ALT blows whistle on teacher who was violent at school

14 comments

1. That’s wild. Sometimes on r/japanlife or here someone would make a topic saying they witnessed something at the school they work for and asking for advice on what to do. I wonder if the person who took this video was one of those same people.

2. “The American man, who wishes to remain anonymous”

   Yeah, I would too!

3. “…taking into account even the likelihood of the teacher pretending to be angry for disciplinary purposes.”

   The teacher was only pretending to be violent…by being violent…?

4. Good for the ALT and if anyone does get angry at him, it shows that they’re just as bad as the teacher.

5. What a weird article.

   >The American served as a senior high school teacher in the United States for six years. He applied for Japan’s foreign language assistant program, given the global reputation of the nation’s education system.

   Some real self- congratulatory tone here.

   >His belief did not change after he learned of Japan’s culture and customs as a foreign language assistant, taking into account even the likelihood of the teacher pretending to be angry for disciplinary purposes.

   It’s a little off-putting to see this “he just doesn’t understand because he’s a foreigner” vibe coming from a major newspaper, given the subject matter.

6. Yeah in America the students beat up the teachers.

7. So instead of dealing with the problem in person with the teacher and management, he takes a video of it, which presumably has the students in it unwittingly, and posts it online.

   The fact that anyone would defend this as the correct way to go about handling this problem is shocking. That is the least effective and potentially most harmful way (for the students) of dealing with this issue.

8. Am I understanding the article correctly?

   * The ALT did and said nothing during or immediately after the incident.
   * The ALT uploaded the video to social media, not to any site (*e.g.,* an [anti-bullying organization](http://www.ss-center.net/office/) or [an official office for reporting bullying](https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/seitoshidou/06112210.htm)) where uploading might help.
   * The ALT did not complain or mention the incident to anyone at the school or in whatever ALT system he was with.
   * He waited until after he’d left the place to post the video to social media.
   * He didn’t contact the school even after he’d left it.

   The teacher was doing something bad, and the ALT didn’t seem to be doing or trying to do much good.

9. “He said that in his home state in the United States, an event of this kind is supposed to be quickly reported to the school’s principal and police.”

   I figure that quickly doesn’t mean years later. Also, your social media followers don’t count as the principal or the police.

   He did… something, which is better than nothing, but really?

10. Physical violence against students is, of course, not acceptable.

    But

    >Seeking the opinions of his followers primarily from the United States and Britain on a social media site, he posted the clip late last year after he, the male colleague and the victimized students had left the school via personnel relocation or graduation.

    This is also absolutely not something any sane person — especially someone who has been a teacher in the states — should ever do. I could understand some fresh-grad JET thinking this was a good idea, but how does a grown adult with experience in education ever think that was an appropriate course of action. (Also if he knew violence was wrong why the fuck would he need to seek validation.)

11. I can feel the passive aggressiveness oozing from the article.

12. I didn’t see the video, nor do I know this teacher….so I can’t make any real judgement with any conference here, but, here we go!

    1. The ALT at my school has approached me several times to tell me he saw a teacher ‘abusing’ a student, and they basically misunderstood the whole situation because they don’t understand Japanese……I’m not saying that is what happened here, because there was definitely inappropriate physical interaction
    2. Japanese culture and American culture are different. When I was still in elementary school I would pick kids up all the time while playing with them, and I would sometimes read the kids books in the library on break time and they would fall asleep on top of me, things I would certainly be in deep shit for in the states but was generally praised for here
    3. The timing, and method of the way this video was put out is dumb as fucking hell
    4. The ALT himself admits to not understanding the details of the conversation
    5. Again, as far as ‘performative anger’ goes, I have seen teachers kick desks, slam desks into walls, punch tables……….and 30 minutes later at the end of the lesson they explain why they did what they did, apologizing for overdoing it, ask the kids to improve whatever behavior pissed them off in the first place, and everyone moves on.
    6. I am not saying that I agree with the methods of #5, but I have also never met a Japanese person who would consider it abuse.
    7. He said in America an incidenct of this nature should be quickly reported to the principal and the police………..which he didn’t do.
    8. If he had reported it to the principal, 1 of 2 things would have happened….the principal would have acknowledged it was a problem, and took the proper steps to fix it….or the principal would have explained the context behind it, and why it wasn’t a problem. Both situations being better than what actually happened here.
    9. By handling this situation the way he did, this dumb motherfucker made it harder for future ALTs because there is yet one more anecdote to be told in the company trainings, and if this guy wasn’t a JET, he also put the contacts of all his coworkers at risk.

    ​

    Now based on everything I just said, I fully expect 1-2 comments claiming I am advocating child abuse…….which is bullshit….. I am advocating not being a fucking moron…….if you see a teacher abusing a student, or suspect it. Show it to your principal, vice principal, or an experienced teacher you trust….immediately………..this is not a problem you can or will solve on your own……ever. If this was actually child abuse, all this dumb fuck did was help the perpetrator of it, first by allowing them to continue for years without having reported anything, and second by severely damaging his own credibility in the way he reported the abuse.

13. I remember many years ago in my first year as an ALT. I asked if I could help coach basketball. The girls team was one of the top in the prefecture and they were coached by this old grizzled guy who was constantly berating them. Total old school coach. I would run drills with the girls and he told me to push them around a little to toughen them up. This guy was a samurai. Anyway, the team captain, Mayumi was as tough as they come and one day some of the other girls on the team started disrespecting her, not listening etc. so one time when the coach comes in and starts yelling, Mayumi starts talking back to him. He goes up to her screeching and spitting and slapping her in the back of the head (not with full force but enough) so she crouches down on her knees and covers up and then he is standing over hear kneeing her wherever she can and her shifting her arms to avoid the blows. After a few seconds I go over there to stop it and she catches me coming over out of the corner of her eye and she glares at me angrily and shakes her head. I stop and in a few seconds it’s over. Five minutes later he is all red faced and furious and huffing out of breath and she is laughing and shooting like nothing ever happened. I’ve thought about that day a lot since then. She did that on purpose to let everyone know that she was the leader of that group. And it worked. Mayumi was one tough cookie.

14. They make out asking him to delete the video was some nefarious act as part of a cover-up attempt. The reality would be that you aren’t meant to take pictures of students and publish them online, at all, without prior written consent.

    Especially not as an ALT taking pictures to publish to your “followers” on social media, as opposed to sanctioned pictures for the school website (which is often still a no-no).