Teaching English in Japan with Ato - The Ghetto
My time at the previously mentioned school has come to an end and since then I have worked two weeks at another school. This school wasn't bad; a bit dingy and rundown, but the students were by far the "genkiest" group of kids I have ever taught and the teachers quite dedicated.
The interesting part of working at this school wasn't the actual school, but rather the walk to the school.
Everyday on my way to this chugakko I would walk by the grimiest, dirtiest, most ghetto-looking Japanese school I have every seen in my life. The grounds were unkempt and the paving stones were perched at differing angles. Some of the windows had tape on them preventing the cracks in the glass from spreading further.
Actually, for the first week when I walked by the school I thought it was condemned and the kids moved to a different school months before, until I saw a few straggling students walking around on their sports day. In my disbelief, I joked to myself that I would take pity on the poor gaijin that had to turn up there to work every day for two weeks. Imagine my surprise when I checked my schedule and saw that it was I.I must have smoked three cigarettes just walking to the school that day; such was my lack of desire to go there. I even got off the bus one stop earlier and sat in the park...on a bench in the rain...smoking...so that I could prolong my "me-time" for that much longer. Eventually my ketai (cell phone) reminded me that time waits for no man, and that I had a date with destiny.
Right from the start I didn't like the way things were going. My contract clearly states that I begin work at 8:30 a,m. but as I walked in the front door at 8:20 a.m. and replaced my outdoor shoes with my indoor ones I noticed that the morning meeting was already in progress. This is usually a problem because the staff then tries to pressure me to arrive in time for the morning meeting (all in Japanese, has nothing to do with me and extremely boring) which begins at 8:15 a.m., effectively resulting in you getting there by 8:10 a.m., which may as well be 8:00 a.m. and which IS NOT in my contract.
Also problematic is the fact that I'm somewhat of a stickler for work contracts and resist steadfastly any attempts made to get me to put in extra hours that I don't really want to put in of my own volition. This meant that we (me and the school administrators) were probably going to butt heads (albeit passive aggressively) sometime in the next two weeks.
To be continued…
[ad#468x60-ad]
