Kim's Story II: Bad Days

Let me reiterate by saying the students at Kim's school are bad. Boys will randomly yell things at her all the time like, "nice body!" "I love you" and "I want to eat you." This might be cute in elementary school but in junior high it gets creepy especially when there are gangs of them and they make pelvic thrusts to make their point piercingly hard to miss. Most of the girls do not like Kim. Since she doesn't know Japanese she doesn't understand what they are saying but the look on their faces and tone of their voices makes it pretty clear. Also, they have taken to lifting their noses up with their fingers and pointing at her while snorting like pigs.

Boys will slam the classroom sliding door as hard as they can making the whole room shake. While others toss their books into the air trying to make more dents in the ceiling. Boys are always hitting, wrestling and throwing things at each other while the girls look on talking shit and giving the occasional slap themselves. This isn't anything usual from most junior highs except that so much of this horseplay (yes I said horseplay) is unwanted bullying. Kim has seen boys steal other student's books and throw them across the room. Girls will make fun of the fat girl and ostracize her from the rest of the class. Boys will throw erasers and pencils at another student the whole class period. Most of the homeroom teachers see everything going on but just ignore it all.

Bullying has even worse consequences in Japan then in America. In Japan sameness and being part of a collective group that works together is the model ideal. To not be accepted by the group and be an outsider is horrible for the Japanese psyche. Bullying makes kids be loners and afraid. They have no friends and nobody to talk to. These bullied kids can't even talk to the teacher of principal because they don't really care and will never help. The bullied kids only choice is to take the abuse and try to get into high school where they can leave the bullies behind who will probably drop out and get factory or waitress jobs.

The students at Kim's junior high are awful enough, but some of the lessons she has had to teach just make the situation even worse. Some days can be good where the students mostly listen, but then some days can be bad, very bad.

Each teacher has an English song that they make the students sing before class. The better the teacher the better the song. Mrs. M's students really like her song selection because she uses the cd Kim made of modern American songs that are easy to sing. Other teachers like to play the Carpenters so damn much and the kids, especially the boys, HATE the Carpenters. Another song that is overplayed is 'We Will Rock You' from Queen. Does ANYBODY freaking know what is said in that song besides the chorus? It goes so damn fast especially for a group of students trying to learn English. Other songs include indecent ones about giving her man everlasting pleasure and terrible J-Pop songs where the Engrish makes no sense at all.

Kim had to do a variation of the dreaded body parts lesson. After naming the body parts the wacko Mrs. S had Kim say this dialogue, "Do you like your chin? Do you like your hips? Do you like your chest?" Then Mrs. S would give a little waggle of the aforementioned areas and say, "sssseeexxy!" Oh how the students laughed and laughed.

Ms. I had another version of an inappropriate body parts lesson. Kim had to ask the students, "Can I massage your shoulders? Can I sit on you lap?" Ms. I wanted Kim to actually touch the students by massaging and sitting on them. Uhhh No. YOU sit and massage the horny smelly junior high kids because Kim sure as hell wasn't going to do it. In the end Kim said the words and then acted out the motions of the dialogue.

What the hell is with this body parts lesson anyway? First I have elementary school kids grabbing and slapping each other then Kim has to say these embarrassingly inappropriate things at the junior high school. I had yet another version of this lesson as well where the students had to draw a picture of a person after I called out the body part in English. Sure I said words like, "head, legs, and hands" but did I say penis? I guess it didn't matter because many boys proudly held up their drawing complete with tallywagger. The drawing that had the biggest penis of them all was a picture of ME. I did not correct the boy but instead patted him on the head and gave him a, "good boy."

Kim had a lesson where the students would ask, "What's this?" and hold up something in front of Sam. After several pencils and books one kid who is known as a bully went to his backpack and pulled out a knife. "What's this?" Waving a switchblade in Kim's face. "…A knife…" Mrs. S laughs and the student smugly walks back to his seat. If this was America that kid would have been jumped by the FBI labeled a terrorist and sent to Guantanamo or at the least been expelled from school, but this is Japan and he is just another class clown with a knife. Mrs. S thought the knife was pretty clever and went to grab something else hilariously different from off of the top of a file cabinet. Instead she did something even funnier by knocking a vase to the floor. Glass splashed everywhere. After that the kids were gone for the day laughing their collective asses off and cleaning up shards of glass.

Another weird day was when Kim was teaching and a boy got his head stuck in his chair. Now kids are always getting out of their seats to walk or crawl around, but why the hell did he stick his head into the crevice where the seat and back of the chair meet? This of course is a huge distraction so Kim tries to help the poor kid by lifting him up and tilting him at an angle to hoist him out, other students help too. Of course other students 'helping' just makes the situation wilder. Another trickster takes this opportunity to put fake poop under an (unpopular) kid's seat. This kid is super creepy because all he does all class every class is cut paper. Does the cutting take him back to a simpler time in elementary school or perhaps he's making confetti for a stuffed animal parade… nobody knows. Anyway it really looked like this creepy unpopular kid took a fat dump on the floor. This was too funny and even Kim laughed along with the rest of the class. She disposed of the phony feces (in the plastic recycling receptacle.) Finally the kid stuck in the chair was pulled out with the effort of the entire class, quite the team building exercise.

Last week in a class that Kim was teaching a chubby kid was getting eraser chunks tossed at his head all class long and then snapped. He uses his pent up frustration and rage to slam the bully against the wall and starts pounding him in the face and pulling out his hair. The chubby student then breaks down and cries and asks to go home early which he does. No punishment for the bully or the kid who left several chunks of the bullies' hair and splatters of blood on the floor. The bully is the same kid who brandished the switchblade in Kim's face. Hopefully things don't escalate any further.