Edit: thanks for the comments! I’m glad to see I’m not the only one leaning towards just coasting by. I know some people might think “oh just try harder” but I try hard every other Friday (when I do team teach 1-1) and it’s just getting worse and worse. Thanks! I won’t waste my energy from this day forward and I’ll coast by until the school year is over next March 😅
Edit 2: just to give more context on how bad this class is, they aren’t allowed to do chemistry labs anymore as of last week… A few students had a “beaker toss” thing 2 weeks ago and broke 7 beakers. All they do now is watch (or ignore) chemistry activities and do problems. 1-1 is banned from chemistry lab. Needless to say, wasn’t shocked
Original post:
So I have a visit school every Friday. This school is the lowest level in education achievement in the prefecture (okay not the lowest but top 10 lowest). Most students are okay but can’t seem to get past saying hello, my name is (). However, I have one class that is completely out of control. Not just to my classes but to all the teachers that teach it. No teacher (math, science, shakai, art, etc.) likes this class. They talk loudly while the teacher talks, they throw things, tell the teacher to shut up (not me yet, keyword being yet…), leaves the classroom without asking, and just overall rude to one another.
Obviously, this is out of my reach and job description, so all I do is talk a little, try to do the activity planned and try to talk to the students individually to kinda get some energy out. It’s working but when I have to talk, I’m sick of raising my voice so that the behaved students can hear me. The JTE doesn’t do shit to control or get them to calm down but say “be quiet” “Shizuka ni” “hanashite yamete “
They still misbehave. My question is, do I still try (give it 80%) or just coast by? Just this one class . The other classes can be noisy but they quiet down after being asked and they do their work.
Before anyone @ me with what I’m doing, yes we do activities, we lower it down as much as we can so they can understand, not much time writing or listening and they still don’t do the work or don’t pay attention. I could literally tell them to play on their phones and they won’t listen to that.
So…keep giving effort or coast by?
17 comments
For your mental sanity, coast by.
I have the exact same problem at my friday school. I gave up. It is not worth it especially if this is not just an English class problem. Do what you can with them but otherwise dont go losing your voice.
Not going to lie. I’m leaving the states to try and get away from classrooms like this. Makes me nervous lol.
Unfortunately this is a common situation. I was also at a school like this. The students were verbally aggressive and never had any problem throwing racist insults freely.
The problem lies with the parents and the teachers. The parents are more than likely just like those students, which gives the kids validation in how they treat others. The teachers, as you said, throw the problem under the rug by saying things like “Oh, kids will be kids”.
As for a solution there really is nothing I can suggest. As you said, you’re an alt, you have limited understanding of the culture and language, and as a result you have little to no authority over the kids.
I once complained, and the Principle spoke to me in private, saying very empathic things, and understanding my grievances, which I was happy to hear. But once I started to talk about solutions he literally started a similar if not same speech as to what he had just said. It was like Deja Vu. At which point I realized if the Principle doesn’t care, then nobody at the school cares, and all they’re doing is waiting for the kids to graduate so they can be someone else’s problem. Insanity.
They have been like this for years and their parents dont care. Dont lose your head over it. Do the minimum snd forget them as soon as you finish that lesson
For my own sanity these are the classes I will mostly play bingo with or simple coloring activities (elementary school, usually I’m T1). Time wasting activities where I don’t have to talk/shout too much.
I had a class like that in my first year. The teachers and I ended up just playing movies… And the students would turn and face the wall instead of watch yhe movie they’d picked lol
You aren’t gonna win them all. So pick the battles worth fighting. The reality is high school is voluntary here but most kids are still forced into it though they’d rather be working or be anywhere else. It’s sad but it’s the reality.
Find one thing to enjoy about the class. I used to just give up and play disco and every now and then some of the boys would get up and dance and we’d just muck about.. other times they’d all be in bad moods and I’d wait them out..sometimes i could get them to focus for maybe 25 minutes… One time they came in to class 15 minutes late (even with the JTE going to find them, he came back and said “they said they’ll come over when they’re ready”) and i sat there reading my own book for another fifteen minutes while they asked the JTE why I hadn’t started the class. Then we got started and just did a music/drawing activity for fun because we only had fifteen minutes left. I never got angry or frustrated… But it wasn’t worth trying the usual structure with them because it always aggravated them
Someone has to man the Conbinis after the olds die.
Why get in the way of their destiny?
This is the unspoken part of JET and when you go to your Skill Development Conferences you can’t help but roll your eyes as the presenting JET talks about how well classes are run at their high level super science school lol
What level of school is this? ES? JHS? SHS?
Coast by. You’ll burn yourself out if you keep trying harder and get no results. You don’t want one class to ruin the job for you.
One of my classes are also pretty bad, though not quite on the same level you described (although one student climbed onto the second story window and nearly fell once, freaked me out). The most I can do is go through some basic activities and hope the class isn’t too unmanageable that week. Luckily my JTE is actively involved and we try our best to keep things under control.
One of my first schools was a high school that was so low level that the ALT English class was an elective for 2nd and 3rd graders only. I taught no more than 40 students at that school and the 3rd graders were still not clear on how to correctly use question words. Even my JTE told me not to worry about the students’ English because their Japanese was bad too. The second grade class teacher decided to move to a scripted role play based lesson plan and, surprisingly, that worked really well. Our lowest performing student (he sat next to a foreign student who openly allowed him to copy his work) saw the most significant improvement. The pair started out underachieving, just getting it over with quickly so they could slack off the rest of the class. At some point though, they started to take it very seriously. The Japanese boy’s pronunciation and fluidity improved dramatically and the pair would still try to be the first but in a competitive way. Neither of us are really sure why they responded so positively to this lesson style but we were damn proud!
My main school was the lowest in prefecture with deviation score of 34. Fights, yelling, and disobedience were the norm. However, I attended a low level school my whole life and thus had a feel how to navigate.
You’ll never win in a headstrong fight. The thing you have to do is to relate to them on a common level rather than as a teacher. I often started class by 10-15 minutes free talk about everyone’s favorite anime, boy bands, crushes, talents, etc. Most topics were fine but giving them the time to chat made them like me and I pretty much NEVER in 3 years had to deal with them negatively. My JTE however? Non-stop war.
The kids have good hearts but unfortunate circumstances. Be flexible.
Ah one more tip, paying SPECIAL attention to the top performers and the troublemakers will make it easier. If you have both sides on your team, they will police the middle themselves.
Edit: Bring snacks if you can
give them the Onizuka treatment
I remember my bestie had one of this class in her last year before leaving JET, they were not only rowdy but racist and she actually cried. But being her last year she just plain told them that she would.not be going back. Although the supervisor said she was unprofessional and the Principal felt bad, she protected her mental health and I think that we do not speak enough about that.
Not saying that I would do the same but mental health is important.
Had a school with such a bad reputation that ambulances were regularly called when these kids were ES 1-6 because they were hurting each other, other grades, and their teachers. It continued until they were in JHS where the majority of them finally calmed down.
I had a few genuinely scary instances where a student threatened sexual violence towards me and warned me that he knew where I lived. I was told to stop all classes with that entire grade and avoid their floor for a few months, and the principal asked me to change the route I took to school and stay away from the kid’s little brother’s at ES for my own safety.
Things calmed down and the kid eventually lost interest in me. Then one day he punched his teacher in the face and broke her nose when she got on him about busting a window and jumping from the second story.
His mother gave him away to his grandparents and I never saw him again. His two half-brothers had some similar issues but nowhere near the same.
These kids have been failed by the adults in their lives and that’s incredibly sad. At the same time, there’s only so much you can do and staying in an unsafe situation isn’t going to make things better.
Had multiple classes like this. Coast by. Otherwise you will take the mental frustration home with you. These types of classes do not care in any way whatsoever, and if you have no support, coasting by will save you all of the headaches and stress.