I am an elementary school teacher who was assigned to her first school in March. The school year is divided by summer break into the first and second semesters, and now that the second semester is starting I can say that I am halfway adjusted to all of this, I suppose.

 

The work I do each day differs in small ways, but is largely the same.  I come to work in the morning, open the classroom doors to let the air circulate, and prepare to greet my students. I don’t forget to write the morning pre-class task on the board before they arrive. Usually it is to do some form of studying, like solving math problems or reading, but sometimes it is to go the gym and jump rope, or play freely in the classroom. One day when I told them to play in the classroom, some of the students came up to me and complimented me by calling me a “merciful teacher.”

 

While the students complete the morning task, I check Messenger [for school updates] and take care of some of my easier duties. The less-easy ones I put aside, because first period is fast approaching.

 

After first period starts, the day flies by hectically. As a teacher, the time when I feel the greatest sense of accomplishment is no other than when I’m teaching. Since I don’t have a lot of experience, there is a noticeable difference between the times when I’ve prepared thoroughly for class and the times when I haven’t. In the classes that I prepared for well the students follow my every word, but when I use being busy as an excuse and slack on my preparation at all, they go stone-faced almost immediately. The kids’ favorite class is definitely P.E.! The one that is the hardest for them is math. They are only 6th-graders, and yet many of them have already fallen behind.

 

After eating lunch and making it all the way through sixth period, the students finally go home after finishing their cleaning duties. That’s when my other duties start. I take care of my grade-specific duties, school duties, and official notices required by the government, and prepare for the next day’s classes.

 

▲ The thermometer showing the class rules as the students made them. ©Mu A-re

Our school is not that big, so one person often has to take care of a lot of different duties. That is perhaps why there are quite a few teachers still there even after quitting time has come and gone. I’m a morning person, so I try to come in early to finish my duties and then leave at quitting time. I want to have the whole evening to do as I like.

 

Female teachers are “number one prospective brides”

 

I’m 24 years old. I think that’s still young. I may have become a worker, but I still have a lot of friends who go to school or are preparing to look for jobs. In fact, I was among the first of my friends to get a job.

 

I thought that I was a year behind others because I studied an extra year after high school in order to retake my college entrance exams. But after that, I followed a fixed course through to my place assignment after the teachers’ exam, while my friends were looking into different jobs and different departments, taking time off from school and partying, or delaying graduation as companies didn’t call back no matter how many resumes they sent out.

 

And so I became the model young person who gets praised wherever she goes. Whenever I meet an older person and they find out what my job is, they say, “Female teachers are the number one most wished-for marriage partners.” There have been many times that they’ve said I chose the most stable job one can get these days and called me the “number one prospective bride.”

 

Actually, the outstanding welfare benefits of my job are a big plus. A stable paycheck, guaranteed days off. And the strictly enforced right to maternity leave and childcare leave. I understand why people think teaching is one of the better ‘women’s jobs.’ On the other hand, it only offers what all jobs naturally should, and it’s sad that our society wonders at that. Getting the money you earned and regular days off are basic requirements, but so many jobs don’t fulfill them that they have come to seem special.

 

The classroom is a mini-society

 

Another advantage of my job is that teachers are guaranteed utmost autonomy in the classroom. As long as I take care of my duties, no one can say anything even if I leave the first minute my contract allows. No one besides the school administrators have authority over me, and even they don’t have the authority to get involved in my classroom directly. So, the classroom becomes its own, independent society.

 

My class chose complete democracy, and that is how our classroom is run. I hope to run the class as much in accordance with students’ opinions as possible. After all, the students are in their 6th year of elementary-school life, while I only have 6 months under my belt. So I decided to prioritize the opinions of such experts. The students decided what our class rules would be, and my role has been that of adjudicator who follows those rules as much as possible. Some rules are obeyed without trouble, while others are not that important and thus go mostly forgotten.

 

At the beginning of the second semester, all of the students made a “Class Thermometer” together. This is because during the first semester, we used a small-group system and focused on helping those in our group, but a need arose for class-wide rules.

 

The Class Thermometer reflects our class’s attitude; for example, when we are participating in class with the proper attitude, the temperature goes up one degree. At 10 degrees, 20, 30—every 10 degrees—the class gets to do a fun activity. Cooking is one popular activity, for example. Perhaps because this is a new system, these days the students—amazingly—are all doing their homework. When I see the students’ happiness every time the temperature goes up one degree, I can’t help but smile along with them.

 

Student sexual harassment incident exposes the powerlessness within the stability

 

What I’ve felt to be the most important moral virtue necessary to live as a teacher, during my half-year of experience, is responsibility. Not in the sense of taking responsibility for something, but in the meaning of when something goes wrong, I can only survive in this workplace if I keep responsibility [fault] for it from falling on me.  In this case, “responsibility” means something close to, “Don’t do anything that anyone could disapprove of.”

 

The incident that most made me feel the importance of responsibility was when there was an incidence of violence among the students in class. Students are, of course, the most important part of the school, and the biggest problems are those that involve them. And student violence is among the biggest of those. I was informed that a male student in my class went to a swimming pool for fun one weekend and, while playing around, touched a middle-school female student’s body in several places.

 

On the morning that I became aware of the incident, I felt with my whole body as if the sky were falling. He was a student who had worked hard during the first semester. He had had quite a few problems when he first started, but as time went on, I had even complimented myself on my success in making him behave. But that he had done that... first I felt shame, and then rage. And because it was sexual molestation, I felt a little afraid of him, too.  I started to worry if I could keep my face under control, as if nothing were wrong, when dealing with him for the rest of the semester.

 

The school was soon in an uproar. I told the 6th-grade head teacher and the teacher in charge of school violence issues, and the 6th-grade head teacher told the principal and vice-principal. The teacher in charge of school violence issues told us that we had to follow the manual issued by the Office of Education. According to its guidelines, incidents of sexual molestation must be reported to the Office of Education immediately.

 

The problem was the question of whether or not the victim perceived the incident as serious. Also, because the victim was not a student at our school, the two administrators [principal and vice-principal] were of the opinion that this incident could not be taken care of following the manual. They considered whether it should be handled by our school or turned over to the middle school. In the end, we handed over responsibility by notifying the victim’s school of what had happened.

 

To be honest, most administrators hate reporting school violence. They don’t know whether it will have a negative effect on their performance ratings, actually, but still they are reluctant to pursue it. If they cover it up quietly instead of letting it become known, there may be no record left of it in the end.

 

The administrators instructed me to inquire at nearby sexual violence counseling centers in order to fulfill all our school’s responsibilities. In accordance with those instructions I inquired at three such centers, but I received different advice from each. The first said to inform the middle school, and the second didn’t tell me how to resolve the issue, they only gave me information about counseling for the perpetrator. They said their center had no openings for new appointments. The third center was worried that if we informed the middle school it would scar the victim.

 

In the end, the incident was safely taken care of. We informed the victim’s homeroom teacher, and the victim said she would take it as a joke and let it go.  Our school decided to provide the perpetrator with education in order for him not to do the same thing again. At first, I was angry at him, but I know the momentary curiosity he felt and his regret at his behavior, so I am starting to forgive him. The victim and perpetrator are those who must be the saddest and most distressed. I just hope that things get a little better every day for them.

 

The people at my school worked hard to avoid responsibility for this incident, and helped me to avoid it as well. The 6th-grade head teacher told the administrators for me, and the administrators checked whether there was a record of my counseling him and my reports on everyday student guidance to make sure that I as his homeroom teacher bore no responsibility. At the same time that they were claiming publicly that they didn’t neglect student violence, they were doing everything they could to have this dismissed as a small incident. In order to prevent the perpetrating student from repeating his behavior, we connected him with the Wee Class program.

 

The school wasn’t the only party that was trying to avoid responsibility. When we told the male students’ parents what he had done, they seemed to want to affirm that their parenting style wasn’t to blame. At first, they tried to deny the truth, saying, “Our son wouldn’t do that.” Then, they blamed me for making a big deal about it, shouting, “Why did you tell the whole school about such a trivial incident? As his homeroom teacher you could have solved it by just talking to him and educating him!”

 

In this whole process, no one was protecting the student. Each was doing what they could to get rid of this hot potato and not make it into something they could be criticized for, and in this way they were able to protect the school and their jobs. Our iron rice bowls were safely protected.

 

Even though she may not want to, if a teacher wants to survive in the system, she must not have a different opinion, must not “make trouble”, and must solve problems in a way that no one can criticize. You know the saying, “No news is good news”? At a school that only likes to hear “no news,” teachers are trained to become passive.

 

▲ Collections of student drawings. Watching the children makes me remember what a teacher’s real responsibility is. ©Mu A-re

Like watering a bean plant in a jar

 

When you add water to a jar growing bean plants, the water seems to go straight through to the dish beneath, so quickly that you wonder if the beans have gotten any water or not. But before you know it, the beans start to grow one by one. I think that a teacher’s job is similar to growing beans.

 

Children are people who, no matter whether you nag them every day, are going to keep causing trouble. The kid who was acting up on the first day of class in March is still causing problems both big and small.  Also, even if I prepare thoroughly for class and make a different lesson every day, my teacher evaluations cut like a knife. And there are many moments when I wonder whether these students are listening to me, whether I can actually change them for the better.

 

But then I think of the students who copy little things that I do and remember clearly things that I said offhand, and I quickly come to my senses. Even though it may not be immediately visible, my students are growing quickly like bean sprouts.

 

It is a school culture that emphasizes “responsibility,” but I feel there is a need to think about what a teacher’s true responsibilities are. The person to whom we must feel responsible is the student. Our responsibility is to keep giving water, to keep giving the students the time and help they need to grow.

 

Original article: http://ildaro.com/6819

Published: September 19, 2014

Translated by Marilyn Hook

 

◆ To see more English-language articles from Ilda, visit our English blog(https://ildaro.blogspot.com).

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