Sleeping Ugly

After I had been working at Gregg for a few weeks, it was decided that my only adult conversation class at the Jiyugaoka school would be observed. I don't think any teacher will tell you that this is a fun thing. This particular class was a joy to teach. The students were very high level and very motivated. They told me, all of them, that they did not enjoy using the textbook or the teaching methodology. They said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "We enjoy conversation in English. We come to this school once a week for conversation."

Personally, I don't like this kind of class because the conversation will inevitably dry up leaving A) an uncomfortable silence or B) the teacher doing most if not all of the talking. I like having a text to go to. I'm all for conversation but if it stops, it sure is nice to say, "Well, let's hit the book and get down to business, gang." If a particularly fertile conversation topic presents itself during the course of the textbook based study, go for it! A few members of this group didn't even bring their textbooks to class. I was scared at first but to my surprise, they made every effort to keep the conversation going. They asked questions of each other, they asked me how to say things in other ways, they never broke down, not even an "etoh... or "annoh..."

The night of the observation, I started the class on time and we began. I'll admit that I tried to incorporate more of the methodology that night, but not enough of it to stifle them. The way I was supposed to teach at Gregg runs counter to conversation, I believe. It's just a lot of: read this, have the students repeat after you, close the book, pick a student to paraphrase it in their own words. For two uninterrupted hours. That's it. Ugggh. Maybe this system will work with some people but it sure wouldn't/didn't with these guys.

We went to the book and read the subject of the "article" and BOOM! They were off and running! Unbridled talk! I helped out with vocabulary and chipped in questions wherever I could. Then the door opened. It was Kono-san. She is the head honcho for Gregg. My students piped down a bit and greeted her when she sat at the table. I said hello and returned to the matter at hand. One of the students was in the middle of making a point about the text article when another student chimed in with another point. They chatted happily and I tried to direct them back towards the "topic material".

A few minutes later, I noticed something. At first I couldn't believe my eyes. Kono-san, sitting directly opposite me, had closed her eyes and her head was slumping to the side. She looked like a sleeping commuter on a train! How could she be falling asleep in this noisy room?

Then the students noticed her. One of the students had to stop a laugh. Another student put his index finger to his lips and indicated to us to ignore her and keep talking. We did. During the next 20 minutes, Kono-san sat there, head slumped. Occasionally she would perk up a little when the conversation got particularly animated but she would soon return to her slumber. Then her head slumped forward. This apparently jolted her awake. Maybe she felt embarrassed because she jumped up rather guiltily, said good-bye and walked out.

I thought, "Well, she must not have disliked what she saw because she looked so comfortable and relaxed. If she gives me any grossly negative feedback I'll be surprised. How can she critique what she slept through?"

I told my tale to a few of the other teachers at Gregg and they just laughed. "Yeah, SNAFU" they said, among other more colorful terms.

Next week I had to have a "little meeting" with Kono-san about the observation. By that time I had had enough of Gregg and it's senmon gakko where I also worked. I typed up my letter of resignation leaving all the date spaces blank. If Kono-san gave me one ounce of BS about the observation, for example saying something like, "I noticed you didn't give everybody a chance to speak." or, "I noticed you spoke too quickly using expressions that the students couldn't grasp," typical eikaiwa complaints, I would resign on the spot. Neither of those things occurred and my students always left the class smiling and saying things like, "Thank you! See you next week! We should all get together outside of class, sometime!" If she said something like, "Try to give them homework." or, "Have them read sections of the text aloud for the others to listen to and comment upon." I would have recognized it as constructive criticism and a sign that she thought the class was headed in the right direction. I would also have tried to stay on with Gregg for another few weeks.

I waited for our little meeting to begin in the lobby of the school. Kono-san was late. She was always late. It was typical for her to be 30-40 minutes late for every little meeting. Fine. Whatever. She shows up and sits at the little table with me.

"What I saw disturbed me greatly. You not only didn't stick to the methodology (guilty as charged) you sat idly by while the students led the class themselves."

Now wait just a freaking second!! "I directed the students towards the blessed "topic" whenever I thought they were getting too far off track, I provided a structure and feedback, if I felt the conversation was ending I hit the text drilling for the next nugget. Everybody seemed happy to me." I said. I continued, "I'm surprised at you."
"Why?"
"How can you say these things when you were obviously sleeping." "No I wasn't." "The students noticed it, too. One of them giggled at you."
"I wasn't sleeping! I'm a professional! I have a responsibility to my customers! I would never sleep in front of them!"
"Well, your eyes were certainly shut and your head kept slumping over. What's that? A new type of deep concentration?"
"Maybe I don't glare at people like you do!" I had to smile at that point. I knew she knew I had caught her. She went on, "Maybe your class is so boring I fell asleep! Maybe all the students fell asleep and you didn't notice!"

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. Oh, God, she's nuts. She's making crap up. I thought, "Kono-san, if you're going to get childish and start this descent into ridiculous accusations, go for the gusto! Make up some real insane shit! Play crazy with me and scare me into my senses! Say something like: The King of the River Carp informed me by telepathy that you don overalls and a straw hat on the weekends. You sit on the river bank with a blade of grass in your mouth, a jug of moonshine by your side, a banjo on your knee and you bother all the poor pitiable carp with hillbilly love songs from your youth! How dare you!"

She continued after a moment of contemptuous silence, "I would like you to observe a veteran teacher's class. Mr.____ will be having a class on Monday at ____ o'clock. Please take notes and report to me."

She started going through her purse looking for something. That did it. After five years in this country, I still had some pride. I reached for my backpack, pulled out the neatly typed up letter of resignation and it's copy and put them on the table.

"What's today's date?" I asked.
"It's the 14th." she answered. I filled in the dates on both sheets of paper indicating a period of 30 days. I then signed both sheets where "employee" was indicated. I pushed the sheets across the table to her.

She looked up and said, "What's this?" "It's my letter of resignation. You've got thirty days to find another teacher. Could you sign right there and there where it says "employer"? Thank you."
"What?!......ohhh......ohhhh....." she said.
She signed them and I walked out the door.

Now obviously, this is only my side of the story. I'm sure that if Kono-san were sitting right here next to me (shudder!!) she would have a very different take. She might even say something like, "I sold a product to my customers. That product, despite what this cretin thinks, is the result of many years of work and fine-tuning. Our customers are satisfied with it. Many of them have been known to renew their contracts, completely uninfluenced by alcohol or any narcotic substance, on the understanding that they would continue to receive that product. By not following our method, Mr.Chris is stealing from the customers. This story, this Web site is nothing but a pissy attempt to get back at me and my school for what Mr. Chris thinks is unfair treatment."

To this I would answer: Your customers, at least the ones I met, are not at all happy with your "product". After asking other teachers, many of them veterans, I would conclude that many customers in other classes aren't happy with it, either. I compared my teaching style with other teachers in informal settings and guess what? We're almost alike. The veteran I was asked to observe told me later that he does the same thing as me! "You wouldn't learn anything from me, Chris." he said. "The thing is," he continued, "you're in the head office school where they like to keep a close eye on things. You're new to the company and therefore malleable. I work in a school where the manager doesn't go looking for trouble. If there's something wrong, she'll talk to me first before calling in head office." I said to him, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." "Exactly." he said.

As for this being a petty, pissy attempt to "get back"......yeah. I'm human. Sometimes I can rise above it.