to find out that the only teacher I know who has stayed at a school for the 12 years is a teacher who is extremely dedicated to his swimming club. The club has been very successful in many prefectural competitions. And everybody in the teachers room knows, is very impressed. I am sure this teacher has not been required to move on from Taga High School because of his role in the club activity. More interesting is the case of a teacher who sits opposite me. My supervisor had told me early on, that she worries about this teacher. This teacher does not have a club activity of her own. As a result during the school holidays this teacher really did have nothing to do. She sat and read Japanese novels and did leave early. Of course this lack of contribution to the school life and community (both in time and club activity terms) was noticed by the other teachers and the by the more senior staff. My supervisor worries that this teacher will be moved on soon, and most likely to a lower level school. Her career could be on a downturn because she isn`t willing – like all of the rest – to live her life through Taga High School and spend most of her waking hours at a club activity. My supervisor says this is because she thinks that she is depressed – but, in England this attitude would be of any regular person! It certainly is my attitude.
But, I will start, logically, with my initial incredulity from my first few days in Japan (which continues today, and I`m sure will continue until the end of the year) at the teachers who remain at school late into the evening, everyday. This is a different case from the reason they all come into work during the school holidays (which relates to the fact that teachers are public servants in Japan. The public expects that they work hard, and not slack off. Just because there are no students to teach doesn`t mean they shouldn`t be at work!).
No, during the school term, it is not like the holidays. Teachers do not draw out their time at work for good appearance to the public (though I am sure that not appearing lazy in front of your colleagues by going home before the average, is a part of it). Teachers remain at work late into the evening because they genuinely are THAT busy, and have not completed their work.
The time at which teachers will break out and leave the teacher`s room does vary from school to school. One JTE at my low level school leaves at 5.30 pm. (NB – all Japanese schools “finish” at 3.30 pm). This seemed very early to me. My supervisor at Taga typically leaves at 7 pm, and a JTE at a higher level school leaves at 8 pm. I am convinced that many teachers remain longer than this though. Certainly when I returned to school one day at 6.45 pm ish the teachers room was as full and lively as at any time during the school hours, and not many were showing signs of readiness to leave yet.
I am exemplifying typical timings here for everyday, normal days. However, Japanese schools have sports festivals, culture festivals, generic school festivals, a lot of effort for which is put in by the students and the teachers alike. Staying until 9.30-10 pm is the norm for my supervisor on these days. (And she only went home because her son was getting hungry(!)).
I am so curious about the teacher`s working hours that I like to ask as many people as I can, their daily schedule. The biggest shock I received was when talking to a junior high school teacher. He stated that typically he left work at 9 pm everyday (having arrived at work at 7 am by the way), arriving home to eat supper at 11 pm every night.
Why do they all work like this? The reason is they do not only plan lessons and teach lessons. That forms half or less of a teachers work in Japan. Admittedly, I have been told that junior high school teachers do have a slightly fuller schedule of lessons to teach in comparison to senior high school teachers who may have more free periods. But, these teachers are busy.
A major contribution to their busy-ness is the infamous “club activity”. Club activities are hugely important in Japanese schools. Every teacher should have responsibility for one (and those that do not, ARE looked down upon as not contributing significantly to the school life, and may even be moved on to another school soon).
Dedication, turning up to the club everyday for practice earns you respect. It is valued highly in Japan. Not only in the sphere of club activities but widely as a whole. In a way how dedicated you are to your club sport is more important than how good you are at the sport (though the two are obviously linked). My supervisor’s husband teaches at junior high level and had moved schools a few years ago. At his previous school he had been in charge of baseball club but at his new school he was to replace the teacher that had been in charge of basketball club. SO, what else was he to do – but learn the rules of basketball! He bought a rule book, he studied it. He turned up to the practice with the students. They respected him as their team coach BECAUSE of that dedication to their team. That is what is important in Japan – participation, dedication to the group, the community.
The teachers participation in the club activity is definitely given a lot of recognition by all the teachers and senior staff (well – you`d hope it would be, given the effort teachers make on this front). Japanese teachers are required to move schools – they are not allowed to stay working in one school for ever and ever (that would just be too kind – to allow a teacher to get comfortable in their school, perhaps live relatively nearby etc). They must stay in their schools for a minimum of 4 years and a maximum of 12 years. Though, a period of just 6 years at one school is typical. Teachers can only make a short list of 4 schools and they will be assigned to their next school by the authorities as where to go next. (The final decision as to where the teacher will teach does not rest with the teacher). But, it was interesting for me to find out that the only teacher I know who has stayed at a school for the 12 years is a teacher who is extremely dedicated to his swimming club. The club has been very successful in many prefectural competitions. And everybody in the teachers room knows, is very impressed. I am sure this teacher has not been required to move on from Taga High School because of his role in the club activity. More interesting is the case of a teacher who sits opposite me. My supervisor had told me early on, that she worries about this teacher. This teacher does not have a club activity of her own. As a result during the school holidays this teacher really did have nothing to do. She sat and read Japanese novels and did leave early. Of course this lack of contribution to the school life and community (both in time and club activity terms) was noticed by the other teachers and the by the more senior staff. My supervisor worries that this teacher will be moved on soon, and most likely to a lower level school. Her career could be on a downturn because she isn`t willing – like all of the rest – to live her life through Taga High School and spend most of her waking hours at a club activity. My supervisor says this is because she thinks that she is depressed – but, in England this attitude would be of any regular person! It certainly is my attitude.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)