Hell School

My Town

September 22. 06

Hell school is draining me. I though the worst would be over when I saw the scat artist early this week, but no. Looks like I have a new monster. Takahiro. I observed him last week, when my supervisor did a team teach session with me and taught this class. At the time, the notes mentioned that he was troublesome and I was relieved that Andrew would be doing the teaching. Yeah he was disruptive with Andrew, but he was far worse today. Right from the get go, he would not stop getting into trouble and irritating others. I nearly lost it when he grabbed and dragged one of the girls (by her leg) and slammed his foot into her crotch. I grabbed him and nearly through him across the room. (This is my great fear – that I will hurt one of the monsters.) I could not believe that she was fine, but I gave him the red flag warning – three warnings and the threat of calling the mom. This subdued him somewhat (the other kids seemed very excited that he might get a phone call – they started policing him and coaxing me to give him another red flag warning) but he was a handful throughout, driving everyone nuts. I think the town is just kinda rough with that working class edge to it. I notice a bunch of scraggily adults that hang around nearby, some looking homeless, some like alcoholics.

The other day, I ended up screaming at some kid. Having a loud voice is something of a weapon. When I yell at them, they really are shocked. Each class seems to have one boy who will nonstop be disruptive, trying to get tons of attention. I feel like I am always breaking up a fight, but it is not really a fight, cuz the kids might be laughing, but I find all the kicking and punching too much. Some of the kids look really disheveled, something I don’t see in society at large or with my other kids. Daito – hell school. I also think the Japanese teacher is not being firm enough or disciplined enough. I feel the kids are used to getting their way. There is a pattern. The problem boys enter the class and go charging into the back room, our office space, to look for a ball to throw around. This is not happening in the other schools. There is some semblance of respect for authority, but not in Daito. I don’t want to give the Japanese teacher a hard time about it. She is stuck with them 3 weeks out of the month. And I don’t want to appear critical of her teaching methods, but her kids are the worst in academic capability and the worst behaved. I don’t want to create waves and create tension with her and I don’t want to appear like someone who can’t handle the situation. I try to burn them out with physical activity and hope no one gets injured. I try to teach them the fundamentals of the curriculum for that week and work on the pronunciation. I was exhausted after only 3 hours of teaching. I set up an obstacle course game, followed by a race game and a basketball game. I have to monitor and keep things running, so I end up running around with the kids for three lessons. A workout let me assure you. Plus I feel like I am going to lose my voice from screaming names throughout the lesson. It is noisy. I will buy a whistle. I have decided. I was quite proud of myself today, I noted, as I realized that I could somewhat control a group of 8 ADHD 10 year old boys. The best thing about Daito hell school is that it is my largest classroom in terms of space, so I can play games like monkey in the middle. That really wears them out. Keep em running and speaking English – that is the way to survive this hell school. I’m beat.