Loosing That Loving Feeling

It was January, my first week back after New Year’s break. I had missed the childish camaraderie, and was even looking forward to defending the privacy of my parts on a daily basis. The last update on the mischievous nuts at Kanokita Junior High was in October. I’ve been taking careful notes of their behavior since then. By now I’ve finished up at my three other schools, so the focus of the blog will shift to these bundles of trouble doing what they do best – causing it.

“Mr. Mochizuki, how are things here at Kanokita this New Year?” I asked, fishing for gossip.

“Oh, same as usual. Not in particular,” he said showing off his front teeth from behind oversized glasses. That smile always gave me the willies.

Two more days back in session would be enough to erode Mr. Mochizuki’s veneer of winter recess relaxation to the point of disillusionment: “Mr. Jef, I no like this class. Why am I appointed this school?” he suddenly complained before class. “To tell you the truth, I don’t want to come to this place. There are very bad students, maybe the worst in Tokyo.” Although shocked by his candid confessions to a younger and contracted employee, he had a point.

The honeymoon period’s over. I dragged my feet up the stairs to class with Mr. Hirogashi, a young teacher who spent December break in Hawaii on his honeymoon. Regarding the three other schools I rotate among, he asked, “Do you notice a difference between this school and the others?”

I nearly laughed out loud, but realized he was in fact quite serious. He’s fixed at one school, and sounded like he was hoping to gain insight into the outside world populated with better disciplined students.

Perhaps he’s longing for the past. After all, he met his bride while teaching in another ward of Tokyo; however, Japanese school rules stipulate that a husband and wife cannot teach in the same ward, much less the same school. So he designated himself for reassignment, which after half a year at this school must mean he’s filed divorce papers just to get his old job back.

Blood-curling screams echoed into the stairwell from an undisclosed location. It could have been from upstairs or downstairs – maybe from both. Something then crashed to the floor. Usually it’s loud and metallic, but the dull thuds worry me most. Mr. Hirogashi filtered out these background noises.

Students at two of my other three schools were angels compared to Kanokita kids. I didn’t want honesty to burst his already bruised bubble. Morale in the teacher’s room was low enough.

“Well, the 7th graders aren’t so bad,” I said with a positive spin. Actually, Omiyada’s, led by the inept Mr. Nishono, acted worse. Kanokita’s 8th and 9th graders, however, were the bottom of the behavioral barrel.

“I think this school is like a jail,” he said as we climbed passed 8th grade classrooms on the third floor – ground zero for disobedience. His analogy was faulty. Although inmates are also bad apples, and as a matter of law must remain on the premises, a jail enforces order through authoritative guards. Kanokita is more like a game preserve where wild beasts roam free in a loosely patrolled area. There are some rangers, but not enough to be effective guardians.

At the top of the stairwell on the fourth floor, we turned right instead of left. “Oh no, no, no…not this class,” I grumbled to myself. There’s only one room at this end of the hall. It’s the class with the boy with the huge birthmark on his chin whose standard greeting is, “Oh Jefu! Son of a bitch!”

There were eleven students today, but they still outnumbered two teachers. Four girls in the front row were throwing pen cases (one labeled “Bump of Chicken,” a popular band) at one another or using textbooks to inflict head trauma. The boys behind them sketched their own variations of manga characters from an illustrated masterlist.

Efforts to overlay the worksheet on top of their drawings were brushed away. When Mr. Hirogashi then tried removing the drawings, a student yelled and ripped the worksheet in half. Mr. Hirogashi acquiesced.

The girls in the back of the room were hopeless. I knew from past experience that I’d be wasting my energy. One sat on the windowsill staring into space. One foot was planted on her seat while the other leg rested across her desk. At least she looked comfortable. Beside her, a friend craned her neck out the window to report on the boys P.E. soccer game.

Two girls glanced up from writing letters in multi-colored ink. They welcomed talking to me (in Japanese), but one preferred listening. At first I thought she had a new earring, but then spotted an earphone concealed beneath her long black hair. My face lit up, and she begged me to keep quiet. I just smiled and returned to the front of the room to survey the scene from a macro level. Finely fashioned paper airplanes crisscross flight paths in the back of the room.

Except for pretending to arrange to go to a Beyonce concert with a boy who practiced English five hours a day over winter vacation, classes were an exercise in futility. The students don’t care. There’s nothing stopping them from showing it. And there’s nothing I can do except witness the chaos unfold.