Students, General

Well, I'm a few weeks in now, and getting the hang of things around here. I've got listening to tapes down to a science as far as making it time effiecient for my part time job, and I've come up with my first fully independent lesson plan and executed them for my fully-independent Oral English I. Smashing success! I set the bar, all but one of the students met it. Almost none managed to go much past the bar I set, and almost all were at or a hair beyond my goals for the class. I was actually a little shocked. Here's why:

More than 1/2 of the students in almost any university in all of Japan have come to expect college to be what it is for almost every college student in the nation: A break. It's a break between the horrors of constant study from early middle school to being able to work. What you grade in in a school matters so little, most just don't care. A student either has to make a genuine effort to try to fail, or have a foreign professor in order to actually fail a class. Students are so aware of this, that the only policy that keeps them from NEVER coming to class is our university's "strict" rule.

The rule states, and this is a translation: For regular classes (30 classes in one semester), if you miss more than 10 classes you are dropped from the class.

So, with 1 1/2 hour blocks to sit around in and do what you feel like, and your effort not mattering in 95% of all classes, and knowing that your grades don't matter, only your school, what is there to do in class? Well, if you are genuinely interested in learning after over a decade of what is called "Examination Hell" (their term, not mine), you are rare. Out of all my students in my classes, there are 5 out of about 80 that I can honestly say I believe (perhaps falsely about some of them) that they are really there to learn. Maybe not that interested, and maybe 4 of them are being forced to be in the class so are just making the best out of it, but at least appearing interested. That seems like a pretty good rate considering all of the above. The rest of the 80? Demographically speaking, about 10 have never been seen in class. At least 2 have asked to use the bathroom to me personally, and being unable to stop them if they request it, have packed their entire bags in plain sight and walked out, obviously not to return that day. Some could not hope to pass the class at ALL now that we are so far into the semester. There is no calculable way to recover that many points. We're about a 1/5 of the way through now. And those that miss are not 100% students. They are looking at obvious, unmistakable failing grades.

This is where it gets anthropologically interesting to me. Meaning I have no idea what could possibly be going through their heads. They understand the grading systems in our classes. They've seen it in mathematical formulas on the board, on paper, in Japanese, and in English, for most days of the first couple weeks. It has been QUITE clear to all of them that if they don't participate in class (about 40%-60% of the grade for my section of our department), they WILL fail. Yet, they keep coming to class, laying their heads down on the table, or texting on their cell phones. We are allowed to do nothing about this, essentially. We can make grade threats, and say we like students that do these-and-those things, and congratulate those that work hard profusely. We tell them these things, and they know them, but they students will still do nothing for the first hour and 20 of 1.5 hour class, stare off into space while you occasionally remind them of the grade repercussions, and that they will have homework if they don't finish it. At the end complain to us in class that they have too much homework from us (about 10 minutes of work which was only given because so many of them delayed as much as they could for 1.5 hours and didn't finish what they should and could have if they actually tried a tiny bit). This is about 65 of my students. 2 of my classes are composed of this demographic, 100%. They are paying top-dollar at this private university, and they know that they might be needing English to pass further entrance exams for future jobs (no lie! Examination Hell only ends once you find a serious career), and that having this skill will be essential for the kinds of jobs that most of the students think they are going into after school. After all, this is Kansai University of International Studies. We're giving them skills they will need to keep their jobs.

None seem to care either. They know these things. They know that sitting looking into space for 1 hour and 20 minutes will amount to that much time lost, and that they will either do it later or fail our classes. They make no attempt to switch classes even once registered, even though they have a week long grace period, and many will just keep coming to class hoping the grading system will magically ignore their lack of work. Come and sit all day, put no effort into attention, do nothing for 85% of it, eat lunch with some friends, then go party and spend the folks' money for enjoying college, or your gigantic private school loans. This is the life for so many. This is also why medical degrees for Japanese doctors are only trusted to come from OUTSIDE of Japan! No one would trust what you learned from almost any of these universities, even the prestigious and private ones. Don't get me wrong, we here are better than most around.

Only you can motivate yourself, when it's boiled down. I'm going to keep my chin up. I'm not worried about my teaching, strangely, I'm doing okay. What I'm worried about is that these guys are Japan's next international leaders.