In the morning I had the fantastic kids show, then the teachers’ workshop…
Rude beyond belief
Over lunch things didn’t sound promising though. First of all a lecturer from one of the universities I’m presenting at in Summer had asked the school if she could attend. They agreed. I also needed to talk to her about August so asked the school if it would be OK for her to be my guest. They agreed. As the PTA had paid most of the money, the workshop was advertised on TV yesterday and I was basically giving them a free workshop for the teachers, you’d think they would be OK with a guest of mine attending.
But oh no, I was invited to the head teacher’s office after the kids’ show, but the lecturer wasn’t allowed in!!! I said I had to talk to her but they actually wouldn’t let her stay in the same room and moved her somewhere else! Then they told her she had to go home and wasn’t welcome at the workshop. Dude!!!! Common courtesy? A chance to have a foreign language teaching expert to help? I really do not like schools who behave like that.
Of course at the time I didn’t know about this, so I was talking away with the head teacher. One of the comments I made was that a project he was thinking about (accosting foreigners in Nara) sounded a little like racial profiling and surely goes against the International Understanding aspects of what we teach. To which his reply, in total honesty and not malice but complete ignorance was basically, what’s wrong with racism?
I was ready to walk out...
But anyway, the teachers might be better? And … their initial reaction was “why do we need to change?” Ahhh. This is why I don’t do these for free anymore, if you do that’s the value people place on things. So…
MacJobs
In places like Okayama that are on the verge on bankruptcy, you can starkly see today why they need to change. Basically there isn’t enough tax revenue to supply public services. Hospitals are closing and the quality of life is being reduced. The reason? Japanese kids aren’t creating enough wealth in the “arubaito” and “freetaa” McJobs they are doing, and there aren’t enough working people to pay for the ageing population. The solution? Either kids learn to have bigger dreams, create more enterprises, companies, jobs and wealth. Or workers are brought in from abroad.
Either one of these requires communication skills, international understanding and passion. And that comes from education.
Passion?
The people I usually work with are absolutely passionate about what they do. We truly believe we are changing the world by changing education (great new video coming soon!) So it was just such a come down to do my first public school gig of the year and see the total lack of energy in these teachers. Apathy wasn’t even close. How can they possibly inspire the next generation of leaders?
For two hours instead of talking about English education I had to basically do a course on why do we come to work every morning. I’d never get away with this in Australia, the UK or Canada where teachers are trained in what they do. Of course in Japan all they are trained in is book work, nothing to do with why we have schools.
Why?
If I had just done an English workshop they would have sat there and resented it.
So I asked them to make a list of why they wanted to become teachers. Again most of the people I work with give reasons like “to improve children’s lives”, “to give back to the community”, “to make a difference” etc. Today it wasΒ mostly “because I like school” “because it looked fun” etc.. Totally superficial and focussed on what they get from the job, not what you can give. Fair enough, but you could do any job if that’s all you care about.
Whose job is this?
The thing is that I can get an unmotivated teacher genki in 2 hours. I can get them to see the big picture of why what they do is so important, and get them to give their best. But that’s not my job!!!! That’s the head teacher’s job. He’s the one being paid, with my tax money, to do it.
No private company would ever get away with having such a lacklustre management system. Just like a successful CEO, the head teacher should be motivating his staff on a daily or weekly basis, constantly improving and checking results. That’s the education world I come from. Why do we accept this level of incompetence from public schools? Shouldn’t they be accountable for what they do?
And today even basic things like human rights, immigration, or addressing poverty or the environment, all big issues on the word stage that children need to learn about, the teachers were ignorant beyond belief. Discussing immigration and why that is one reason English will become so important for their students, upon realising that more foreigners would have to come to Japan to shore up the working population you should have seen the utter look of disgust on one of the teacher’s faces. It made me sick.
Incentives?
But there’s no long term motivating these teachers. There’s no incentive for them to do well. If they do a good job all that happens is they get given more work to do. If they do a bad job they can never be fired. One of the exercises we do is what to do with a bad teacher. Fire them, I say, they said “move them to another class” but that’s denying the next class the chance of a good education.
And what do we do with good teachers? That’s a challenge I’m trying to find a solution for now. Teachers (too!) often go on strike after attending my week long workshops. This is a big problem! But in the poorer areas they can’t often raise their wages. Plus if you make a good teacher a manager or trainer, then they aren’t spending time what they are so good at. So how do we reward them? Anyway, that’s for another blog post…
Back to Japan
I spent ten years volunteering hours and hours training teachers in Japanese public schools. The reason was that I always believed it was the right of every child to have a first class education.
Today was the final confirmation that if you want a good education for your child you have to do it yourself and take them out of the public system. Far too many teachers are not preparing their students for the future, they’re simply wasting away the time till graduation. Education isn’t just about passing exams or getting through the day, it’s about inspiring kids, about preparing them for life with all the skills they need to be successful.
There are good schools out there, the ones with the good head teachers, usually women who’ve had to battle hard for their success. But it’s far too hit and miss. And more often miss than hit. Today they didn’t even get out of the starting gate. The kids were amazing in spite of the teachers, as they had a great teacher last year who this year hasn’t been asked to help, which is such a shame. Every kid has such huge potential. Every teacher has huge potential. But they need the system in which they can thrive. Apathy like today throttles ambition instead of inspiring it.
The ironic thing was at the end today they were talking about the parents this morning who were asking to buy Genki English CDs. We can’t have that if it’s an “eigyo mokuteki” (“aim of selling”) they said. But it’s totally a “kyouiku mokuteki” (“aim of educating”) because I’m having to do the job they are supposed to be doing!
Next week I’ll post my entry of how to start your own schools, because we can’t leave it to the random public school system any longer. Not unless we want whole prefectures in Japan to go bankrupt because an entire generation of kids are lead to believe that all they can achieve in life is working a few hours a day in a convenience store…
Hi Richard,
Happy Growing Sir! Life is up and down,, this article is a bit long but worth reading. I felt speechless.. upon reading. Please never give-up and Fight for the Right. That is one disadvantage of being well-versed in japanese language, just kidding.
This sounds really bad.
Isn’t that the school you are doing workshops at mostly every year? You’re often writing about Okayama, so i would think they should know >?
Well, I know there are many differences in schools here, and maybe I’m just lucky.
I love our elementary school and respect and like mostly all of the 60 teachers there. My kids are getting the best education I would have wished them to have.(By the way, I’ve been through three head teachers , very different each, with different focusses, but great in their own way)
A much better education than I had in Germany, especially in ways that “human values” are concerned. I’ve learned so much since they entered school just by watching their lessons and way of interacting.
This is actually hard for me to
comment on, as I do like Japan and my surrounding including our educational environment this much.
I am not saying you are right or wrong, and I don’t want to motivate you to “Try again”; I’m sure you’re fed up.
But I would like readers who don’t know Japan that well, to read this objectively.
And Yumiko, is this the school your kids are going to?
If yes, I completely understand your stomach ache yesterday. I think I would be robbed of one weeks sleep. But recover and think positive. I’m sure there are many good points, and at some point teachers start noticing things and start changing.
I think each one of us is in a different position, even if what we want to communicate and spread is the same.
Well Richard, stay genki~looking forward to the schools post anyway. Might become an idea for the future.
Hi Margit,
I’ve not been to this school before. I used to do the Okayama city training for all the schools, but they’ve changed the system this year.
It is great that you have such a good school though, cherish them!
For me it’s a case of how I spend the remaining time. I can’t see the point doing workshops for teachers who won’t go any further, when I have teachers in other countries really crying out for help.
At the same time Japan is where I spend most of my time and I don’t want to give up on it as a country, hence the need to expand out beyond schools and go direct to the learners like we were talking about the other day. http://genkienglish.net/teaching/okayama-maruzen-genki-teleshopping
Richard, I’m sorry to hear that you had a rough time at this conference. It does sound like you were treated rudely. However as for public elementary schools in Japan, I have had similar experiences to Margit. I’ve worked at 10 different schools and all kinds of teachers. Many of them would give the same kind of answers that your teachers gave as to why they became teachers. The answers may seem simple and superficial, but I have seen the passion they have for their job and their students. On the other hand, I also know that there are those who shouldn’t be teaching and if their role is administrative, it makes the jobs of the other teachers that much harder.
I hope that you won’t be offended by this, but it sounds like you and this school started off on a different page with very different reasons for holding this workshop. Please don’t be angry but it sounds like you were going to collide at some point.
I have seen such positive teachers who embrace GE. I’ve had such fun these past two weeks with the teachers I’ve worked with. Please don’t give up. If you reach one teacher, you reach 30 students for every year they teach. Just do the math on that one!
@Margit: Yes, this is the school my daughters are going to. And everything Richard wrote is true. I’m so sorry for Richard and the university lecturer. It happened while I was away for 30 minutes. I’m fed up with teachers’ rude attitude and racism. But we had a horrible head teacher until the end of this March, who called handicapped people idiot. I called BOE, of course, but they didn’t fire her. They only sent her to a different school.
As PTA, we thought we should do everything for Richard because he came to our school with discount fee. So we tried to invite TV stations and introduced CDs to parents. We prepared a special seat for the lecturer next to me during the kids workshop and tea and sweets for her too.
This workshop was held by PTA, so the head teacher shouldn’t have decided what to do selfishly without asking for permission from us. He totally misunderstood his standpoint.
Will I still be teaching there? Until my two daughters graduate, yes. But after that, no.
@gumby: I understand what you are saying, and I don’t want Richard to think all the other schools are the same either.
It was our teacher who started off the different page saying “Here is Japan. Why do we need English?”
She didn’t seem to be joking. So Richard had to start from there. What a shame! Who needs seclusion policy in the 21st century??
I’m sorry, but I didn’t expect things would turn out like this.
Richard, I don’t really know what to say to make you feel better after the Okayama experience. What I can share are my coping mechanisms after experiencing being considered a “trash” by some of my Japanese homeroom teachers.
1. I bought Genki Teacher’s Pack. This is the reason why I have my genki kit. I used it to supplement the activities in the lesson plans of the school.
2. I prepared my lessons very well. This is to prove that they are wrong when they said that students can never learn English and that students do not like learning English.
3. I never give up and I only focus my attention to my students and not to my homeroom teachers. After three years of teaching in the same schools, I am proud to say that my students are very confident in doing language activities.
And now, I am already invited to conduct seminars to these teachers because they want to be good English teachers π
Richard, you don’t lose anything but you gain more insights on how important you are in the English education here in Japan.
By the way, based on my experiences, being a good Samaritan, i.e. free seminars, sometimes does not work well. The participants do not value your handwork because they did not spend their hard-earned money for it.
May be next time, choose those who really need it and not to those who are forced to attend by their head teachers.
What a sad article to read. I can only think about the children in these schools. When I looked yesterday at Yumiko’s video I thought this was such a wonderful country to be learning a language. I also know that Yumiko has so many great teaching ideas and methods she uses. I often read posts from those people who work in Japan and have been a bit shocked, but this is so terrible to read. Why is there no accountability?? Why do the people not value the long term benefits of learning English?? Why would you enter a profession, if not to educate for the students future???
I also found it really rude to have a fellow educator treated in such a manner. I always am welcomed into all the schools I teach in and would be seriously annoyed if I was treated in such a manner.
Richard – I know you will take this in your stride and move on, as normal with these kind of events. I do find it leaves me personally annoyed when I read of attitudes like this on your blog. On the other hand I am glad that you share this information as it really needs to change. Of course this never happens if no one ever discusses it.
I just want to say…
I hope you won’t give up on us.
It was a terrible experience and I am really ashamed of being the same Japanese for the ignorance of that head teacher.
Your work is treasured by many many teachers here and you are still touching the new teachers such as me!
I know that you have touched many teachers and people that was attending the conference, I really do.
This blog article has made me so sad. I’m speechless really at the comments and attitude of the school. It beggars belief that they can’t see help when it’s staring them in the face. Those poor kids.
I have to say that, reading this entry, it was all terribly familiar. I have encountered plenty of schools and teachers like those you had to deal with. It is nauseating.
However, like Gumby and Margit, I have had the chance to work with some fantastically motivated and dedicated teachers. On balance, these are in the majority, I think. Sure, they are overwhelmed with (pointless?) paperwork, club activities and other responsibilities that seem designed simply to deny them the time to actually prepare effective classes, but most of them fight on and give so much.
The larger picture, though, the pervasive anti-English attitude and, as Yumiko said, something of a seclusionist policy is very disturbing. My wife and I are well aware that we have to take matters into our own hands if we don’t want our son to end up with the same squashed hopes and undermined ambitions.
If I may add some more, GE is really helping to change their attitudes. My guess is that most of this negativity comes from their own experiences of memorizing grammar. They never acquired English and now they are being expected to teach it. I strongly feel that without the proper support this can be more harmful than helpful. The best thing about GE is that it shows results. English in elementary has always been known for fun and games but there has been almost no assessment. Most likely because students weren’t remembering a whole lot. With GE teachers are constantly commenting on how much the students are retaining.
Today, in a 3rd and 4th year class, was the second day in using the I am Happy song on the new CD 9. The first day was a 10γminute lessson
on the pronouns using gestures and a run through of the song. The second day, today, we did a 5 minute review, song and then we did the I am a dinosaur( I am King Kong in my classroom) activity. I had them in pairs and I said the first sentence each time. I went from ‘I am…’ then to ‘he is…’ and ‘she is…’ and the mixed them all together. They got a lot of listening practice. Then when I had a volunteer say the first sentence, I was amazed at how well they got down the pronoun verb agreement.
I really think teachers have to see what is possible before they can start to see the value of teaching English.
sorry for rambling here…
Gumby, you are quite right.
So many of the teachers I work with are obviously terrified at having to use English when I teach, but quite a few have shown an interest in GE materials and commented on how effective they are. Some have even bought their own sets.
So, we’re back to figuring out how to get GE out there and noticed by more people.
…well, there’s no end to this discussion.
I find it much easier and pleasant to work with those teachers, whose starting pint is “we don’t need English”.
They are so easy to convince with GE lessons, whereas those who are into English and go on Seminars overseas every year have their idea of “studying” English, and that’s far from what GE is. But as they have gone the “hard study” way to learn they will have a hard time to give in and understand that we can do it this way.
So I think we are in a deep process, and it’s natural that it doesn’t go
smooth all the time, for anybody. But if we start focussing on the negative side it will break down. And there are many many positive things to focus on.
GANBARIMASHOU!
THis blog of yours remind me a controversial subject I have in my mind..and I did ask you in my second email to you… Can ANYONE be a genki teacher?
I am still under investigation!
@Val: Anyone CAN be a genki teacher, but everyone needs a guide to help them, and in public schools that SHOULD be the head teacher….. Without the occasional spark to enthuse, none of our stars can burn as brightly as they should.
Well, I actually think I would have walked out and left egg on his face. His attitude should be reported to someone in a ‘high’ position, but maybe his comments would be typical. I don’t know. I assume the government are paying for you to go and not the individual schools? What can I say, you know me well enough to know what I would say about this. You shouldn’t have to put up with this. I feel sorry for the kids. They have him as a headmaster and adult who is in charge of their education. At least you don’t have to go there every day! Poor dudes.
I hate to say it but it sounds just like the public school system here in the Balearic Islands. I can’t talk about the rest of Spain as I don’t have any experience with mainland schools.
The lack of imagination and always doing everything by the book infuriates me. I’ve had kids who have failed an exam because they have used words that weren’t in the book. Excuse me! I thought they were supposed to be learning a language!