Japan’s How Not To Teach
When I headed off to teach in Japan, I hadn’t had much training. As we were teaching assistants, it never really fell to use to manage a classroom for long periods of time. As long as we were effective and tried hard, we tended to get pretty good results and the classrooms in general were pretty well behaved.
Now obviously, I don’t know the stresses of running a homeroom class. Not only teaching those kids, but dealing with things like bullying, applying to university, their parents and so on. That must be quite a tiring job if you’re looking after 40 of the little monsters. But even if they got really out of hand, you probably wouldn’t end up doing something like this;
A schoolboy and his parents have filed a lawsuit seeking 10 million yen in damages for emotional distress after a teacher announced him as the most disliked person in his class, based on a survey, it was learned Saturday.
The boy attends a junior high school in Chiba. In April 2005, when he was in his fourth year of elementary school, the teacher in charge of his class at the time made the students list up the names of classmates they liked and disliked.
Now stop me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that’s very effective teaching. Generally most teachers run surveys like “What do you like about the cafeteria?” or something, but “Which kid should we all dislike?” probably won’t promote classroom harmony. According to the article the kid went on to get bullied and ended up changing school. I hope he gets the money, and I hope the teacher loses their job. Maybe I’ll start my own questionnaire and send it to that homeroom class. “Who thought that was a dumb idea?” Perhaps.
I looked all over the net but sadly I couldn’t seem to come across a copy of the questionnaire itself, which is a shame. So instead here’s my interpretation of how it may have read.
Dear Students;
Hello there! It’s your teacher Dr. Bizarro here. As I’m sure you’re aware, surveys are very important here in school. I’d like to thank you all for your responses to ‘Should we put laxatives in 1 in every 20 school meals?’ and ‘Who likes low hanging unprotected electric wires?’.
So many great changes have happened because of our surveys; as you know the second floor cafeteria now has hundreds of bees’ nests in it, and everyone over on the 5th floor tell me they really like how we covered the walls in extra strong adhesive glue! So to further improve your school life, we’re running a new survey. Please fill it in and hand it to me by 3pm!
Your Name:
Your Class:1. Who, in your homeroom class, do you dislike the most? _______________
2. If the student voted least popular in question number one left the school and tried to sue us, do you think they would win the lawsuit? [YES / NO]
3. We’re thinking of welcoming new students into the school by savagely beating them on their first day. Do you think this would help them fit into their new school? [YES / NO]
4. Who likes searing heat on a daily basis? I know I do! Please select if you would like us to channel hot lava around the basement floor of the school. [YES / NO]
5. Our school uniform is very well liked by students and we seek to make it better. You know what would be better? Clogs. Do you want clogs? [YES / NO]
6. The school anthem is a little dull, isn’t it? So instead of singing songs, how would you like to have to rip out chunks of your hair whilst screaming at your parents? [YES / NO]
7. The cafeteria food is being changed from next month. Please select the type of food you would most like eating. [SEWAGE / SPIDERS / THE OLD SCHOOL UNIFORMS, BOILED]
Thanks for filling in the questionnaire! I’ll be sure to tally up the results as soon as possible, and let you know by writing the results on a student’s forehead! Don’t forget to bully them!
Thanks,
Dr. Bizarro
Those poor kids.