Teaching in Asia Ain’t No Picnic

Some friends in the U.S. have commented that I must have it easy teaching in Asia because my students must be perfectly well-behaved, super-diligent angels who never give me a moment’s worth of trouble.  Ha!

First of all, the idea of a Model Minority that many people have about Asians is a racist myth.  And it’s harmful because it causes undue pressure to people who don’t always measure up to its ideal.  Second, the myth may partly be based on the fact that Asian immigrants to the West are usually very hard workers and diligent students.  But this is also true of Caribbean immigrants (Remember the joke about them having five jobs each?), Latino immigrants, African immigrants, you get the picture.  Second and third generations aren’t usually as driven. 

It goes without saying that no racial or ethnic group is superior to any other.  Those who compare groups and come up with ‘evidence’ to prove that fact are usually not taking history into account.  Also they’re usually people who don’t belong to either group. More often than not, false equivalencies are inaccurate indicators of anything.

My first two years in Japan I taught at a school in a tiny mountain village.  Country kids are universally more relaxed and well-behaved than city kids because they hold on to childhood a bit longer.  My friends who teach in big city schools have a very different experience.  Their students grapple with bullying, smoking, drinking, and violence toward each other (and sometimes toward teachers). I’ll share a few observations I’ve made about the not-so wonderful side of teaching in Asia.  While most examples are from Japan, there are many similarities with Korea. 

One of the eighth graders stinks like a homeless old man who hasn’t bathed in weeks.  The school nurse and his homeroom teachers refused to say anything for fear of upsetting his parents.  Meanwhile, he was insulting his classmates and teachers daily with the stench. 

There is another boy who does bathe regularly, but sweats a lot, so whenever you get near him, it smells like an ogre’s armpit.  Nobody will speak to his parents about it or even give him a deodorant.

Japanese schools have rules on top of rules about the most insignificant minutiae, but zero consequences if students break rules.  So a boy beat up the smallest girl in the school (threw her down and banged her head repeatedly on the cement while several other boys watched) and his punishment?  He got yelled at by the Social Studies teacher.  That’s.  It. 

One time a student came to school wearing yellow socks (the uniform requires white socks) and the staff made such a big deal about it, you’d think he’d shown up in his pajamas.  It was discussed during staff meeting and the mother was called.  Yet, a girl gets beat up by a bigger boy and they basically just shrug it off.   

The school nurse is lazy.  She spends half the day scrolling through shopping websites.  Whenever a kid is unwell, she immediately calls mothers to come pick them up.  She won’t let any of them to lay down for a few minutes on one of the beds in the nurse’s room.  The absolute minimum is what she does.  Her husband is the superintendent of schools, so nobody dares complain about her.  One time a kid went to the nurse with a belly ache.  The nurse immediately called the mother.  The thing is that she is a divorced working mother, not a housewife, so she can’t just jump up to pick up her son.  The nurse did not care.  She pressed her to get someone to take the kid home.  Finally, the mother was able to get a retired neighbor to do her the favor.  When the neighbor showed up, I was shocked.  He looked at least 95 years old. 

Sexism:  at some schools, student names appear in alphabetical order; boys first, girls second.  So a girl whose surname begins with A comes after a boy whose surname begins with Y.  This matters because everything is done according to class list order.  If I’m giving a speaking quiz, the students will be sent to me in that order.  During the graduation ceremony, students march in and are given their diplomas in that order.  When the dentist came to school, every homeroom went down to get checkups.  Things took longer than expected.  So when the period began, I had a classroom full of boys.  Why?  Because they got checked first and the girls were all still waiting to be seen.  This sends children the message that girls are lesser than boys.  When I asked my co-teacher why this is done, he gave the most laughable BS explanation with a straight face.  And of course, he sees nothing wrong with the way things are because, as a man, he benefits from society being sexist.  

Everything is run by old men.  They prefer to keep things the way they have always been, which makes the smallest thing complicated.  I asked for the school’s WiFi password so I could find images to add to a PowerPoint presentation I was creating for class.  I wanted to use my five-year-old laptop because it’s faster than the school’s clunky desktops.  After a few phone calls, I was told that they don’t give out the Wi-Fi password because it will compromise the firewall.  What?  I’m no IT expert, but I know that that explanation makes no sense.  Why even have WiFi if you’re afraid to give people the password?    

If you care about the environment, the insane amount of paper that is wasted every day will send you into despair.  Instead of e-mailing announcements, they print them out and give each teacher one.  Multiple announcements every day…always one-sided, and sometimes multi-page. Everything must have a hard copy.  If it’s not mailed physically, it must be faxed.  Yes, faxed.  The last time I sent a fax was in 2002.  Then I came to Japan and had to start sending faxes regularly. 

Students with special needs or with mental issues often go undiagnosed and untreated.  Most schools don’t have trained special education teachers.  There’s an acute nationwide shortage.   At my last school, the special education students were the responsibility of the music teacher.  She could often be heard shouting at them about minor infractions.  I don’t have any training to deal with such students, but I do know that a bit patience goes a long way, and shouting is not an effective way to get anything accomplished with ANY child. 

At another school, the physical education teacher was charged with taking care of the most difficult special education student.  He was a first-year teacher fresh out of university.  The school already had a PE teacher, but they hired him because they needed someone to handle the most disruptive, physically aggressive kid in school.  That teacher never got to teach any PE classes.  He felt tricked.  This is not what he signed up for----to be a babysitter or to be scratched, bitten and kicked.  The boy he was charged with didn’t just have a learning disability, he had serious socio-emotional issues, which would be a challenge even for a veteran teacher, much less a new graduate.  Understandably, he quit after the first year.

So, no, teaching here isn’t necessarily easier.  It can be very frustrating, especially if you care about the students.