Kim's Story: Warui Chugakou

In Japan school is only compulsory until the end of junior high. Also, no matter what grades the students get or how badly they misbehave if they bother to show up for graduation they will pass. Kind of puts in perspective Japan's internationally renowned education and high school graduation rates. If the only kids going to high school are the ones that want to be there and the parents have to pay big bucks for it they sure as hell are going to graduate. Going to restaurants I'd see extremely young people as waiters and think this is their part time job, but no these are people working full time that graduated junior high and didn't go to high school.

Anybody that has money sends their kids to private junior high and high schools. Why do this when most public schools are just as good as private schools? Because of shitty ghetto junior highs like the one Kim works at. Kim used to work at a high school in Oakland where several students were shot dead and the drop out rate was around 70%. This school had better overall behavior then the junior high. It is the worst school in town and has a far-reaching reputation for misbehavior and overall shity ghettoness. We went to a Thanksgiving party that was three towns over and whoever Kim told what school she worked for they knew it immediately by reputation as "warui chugakou" or the bad junior high.

Government subsidized communist era looking apartments line the streets neighboring the junior high. These enormous gray buildings are filled to capacity with poor families and their children. The children are stuck in these drab cramped quarters and have to behave themselves or get smacked the hell up by their parents. So when all these children with their raging hormones aged 12-15 come to school where there is no discipline and no punishment for acting up they go completely apeshit; bullying, screaming, hitting and just being annoying little brats.

Meet the staff. First there is the head English teacher Mr. U who is a nice guy but a terrible teacher who goes over the lesson so fast that Kim can't even understand what he is saying in English, let alone the students. At least his classes are usually the calmest of the four English teachers.

Then there is Ms. I. Ms. I should not be a teacher. Her lesson plans are awful and she doesn't even look at the students while teaching nor move from her desk. Ms. I is on antidepressants but they don't seem to be working.

Mrs. S is a little crazy and her rapport with the students is a kinda inappropriate. She has even worse classroom discipline then Ms I because she encourages the misbehavior by laughing at it and never punishing the bullies.

Lastly there is Mrs. M who is a great teacher and is in great shape because she is always running everywhere. The one teacher that uses the lesson plans Kim makes and English songs Kim picks? Mrs. M.

The vice principal is creepy as hell and is always waving and saying, "HELLOOOO" to Kim. Even if she walks out of the teacher's room and comes back five minutes later he will give her a vigorous wave and hello from across the room. He hardly even talks to the other teachers. He comments on the clothes that she wears and commented that she seemed very cold. The next day he brought her a bag full of used sweaters that he claimed were his daughters. Except they smelled like a thrift store and had blonde hair on some and black hair on others. That's sick and creepy.

Lastly there is the principal. He is an asshole. Nobody likes him. Why did Kim seem so cold that day the vice principal saw her? Maybe because the principal never turns on the heat in the teachers room even though every other school does. When it's 40 degrees and everybody is cold and sick he won't ever turn on the heater. He never used the air conditioner in summer either. Asshole. Last week when Ms. I came to him because of a death threat she received from several students he replied, "It's not my problem you deal with it." What an asshole. In America his ass would be fired and fined but this is Japan and you can never complain to your superiors.

The last ALT left the junior high because a third year student physically assaulted him. The student invited him to a festival and while there pulled on the ALT's hair slamming him down face first onto the concrete. The ALT had a lawyer and was completely prepared to sue the kid and his parents but was talked out of it by the English teachers.

It's a good idea never to get too close to the students especially at a freaking ghetto junior high where the kids make death threats and beat up teachers without any repercussions whatsoever.