Black Dog

I am doing nothing here. Sure, I teach fifteen classes a week. They each require around 30 seconds of preparation, which I usually do as I'm walking through the classroom door, humming or whistling to myself. I also have 250 essays and 250 short pieces of homework to mark each week, but they all make exactly the same mistakes every single week, so really it’s a checking off exercise. I'm considering having a rubber stamp made with the words “Please refer to the corrections I made last week.”

A fellow JET once told me of a teacher at his school who doesn’t mark papers anymore; she just stamps them with a big red 'received' stamp. Yup got this, ta. She may as well just flick the pages across a red pen; it would be quicker, and would save her no doubt sore wrist. They would pass anyway, regardless of what grade they might have received. They will graduate school regardless of their marks; they will graduate because in Japan nobody gets left behind. Physically left behind that is. These kids have 'education' thrown at them for three years of high school and at the end they come out of it hopefully having learned something.

A corollary of this system is that bad teachers don't often get fired. They just get moved around in the yearly shuffle. Even the good teachers. On JET I have only ever heard of one ALT getting fired and that was through default as they had been deported for growing massive amounts of marijuana in their apartment. It’s like there's a bureaucrat in the ministry of education whispering in every teacher's ear “Look, just turn up and do whatever it is you do so that I check this little box here and pay you. Then my boss can check his little box and pay me. Alright?”

There's a growing issue in Japan about the number of NEETs (Not in Employment, Education, or Training); young folk who basically do nothing because they are either not qualified or there are no jobs for them. The females actually have a uniform - black sweat pants and a black baggy jumper, usually accompanied by masses of hair dyed a horrible blonde, far too much make-up, and nasty silver or gold spangly high-heels. I wonder what they are thinking when they first don this garb? Actually, I try not to wonder. If you are not a NEET then you probably work in a convenience store or an office, and this is no appetising prospect either.

You may recall a few posts ago the most depressing of graffiti; lonely figures drawn so intricately on a window ledge of a train. Here it is again:



In train stations there are posters strategically placed to remind commuting students just what is expected of them:



After seeing this poster several times a day for months it doesn't surprise me that the most blatant graffiti I have seen in Japan was where the school kids park their bikes by the train station on their way to school.

Yesterday a lyric to a song by The Flaming Lips I was listening to went, “Do you realize, that we're just floating in space?” Which when you think about is what we are doing. “We're just an illusion created by the earth spinning round” it continues. Which is great. Thanks for that one Mr Lips. Makes me feel good.

Pull back and take the broader view. Consider: what are we doing? What are any of us doing? Does any of it matter? And even if it does matter - does it matter that it matters?

Oh, and here's that graffiti by the bike shed I mentioned:




Have a nice day.


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