Back on line, finally!

Ah, today the techno-buffs (or perhaps not-so-buffs since they took so long) finally came in and fixed the server. So now we are all back online and I am able to read mail, what there was of it, and write about my everincreasingly dull life on this here blog.

Last night I was watching tv for the first time in a while and I happened across a show that was talking about teachers and schools and so on. It was yet another variety show where they have a panel of B-grade celebs and this time they also had about 25 real teachers, although they did seem to be somehow famous teachers. At first they were just mucking around and talking about the issues that crop up at schools for teachers, mad parents and mental kids and so on. They recounted a story which one of the teachers had told them of a high school girl who had a crush on him. She asked him out several times and finally he decided the best thing to do was to try and use this for her benefit, so at first he told her that he couldn't go out with her because he didn't like girls who didn't respect the school's rules about uniform (she was always messily dressed and so on) and the next day she came in all tidied up! She had made him a bento and everything and asked him out again. This time he said "Well, if you've got time to make bento then you sure aren't studying hard enough" and she had a sulk, but then came back a month or so later and showed him her dramatically improved test results. And asked him out again. This time he said that if she continued to get those grades until graduation he would go out with her. And she did. Come graduation day she still wanted to go out with him, he thought she would forget. But then, since she was no longer his student it wasn't illegal for them to date and now they are married! Persistance does pay off it seems...

They also surveyed teachers in general and asked them about situations like bribes from parents and spying. Bribes are quite common but several teachers had been offered cars by their students' parents! And the incidence of spying on teachers is higher than you would think, like they get their kid to stick a microphone under the teacher's desk so they can hear the class! It was a heaps funny show to watch because since I work at a school I can relate to it all. Especially the stuff about the parents complaining and so on. The high school teachers were talking about the parents fighting at the open days! They would be teaching, turn to the blackboard and look back and half the parents had just disappeared, turn back and again and yet more had gone, go to look in the hallway to see why they were leaving and there would be a melee under way between the housewives! It is at the point now where middle and high schools usually write on the invitations to open days "please do not fight"!!

Towards the end of the show though it got more serious because they brought out a bloke from the Education Department to explain the new system they are talking about setting up where schools get appraised by parents and students and points are awarded which translates to extra funding and increased salaries for the teachers. This is in response to the situation which is referred to here as gakkyuuhoukai, "classroom breakdown" where the teacher loses control of the class constantly. The teachers do not believe that this system is going to fix the problem, but the very smarmy looking man from the Department insisted that it would "if you are a good teacher". Well, once he had said that there was no keeping anyone quiet, the teachers all started yelling at him and actually the studio had a bit of houkai of its own! Clearly no one wants to be told that the only reason they can't control their class is because they are a bad teacher and they are boring their students to death. And I think it is a bit of a stupid thing to say frankly, espeically considering he was there all by himself - as if they were going to listen to him after saying something like that! It was interesting watching Japanese fight though, they get more and more polite the angrier they get!

In the end not much was acheived in terms of real debate because the teachers all felt personally affronted and it all descended into a slinging match. A bit of a shame really because it would be interesting to hear what teachers think about it all and how to fix it. To me it just seems to be a lack of a standard disciplinary system. Each teacher has their own way of dealing with things, there is no actual school procedure for what to do with nuisance kids. But what do I know? My classes are the very definition of chaos!