School

The kids in one of my classes wrote a test today and it got me thinking about high school and teaching, and what it would be like teaching high school students in Toronto.  I don’t think I’d be a good teacher from the teacher point of view.  I can’t see people addressing me as Mr. Leung.  That’s my dad, not me.  I’d have them call me Eric, or for formality-sake, Mr. Eric.  Secondly, I’m sure I’d have favourite students.  I have favourites here that I pay more attention to than others.  It’s a case of “the rich get richer” because I think I tend to favour the ones that are more enthusiastic and willing to learn, and I ignore the ones that really need help but don’t want it.  Third, I’m an easy marker.  I have to give the student the benefit of the doubt.  Real teachers would look at something and say “if I can’t read it, I’m not marking it” and you’d get no marks.  Today I was marking the dictation part of the test and one of the words was “today” but it looked more like “tuly” in some chicken scratch writing.  I strained my eyes and thought “hmm… that could be today… if I use my imagination a little…” so I gave the mark. 

Then again, teaching could be a cool job.  I think I like teaching here in Japan, it’s just that there are so many things about it that frustrate me.  The language barrier for one, so I’m dependent on the real teacher to translate stuff.  Plus, I’m technically just an assistant so I don’t have the freedom to teach how/what I want to teach.  I do get more freedom at my visiting school, which is why I think I enjoy it there more.   

Enjoying a job probably boils down to the people you work with.  I have one teacher at each school that I chat with and eat lunch with regularly.  It makes life at school easier and more enjoyable.  Unfortunately both are changing schools in April so I’ll be left to break in some new teachers.  I hope the new teachers are good.

I’m sorry this blog was all over the place but I’m sleepy and listening to music and not really concentrating on what I’m writing.  I just felt I should blog since I haven’t blogged in the past 9 days. 

On another note, some upcoming events:
Feb. 23rd - Dinner at my place with a few of the JETs from Toronto
Feb. 24th - Soccer with some other JETs, depending on the weather
Mar. 4th - Last day of classes for the year (I’m already done teaching at my base school)
Mar. 7th-8th - Graduation ceremonies at both schools
Mar. 7th - Going to watch another JET belly dance at a restaurant. 
Mar. 20th-30th - Home for the UTPAT which is on the 29th