Hell, in four months.
Going to Japan, there were three things I despised more than anything else in the entire world: bigotry, the Yankees, and children, and not always in that order.
Prior to going to Japan, there was of course the interview. Eikaiwa, after all, are well-known for their rigorous hiring standards. At that interview, they asked about, and presumably promptly disregarded, my ideal school environment.
"Would you like to be placed at a school that teaches children?"
No. Hell no. Absolutely not. I'd rather be crucified by my dick than spend a day locked in a class with those four-foot-tall germ-infested soul-vampires. Not even for all the money you aren't paying me.
"Well, as I'd like to one day teach at the high school and eventually university level, I'd certainly prefer to be placed in an adult-only school."
Very politic. Five months later, I found myself at the door of the school with the highest enrollment of children students in all of west Japan. Beaten.
But not entirely. At the worst, I had five kids classes a week. A paltry five. Five? That's easy. That's the number of fingers on each hand, or hairs on my ballsack. Ha. For a second, I thought they were going to challenge me.
Most of the load was carried by a bionic super-teacher who held down a strict regimen of six kids classes a day, five days a week, plus organizing the seasonal kids parties and events. This chick was pulling the equivalent of the six-minute mile: it simply couldn't be done.
At least not by me.
She knew it, too. The one thing I never, ever liked about this Kids Head Teacher was that she had a real fucking attitude problem and a face to match. The kind that sized you up immediately, and sized you small. The look of a person who did their job better than anyone else in the room, but had no interest in sharing, because it would be harder to judge you if you were emulating her. Someday when I get drunk and do an entry, I'll be sure to bring that piece of work up again.
At the end of my first month at that school, I remember being called upon for a very special lesson. Seriously, it was called a "special lesson." What was special about it, I didn't know at the time, but presumably it was the opportunity to take an extra forty minutes out of your busy schedule to allow your child to terrorize an already terrified man wearing a tie. I'll never forget that day.
Like I said, it was the first month in a new career in a new country in a new life. The lesson was pretty simple, or so I thought. The theme was "Going on a Picnic," and although we had no food, we were indoors, and the only "going" took place in the tiny bathroom adjacent to the shoe-shelf outside the kids area, there we were. Ready to go.
In my dainty princess fingers, I held a pretty little plush picnic basket, filled to burst with flannel fruits and cloth cold-cuts, truly a meal fit for a Muppet. I also had my lesson plan, my flash cards, and a set of thoroughly shot nerves, if only to prove that the little bastards can smell fear and the poop rapidly filling my official eikaiwa-authorized boxer-briefs. Yep, ready to go.
The clock rolled to 2:00 PM and in the lobbies two mothers and two six-year-old boys said their goodbyes. I nodded to the parenting pair, the kind of assuring nod you give to your dentist when he lectures you on the importance of flossing while in the back of you're mind you're trying to think if dental floss would be an adequate substitute for your weekend fishing trip--it is minty-fresh, after all. Totally ready to go.
We walked into the room, they put their bags and plush picnic baskets off in the corner, and turned to face me, their trusted, devoted, beloved teacher. Okay everyone, ready to go?
And then I closed the door.
Like a sorority girl in a "don't get raped" contest at the Sigma Tau house, exactly the first minute proceeded according to plan. Actually, for a moment there I even counted my blessings--I had well behaved kids. That was the first mistake of a rookie teacher. You never, ever assume your kids are well behaved until at least the fifth lesson.
Hello song, ABC song, what's your name, can you say sandwich? Three times! Sandwich, sandwich, sandwich... GO! Sandwich, sandwich, sandwich... very goooood, now let's look here, what's this? It's a............. tomato! Very good, Kohei! Let's say tomato thee times! Tomato toma-Yu, look at me please. Tomato, tomato, tomato... GO! Tomato, to- Yu, stop, put that down! Yu! What's this? It's a.......? It's a tomato! Can y- no, Kohei, we're not getting our picnic baskets yet! ...why isn't anybody helping me?
Panic. With the agility of a runaway Toyota, and the composure to match, I knew things were falling apart. And where did I put that lesson plan? I know I had it a sec- KOHEI PUT THAT DOWN! NO! ABUNAI!! Forget it, we're playing a game. I know, what about run-and-touch?
It's a simple game--one in every amateur teacher's playbook. Something simple enough to explain to a class you've never taught before, active enough to get students involved, and one that requires relatively little proficiency of the language on the part of the students.
Perfect, I thought.
Second mistake of a rookie teacher. You never, ever start a game with an unruly class. Establish control first, then play a game.
I had the students get their picnic baskets and arrange their materials along the wall in a line that would make Hansel and Gretel proud. This, I thought, was the opportunity to prove myself, to seize victory from the chopsticks of defeat. To show my Kids Head Teacher that I was every bit the kids teacher she was, and younger, more energetic and had a better set of jugs, too.
Okay, ready? Let's run and touch apple! 1... 2... GO!! Where is it? Which one? Which one's the appl-
BANG
Oh God. Oh Jesus. Yu! Yu, are you okay?
In the throes of apple-pursuing euphoria, the intricacies of placing one foot in front of the other suddenly eluded the boy. About three feet from the wall. The kid left a face-shaped divot in the drywall where he had just buried his noggin. Or, at least he would have, had it been drywall and not concrete.
The roar of grief-stricken sobs of the boy with the busted face trickled through the closed door like a hurricane crashing on the Louisiana coastline. There was no way I could fail privately now. Not with mom #1 and mom #2 bursting into the classroom to see what I had done to their adorable nosferatus feasting on my will to live (nosferatii?).
The aforementioned mothers, seen here leaving their apartment
It was easy to explain to mom what had happened and she was very understanding. Japanese parents, for all their faults, seem to understand that kids are dipshits. The difficult part was that I still had 30 minutes left in class.
Finally, Yu settled down enough to come back to class. As long as mom was outside, and the door could be open. Well, okay. If my nerves were shot before, they were a smoldering crater now with the sudden parental supervision and class in total disarray. But as long as Yu's not cryi-
BUAAAHHHH!!!
He shut the door. Kohei shut the fucking door. And he figured out that anytime he did, it made Yu cry. So guess what suddenly became the funniest thing in the world? Suddenly I found myself locked inside the world's least jolly Jack-in-the box. Close the lid, and bask in the childish wail of an awkward white man and two naughty Japanese boys locked in a room together.
No pedo.
I looked at the clock.
29 more minutes.
Somebody please help me.
Especially since--and I know anyone else who has taught Japanese boys will corroborate this--when they really, really get going crying, they'll try to really, really step it up on the Drama Queen-o-Meter by doing this deep, throaty hacking cough where they'll start drooling and spitting, presumably because that's what they saw when they snuck into their dad's "secret videos."
So wow, yeah. Pretty horrible. In fact, the most horrible experience in my entire professional career. Even more horrible than when one of my students confided in me that he lost his job and he didn't have enough money to pay to keep coming to class. Right before we started the class.
Alright everyone, let's start with a pronunciation exercise! Repeat after me: awkward.
So after all that, how can it possibly be that I miss the kids so much? Well, because that wasn't the last kids class I ever taught. Not even close. After that, I probably logged about 1500 hours teaching kids, not to mention about 2000 teaching adults. Funny thing about standing up in front of a class, eventually, the pressure stops getting to you. You stop realizing you're in front of a crowd. You stop noticing that you're the center of attention because of course you're the center of attention. You stop worrying about the class derails, the struggles with class clowns, the picky parents.
And you start to enjoy it.
I've affected what I like to call "teacher mode." It first manifested with the realization that there'd be another class after this one, and another after that, and another, and another, until they one day they put you in a pine box in the ground. I'm pretty sure at first it only happened in class, but these days it strikes without warning. My wife catches me in these moments all the time. We'll be sitting on a rock in the middle of Hirakata park and enjoying a sandwich. Mrs. Merican will ask what's in it, or how I got the meat so tender (plenty of practice, babe. Plenty of practice), and the didactic reflex kicks in.
The first thing that happens is my posture changes; my shoulders roll back and my spine straightens. My eyes widen with excitement and my volume goes up about 20 decibels as I launch into a detailed explanation of the nuance of the marinade, or just exactly how sautéed these mofuckin' onions are. She stops me.
Like a 'Nam flashback, the Pavlovian trigger hits and it's like being back in the jungle.
"You can give your heart to Jesus, but your ass belongs to the 'kaiwa."
I'll tell you the story of a girl that I'll name "Kumi."
Kumi was 11 years old. I had her in a higher-level elementary English class with another girl, Sumiko. They came to school every Saturday and put in their time. 45 minutes of English with a tall, gangly, goofy-looking white dude with a high-pitched voice and a terrible haircut. Not a lot of traditionally "cool" dudes in my line of work, and I certainly wasn't breaking any molds in that department. Unfortunately, that's the kind of teacher they wanted. And, I'm told, the kind that they had before he moved on and my doughy ass showed up.
Kumi and Sumiko are, and were, at that tender young age where everything sucks and is gay (I had one of those phases ;) luv ya matt xoxoxo). Parents, school, and most of all, English class. And I'll admit, I'm kind of a hardass in my classes. I play lots of games, but I don't play games, if you catch my meaning. I want my kids to learn and have fun learning, but I have a very low tolerance for bullshit. I push my kids, because I know they can handle it. I want them to like me, but I need to see them succeed.
That put the three of us in a bit of a predicament, and created a very love-hate relationship in the classroom. Some days I'd have them, others they'd joke around and deliberately try to mess up as much as possible. I'd have them for one activity and the next game they shit the bed. Consistently inconsistent, these girls. And while I could usually get them to laugh and have fun with English at least once a class, it was a struggle to keep that feeling for long.
Then the last week came: special lessons.
You can imagine how thrilled I was. A week's worth of lessons with loose structure, little in the way of guidelines and available materials, and a lot of kids of wildly varying ages and ability levels all in the same class. And fortunately, nary a picnic basket in sight.
Kumi, for whatever reason, was there all day. Eight straight hours, three straight days, and almost all of that time was to be spent in my classes.
Honestly, I was glad. She'd be the oldest, and despite struggling in her current class, she still had a fairly good grasp of the language. If nothing else, she could be a role-model.
Bored before the start of school, I grabbed a ball and tossed it to her.
Catch?
She stood up and chucked it back. Back and fourth we lobbed, kicked, volleyed, and smacked the soft, green-and-blue miniature soccer ball before class. And after class. And after the next, and the next. She kept coming back. I even thought I caught a smile.
The second day, she was in my magic class (I'm a hobbyist magician--although definitely not a good one--just barely good enough to impress kids). Minutes in, I knew something was different as her eyes traced my movements around the room, her hands intently patterning after mine, fingers lacing through her blue deck of Hoyles as she followed along with each step of a card-guessing trick.
And the next day, as she joined me for sports class and a fifth-grade enrichment class, I was the teacher she exchanged high-fives with, asked for help, and wanted to partner with, that she passed the soccer ball to and entrusted with the open shot at the goal, even when other teachers were there. The cold, quizzical expressions and occasional derisive laughter seemingly gone and forgotten from her repertoire, now replaced with the warmth of a smile. I wasn't just the stringy American spaz in front of the class. I was her stringy American friend.
And so the third day ended.
We played catch again as the day drew to a close. The lukewarm tolerance abiding yet another day of my bullshit that mired the activity in an uncomfortable weight felt lifted, and we were free to have fun as we laughed and tossed the soccer ball in the hallway.
As the game finished, she walked to the door and slipped on her pre-tied pink-and-white sneakers and looked up at me. Happy.
Are you coming tomorrow?
Tomorrow? Tomorrow, no.
Oh. Practice your soccer, okay?
Okay!
See you!
See you!
And then she left.
Sadness. I'll never see her again. And likely, not any of my students.
But every minute of that four-month Saturdaily uphill battle suddenly became worth it for the exchange of one smile, beaming so much brighter, more brilliant, the most genuine thing I've ever seen, as she looked over her shoulder at me before she walked out the door into the mall and parking lot and into the rest of her life. A moment, locked in time, where, across a language barrier 2600 miles wide, we spoke without words:
"You're not that goofy."
"You're a good kid."
The joy of being a teacher is that the students we teach, teach us.
Kids, Kumi, thank you for the lesson.
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