With the beginning of a new academic year in
full swing, I felt it was high time to get on with blog number 16, and what
subject could be more appropriate than school? So, turn to page 24, get your
pencils ready and pay attention, I will be testing you at the end.
16. People say that first impressions are key.
If this really is the case then Japanese schools certainly do not start their
academic personalities with a silver spoon in their mouths, rather a grubby
thumb instead. The schools are ugly, grey, concrete cubes with windows dotting
the sides like a monochrome Rubik’s cube. Imposing definitely doesn’t cut it.
15. Look around a little more and you’ll spy
large expanses of what looks like desert. This is the sports ground, kept
impeccably by the students under the ever watchful and glaring eye of the token
scary PE teacher on duty.
14. It’s all looking rather bleak, isn’t it? I’m
afraid that once inside; things don’t get a whole lot better. The grey-ness
continues for the internal décor, think prison chic meshed with office a la beige.
Posters for universities decorate the walls alongside the glass presentation
cabinet displaying the school’s winter and summer military-esque uniforms.
13. Now I’m not being totally fair, the good
thing about all this grey is that once the flower arranging club (of which I’m
a member) get their heads together to create something faaaabulous dahling,
their posies and slightly sparsely arranged bouquets stand out brilliantly and
start to bring a little character to our dear grey school.
12. The mention of a club brings me to an
integral element of school life. Nearly every student belongs to a club,
whether it be track and field, baseball, photography or calligraphy. If you’re
not in a club, you’re buggered. Either that or you’re entirely socially inept.
Being in a club controls everything outside your everyday lessons. It’s not
just a ‘once a week I’ll go along and have a go, even though I can’t really be
bothered’ kind of affair that we associate with clubs in England. Here you go
before school, after school, at the weekends, holidays and any other time that
isn’t taken up with school work, eating, sleeping and going to the loo. Clubs
are beyond intense, they’re the be all and end all.
11. ‘Well if the students are in school doing
their “clubs” all the time, surely there should be a responsible adult or two
there to keep an eye on them?’ I hear you ask. Let me introduce the typical
Japanese teacher. Schedule: Wake up at 5:30, arrive at school at 7:30, check
your club activity, teach a full timetable, have a nap somewhere in the middle,
3:20 lessons finish, answer any questions from lingering students, check your
club activity, mark some exams, leave school at 19:00/20:00, eat, sleep,
repeat. Minus the lessons, this schedule applies to Saturday and Sunday and
school holidays too. Somehow they still manage to struggle through the little
English they know to be overbearingly polite when they see me. Teachers back at
home thought they had it tough, they don’t know the half of it.
10. The teacher’s ‘haven’ of sorts is the staff
room. Now, anyone I know would imagine a room-come-kitchenette with sofas,
coffee machines, the odd notice board here and there and the obligatory pigeon
holes. Not in good ole Japan. The staffroom can most appropriately be called an
office. Regimented tables assigned to each teacher, ordered according to which
year group you have to shepherd around. On every wall is a notice board filled
with information which I will never be able to read (I can do the numbers
though). The deputy head sits prominently to keep her beady eye on anyone who
isn’t doing their work (I sit as far away from her as humanly possible…)
However as office-y as it is, it’s still quite a good place for a chat, albeit
a slightly awkward one.
9. Right, on from the staffroom and into the
classroom. The classroom is the student’s haven. Each form has its own homeroom
which they look after. All their lessons are taught there as the teachers move
amongst the different groups bestowing all their knowledge, in my case, ‘Turn right
at the bakery and go straight for two blocks.’ Students have individual little
desks which can be moved round independently. Luckily there are no fat students
at my school as I really don’t know what they’d do.
8. The students themselves are the most well
behaved 15-18 year olds I have ever met. The worst disobedience I come across
is one of them having a wee nap in my lesson. Usually I balance stationery on
their heads until they wake up, however this then means a good 5 minutes is
wasted looking for their favourite rubber that I had so excellently placed only
moments before.
7. This obedience, I imagine, has only been
established through the entrenched discipline that comes with a typical
Japanese school. When I was at the equivalent of a Japanese senior high school,
my hair was a mix of reds, purples, blondes and pinks. If I was late or didn’t
do my homework no one really said anything. I drank alcohol (I know, what a
rebel), drove a car, kissed my boyfriend in public (yes I did have a boyfriend,
I’m no liar) and I had a Saturday job. If I had done any of this in Japan, the
school would have come down on my harder than a tonne of pointy hard things.
School IS your entire life. Even when not in school you are representing it, so
no jobs please, no hair dye and definitely no quick snogs in the bus stop.
Thank you very much.
6. As the only foreigner in school (bar the
Mexican exchange student, but I never see him so I like to imagine myself as
foreign royalty) I tend to attract some attention. Cycling to school, walking
through the corridor, or standing by the side of the football pitch, I always
hear a trail of nasal ‘kawaii’s’ following me. To all of you who don’t
know, this is the standard school girl chant of ‘you’re so cute.’ Lovely and
flattering at first, eardrum rupturingly irritating eventually.
5. Having said that discipline is inherent, I
rarely hear any shouting. If I do, it’s usually because some stupid boy has
decided it’s a good idea to go running through the girls changing room dressed
as a girl himself (as all boys would) OR it’s a teacher-on-teacher battle.
THAT’S RIGHT I have witnessed teachers arguing, only twice, but it still
happened. It was one of my scariest, awkward moments to date.
4. As in any good school, we have assemblies. In
a school of around 1000 students this is no mean feat, and as ever the Japanese
carry it out effortlessly with students impeccably dressed, sat cross legged in
orderly rows in a giant gym facing the stage from which the teachers will
preach.
3. Not being a fluent Japanese speaker, I
usually switch off whilst intermittently understanding the occasional
Japanglish-ism. ‘Undawea’ or ‘sutokingu’ are particular favourites of mine.
(Pronounce them phonetically, it’ll all become clear.)
2. Any good assembly ends with a hearty song. In
my school we have a jolly good romp of a school song which the students sing
quarter-heartedly and my retired teacher friend Iimori-sensei (who always sings
the British National Anthem when we go out for dinner) bellows it decibels above
everyone else in his surprisingly good tenor voice. No one else stands a chance
against him.
1. It’s the end of the school day and I guiltily
leave before all the other teachers, creeping out of the staff room bidding a
feeble ‘sayonara’ to the vigilant, hardworking teachers that remain. Hopping
onto my bright orange mono-geared bicycle, I zoom (or at least I like to think
I zoom) off into the distance, overtaking all the students and dribbling at the
thought of a nice cold glass of umeshu.
Test time: what is brown and sticky?
