The happenins in April, part 2

With the new year and the transfers of teachers, the seating chart of teachers in the staff room changes. I now have two new neighbors, and one of them is my new supervisor.

I've been looking back on the past eight months, and the more I think about it, the more certain I am that my previous supervisor wasn't that good. She's nice as she can be, speaks great English, and is fun to work with. But as a supervisor, she let a few things slip by. For example, when I arrived back in August, she was on her honeymoon. Of course there's nothing wrong with that--I was shown the ropes by two or three other teachers. However, none of those teachers really talked to each other about what each had and had not shown me, so I was told a lot of things multiple times, and there were several things they never told me. By the time she got back from her honeymoon, my supervisor figured I'd been around long enough that I'd been shown all I needed to know, and thus didn't need to be told much else. I get the feeling this was one of the main causes of all the stress I felt last year--everyone assumed I knew what I was doing, and it got awkward each and every time I made it clear that I didn't have a clue.

When we were rearranging all the staffroom furniture a few weeks ago, I helped lug away the big kerosene heaters. We put them in a room I'd never been in before, which had lockers on one side and leather couches on the other. When I asked one of the English teachers about it, he was shocked. He couldn't believe I'd never been shown the staff lounge. He walked me over to one of the lockers, which was prominently labeled "ALT"--my locker.

A few days later, I was approached by the sweet little journalism teacher, who sheepishly asked me whether a particular locker was mine. When she saw I was lost, she showed me a foot locker that was full of stuff written in English. As I had no idea what was going on, she apologized for the mistake and left it at that. Later, my new supervisor explained to me that the foot locker was mine. Nobody told me this. The thing is full of books in English about teaching to Japanese students, as well as binders and folders and notebooks full of old lesson plans, dating as far back as 1997.

Of course none of this is a big deal. I've obviously survived just fine without either of those. I'm not saying my first supervisor was purposefully trying to sabotage me or anything. I know perfectly well that she just assumed I already knew, which is precisely what everyone else did. It doesn't make me dislike the Japanese; I'm pretty sure everyone is warned by someone--teachers, parents, friends--never to assume. While I'm thankful that these are trivial things, the principle of it still frustrates me. Plus, I'm wondering what else they've neglected to tell me about.