japan stories
Amidst the beginning of a game of simple charades I uselessly tried to motivate two of the 5 students in class to participate. Little did I know these two boys were apparently deciding to couch a dispute they had been having all day by sleeping. Suppose its one way not to be provoked or provoke an enemy. I woke one up and the other came to life and started talking shit to him in japanese. The only thing I caught from it was "hate". The typical male "stepping up" display came about. Easily could have been in the states. My female co-teacher took one boy and I took the other. She dragged her's out of the class and down the hall. Had to restrain mine a bit and the only girl in the class tried to sooth the situation by helping to return to the game.
Charades begins again.
A middle aged male teacher comes in to be a japanese teacher presence I presume. He seems amiable enough and I figure he is just taking the female teacher's place. He stands in the back by the other unruly boy. We act out "eating ramen" and "playing baseball" when the unruly boy lays his head back down to sleep. The male teacher suddenly turns vicious and slaps the back of his head then grabs the boy by his neck and drags him out of his chair, then out of the classroom. The boy's legs are literally limp on the floor as the sensei pulls him out into the hall in a half headlock. In the hall it becomes a full headlock. As he painfully drags the kid down the hall I lose sight of the shocking display of discipline.
Being the adult all of a sudden in life I have to keep going and pull one of the three remaining boys away from the window where he is rubber necking. All I want to do is stare with my jaw open at the manhandling thats going on. Seriously what the fuck?
Charades begins again.
Only this time there are screams coming from down the hall and occational loud sounds of things hiting parts of the building. Was it a kids head? Who knows. Didn't see that kid for the rest of the day incidentally. The first boy who was removed was forced to give me an apology in japanese for not participating and being disruptive.
This kind of treatment obviously wouldn't fly in America, and it seemed totally uncalled for. I am not privy to what led to the conclusion that the kid needed his neck stretched out and who knows what else, it could have been building up to it, and honestly it probaly was. There has been a few times where I've been tempted to do just the same. Sure flies in the face of modern "hands off" childhood disciplinarian methods.
Note: This is Wakaba Gakuen, my thursday school filled with 30-odd adolescents and children who have committed crimes or had abusive parents and need a stable environment to work through things. They may have more lisence to apply whatever discipline they think in necessary. But, Japanese school discipline isn't like America and they very recently started following the more passive example. What this means of course is that all the japanese teachers today saw first hand or experienced the violent punishments handed out by thier teachers. On and on into perpetuity. It will be a few more generations till its washed out of the system I'm sure.
Not to say that America moved away from violent punishments that long ago, but its definatly still more common for male teachers in Japan to hit/strangle/slap/kick male students than in the states.
Oh, and just for some trivia, Tokyo has about 5 cases of people dying from fractures skulls as they gave someone a traditional bow.
Charades begins again.
A middle aged male teacher comes in to be a japanese teacher presence I presume. He seems amiable enough and I figure he is just taking the female teacher's place. He stands in the back by the other unruly boy. We act out "eating ramen" and "playing baseball" when the unruly boy lays his head back down to sleep. The male teacher suddenly turns vicious and slaps the back of his head then grabs the boy by his neck and drags him out of his chair, then out of the classroom. The boy's legs are literally limp on the floor as the sensei pulls him out into the hall in a half headlock. In the hall it becomes a full headlock. As he painfully drags the kid down the hall I lose sight of the shocking display of discipline.
Being the adult all of a sudden in life I have to keep going and pull one of the three remaining boys away from the window where he is rubber necking. All I want to do is stare with my jaw open at the manhandling thats going on. Seriously what the fuck?
Charades begins again.
Only this time there are screams coming from down the hall and occational loud sounds of things hiting parts of the building. Was it a kids head? Who knows. Didn't see that kid for the rest of the day incidentally. The first boy who was removed was forced to give me an apology in japanese for not participating and being disruptive.
This kind of treatment obviously wouldn't fly in America, and it seemed totally uncalled for. I am not privy to what led to the conclusion that the kid needed his neck stretched out and who knows what else, it could have been building up to it, and honestly it probaly was. There has been a few times where I've been tempted to do just the same. Sure flies in the face of modern "hands off" childhood disciplinarian methods.
Note: This is Wakaba Gakuen, my thursday school filled with 30-odd adolescents and children who have committed crimes or had abusive parents and need a stable environment to work through things. They may have more lisence to apply whatever discipline they think in necessary. But, Japanese school discipline isn't like America and they very recently started following the more passive example. What this means of course is that all the japanese teachers today saw first hand or experienced the violent punishments handed out by thier teachers. On and on into perpetuity. It will be a few more generations till its washed out of the system I'm sure.
Not to say that America moved away from violent punishments that long ago, but its definatly still more common for male teachers in Japan to hit/strangle/slap/kick male students than in the states.
Oh, and just for some trivia, Tokyo has about 5 cases of people dying from fractures skulls as they gave someone a traditional bow.