back and forths
The ichinens were all agog over my necktie-skirt today, partially because the girls have come to the conclusion that I am pretty otokopoi (boyish) and it's a special enough occasion when I wear a skirt, but one that I MADE? Craziness :T
And apparently, because the other first-year class Tomo-sensei teaches had their seats switched around, our class wants to do it, too. That would make the second time this term, the first having been for disciplinary purposes. And if they get their way, then it's a certainty the third class will whine about it until Tomo caves, and theirs is the class that most needs to be kept in check in terms of seating in the first place.
I am trying to pick my battles - it's hard enough to convince some Japanese teachers that their students are, in fact, smart enough to understand the mechanics of verb changes or the delicate subject matter of sometimes-different-colored-peoples-hate-each-other-because-they're-different-colors. Tomo is generally okay at giving her ichinens credit. Except when she gives them too much, which happens in almost every instance where discipline is concerned. Otherwise they are lazy children who should be scolded and then that will magically make them motivated. There is no middle ground, there is no actual theory of the adolescent mind in operation here that I can discern, other than they should respond to either verbal abuse or baby-voiced simpering so those are our best two options. And using them both within the same 10-minute span of class doesn't send mixed messages at all.
On a less head-desking note, Grammar-sensei is finalizing a date for us to take over the home-ec room with our culture class kids & cook us some good ol' American chili. We all have a good working relationship in that class - the students had me for first-year communication last year, with another teacher who had the same casually awesome take-charge qualities as Grammar-sensei, so everyone's classroom conditioning and habitual interaction patterns synch up quite well.
My seniors are the students I have to step on toes and argue for the most. Their teacher leaves planning stuff entirely to me, but has an awful fit of the hums whenever anything "a little difficult" gets proposed. So I sorta calculatingly blindsided her with a presentation proposal for them - in two weeks they'll each get up and talk for five minutes on a different country. They have thrown themselves at it with a gusto that surprised even me. They're finding ways to weasel around my admittedly rather optimistic guidelines and substitute their own interests in soft tennis and tv-drama celebs for things like national cuisine and geography, but hey, more power to them. My schoolmates and I pulled the same switcheroos at their age, when we could get away with it, and the point is that they're actually excited about self-directed study. You can have fun with books, guys! Books with learnings in them, even :3
Unwinding With: Happy Home (Keep On Writing) ~Kimya Dawson
And apparently, because the other first-year class Tomo-sensei teaches had their seats switched around, our class wants to do it, too. That would make the second time this term, the first having been for disciplinary purposes. And if they get their way, then it's a certainty the third class will whine about it until Tomo caves, and theirs is the class that most needs to be kept in check in terms of seating in the first place.
I am trying to pick my battles - it's hard enough to convince some Japanese teachers that their students are, in fact, smart enough to understand the mechanics of verb changes or the delicate subject matter of sometimes-different-colored-peoples-hate-each-other-because-they're-different-colors. Tomo is generally okay at giving her ichinens credit. Except when she gives them too much, which happens in almost every instance where discipline is concerned. Otherwise they are lazy children who should be scolded and then that will magically make them motivated. There is no middle ground, there is no actual theory of the adolescent mind in operation here that I can discern, other than they should respond to either verbal abuse or baby-voiced simpering so those are our best two options. And using them both within the same 10-minute span of class doesn't send mixed messages at all.
On a less head-desking note, Grammar-sensei is finalizing a date for us to take over the home-ec room with our culture class kids & cook us some good ol' American chili. We all have a good working relationship in that class - the students had me for first-year communication last year, with another teacher who had the same casually awesome take-charge qualities as Grammar-sensei, so everyone's classroom conditioning and habitual interaction patterns synch up quite well.
My seniors are the students I have to step on toes and argue for the most. Their teacher leaves planning stuff entirely to me, but has an awful fit of the hums whenever anything "a little difficult" gets proposed. So I sorta calculatingly blindsided her with a presentation proposal for them - in two weeks they'll each get up and talk for five minutes on a different country. They have thrown themselves at it with a gusto that surprised even me. They're finding ways to weasel around my admittedly rather optimistic guidelines and substitute their own interests in soft tennis and tv-drama celebs for things like national cuisine and geography, but hey, more power to them. My schoolmates and I pulled the same switcheroos at their age, when we could get away with it, and the point is that they're actually excited about self-directed study. You can have fun with books, guys! Books with learnings in them, even :3
Unwinding With: Happy Home (Keep On Writing) ~Kimya Dawson