Teachers

In Japan the school year is from April to March. There is only a 2 week spring holiday for the students, though most will continue to come to school for club activities. For the teachers there is only a break from teaching classes, but they must still come to school as normal.

A major difference between the school system in Japan and at home is that every couple of years a teacher will be moved to a different school. Usually a teacher will be at one school for a period of around 3 to 5 years, though more is possible; two of my teachers worked at my school for 8 years. The main Board of Education decides which teachers must move, and which schools they must go to.

This system is good and bad. It's good because a school doesn't get stuck with the same bad teachers for 30 or 40 years like back home. But of course the reverse is also true; a school doesn't get to keep the great teachers for more than a few years.

On the last day of the school year (at least that's when it happens in my school), the principal get word, and then calls the teachers, one by one, into his office and tells them if they have to move or not. The teachers then emerge from his office expressionless and sit back down at their desks and continue working as if nothing had just happened. Even though the previous day all the teachers were saying how nervous they were about it!

Of course it's normal to hope that certain teachers stay, and that others leave. So I sat at my desk staring at the teachers' expressions to see if I could spot who is happy or sad glint in their eye, and connect that with my knowledge of which teachers I knew wanted to leave and which wanted to stay. But my body language reading skills are not finely tuned enough to read any of their non-expressions.

A while later, my favourite teacher, Matsuhashi sensei, the music teacher who sorted me out with shamisen lessons a few weeks after I arrived in Japan, came to get a coffee near my desk and told us that she was leaving. We all expected, like we had last year that she would be leaving as she had been at the school for an exceptional 8 years! Then other teachers also admitted whether or not they were leaving.

I was very interested to find out if Aiba sensei, one of the two English teachers at that school, would be leaving or not. I knew he wanted to leave, and I have to admit I was really hoping the same. He has a very abrupt attitude that I struggled to accommodate for. My predecessor also struggled with him, much more than I have, in fact the teacher didn't allow my predecessor into the classroom with him!

Recently in my other junior high school the English teacher took maternity, and the replacement teacher happened to be the wife of Aiba sensei, also known as Aiba sensei. And although it was easy to remember her name I saw many similarities between her and her husband. Luckily for me, she was only a temporary replacement and is now finished!

So as I was anxiously waited to see if he was leaving or not, he didn't partake in sharing with the other teachers if he would be going or staying. So as he got up to leave for club activities I asked him and his reply was "I don't say yet."

For spring holiday I work at my local BoE, and on Monday they hadn't heard yet from the main BoE which teachers were changing. But the caretaker from my school came to the office on Tuesday and my supervisor asked him, my ears perked up as I listened to him listing the names of the teachers. He listed all the names I already knew were leaving, and stopped. Then he said "oh and Aiba sensei."

Euphoria!