I was a terrible Japanese language school student when I was growing up. I hated giving up my Saturdays and as an expression of protest, I never bothered trying. As the apathetic student who never did homework or studied for tests, I was the thorn in all my Japanese teachers' shoes.
Maybe it was by karmic retribution that, years later, I would become an English language teacher in Japan, trying to convince Japanese kids to take English seriously. Just as how my Japanese teachers in America were fighting an uphill battle with students like me, so I was asking of my Japanese students an impossible task: to take the time to think, speak and write English once a week in spite of their already ridiculously busy lives.
I only had four days of official training and one week of observation to learn how to be a good English-language teacher before all these Herculean tasks were dumped onto my lap. I had to learn how to coax three-year-olds to pay attention for more than three seconds. I had to learn how to teach squirmy five-year-olds how to read - and not be bored by the process. I had to keep grim-faced middle school students from falling asleep. I had to trick working mothers, grandmothers, and people my age into respecting my authority. That, and I had to get all of them to speak English as fluently as possible.
I was terrible my first three months here.
My biggest hurdle was that I just wasn't used to being a teacher. I still saw myself as the college student who spent more time honing procrastination tactics than actual studying. I sympathized too much with my students when they didn't do their homework or dozed off in class. "Well, gee," I would think to myself, "If I were 14, I would probably hate coming here and resent the world too."
First, I was the wannabe cool teacher who tried too hard to be liked. When that didn't work, I played the stodgy disciplinarian, the joyless teacher who suspected every student of initiating a minor mutiny against my own fake authority. I kept oscillating between extremes. I over-planned or under-planned my lessons. I was either too self-conscious or not self-aware enough. Short of coming to class with a hangover, I probably went through every incompetent teacher alter ego possible.
I was teaching badly because all my initial reasons for coming here to teach had been purely selfish. I needed time, money and a job. I wanted to see what it was like to live in Japan. Even worse, I regarded my job with the ironic, self-deprecating amusement that teaching English in Japan was one of the many clichés that a humanities major faced after college, along with undefined life goals and vaguely halfhearted notions of applying to law school.
Everything changed when I finally began to seriously reflect on what it really meant to be a teacher. Lessons became less unbearable, more dynamic. One by one, my students began opening up to me. I still remember how victorious I felt when my stone-faced middle schoolers finally started laughing in class. I am beginning to understand the particular teaching euphoria that comes with conducting a good lesson, and it is wonderfully addictive.
It makes sense to me now, why so many teaching programs exist for the college graduate; Learning how to become a better teacher is essentially learning how to become a better human being. It forces to ask of you, every minute of your job, if you are trying hard enough to maintain that sacred connection of trust and respect that is possible between two human beings. Are you listening carefully enough? Are you being empathetic enough? Are you paying attention to and respecting your students' needs?
Empathy and good listening skills are something this world always needs more of.
It is February now, and I imagine that there are many JA college students reading this column right now and who are like me a year ago, completely clueless as to what to do right after graduation. While my eight-month exile from college hardly makes me an expert on real world issues, I strongly encourage all of you to consider teaching, whether it be in Japan or elsewhere. You will become a better person for it.
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