10 October 2008

My Life Unplugged

In order to keep this blog active, I'm going to (try to) talk about something that happens to me every day, whether or not it is interesting. So get used to it, Bub!

Today, like every Friday, I worked at a small private high school owned by the same company that owns the outsourcing division I work for. By small, I mean VERY small: there are probably 30 students total in that school. It's a sort of alternative school, attended by kids who want to or need to be challenged in their studies. I teach two English conversation classes there. The classes are formerly called Gaikokujin Eikaiwa ("Foreigner English Conversation"). Not so subtle, huh? Can you imagine a class in the U.S. called "Foreigner Spanish"?

Anyway, the morning class consists of two students. One of them, a boy, has only shown up twice since the start of the academic year in April. The other, a girl, does not want to be the only student in class, so she often does not come to school for my class. That was the case today - or so I thought at first. After waiting 20 minutes for students to show up for the morning class, as is protocol, I went down to the staff office and discovered that the girl was talking with one of the staff members, who didn't seem to be in a hurry to shoo the girl upstairs to my classroom.

That's not the first time that kind of thing has happened there. Back in May, there was a student coming to the morning class, and unbeknownst to me he was not supposed to be in the class. One day, a staff member came up to my classroom, apologized to me first, then turned to the student and quietly told him in Japanese, "You are not supposed to be in this class." The boy, who is very good at speaking English, turned to her and cursed at her in English, using some choicy four-letter words. I don't know if the staff member understood, but she abruptly left the classroom, leaving me to teach a boy that was not supposed to be a student of mine.

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