Teacher goodbyes, part 2

The second party was fun, but there's only one noteworthy story. As we were talking about teachers being transferred, I explained that most of my middle and high school teachers had been at that same school for ten years, with several of them well past twenty. This surprised most of the teachers, who explained that this policy of transferring is nationwide.

The day of the third party, the school had its closing ceremony. All the students attended school that day, and the principal formally recognized each of the departing teachers. (We were losing a total of 13--out of 60--including the principal.) The teachers were then given time to each give a speech to the gathered students, parents, and faculty. A few of them gave bland speeches (I say bland because I couldn't pick up any emotion from what they were saying; just stiff professionalism), but several really got into it. One of the teachers, forced by his position as the faculty head and as the Japanese grammar teacher to seem pretentious and strict, teared up in his speech and played a song on the piano for everyone. One teacher openly cried as he gave the students advice and thanked everyone for the memories, then pulled it together enough to sing the school song. Another, the first-year history teacher, had to pause several times during his speech to keep from losing it.

That night, at the party, everyone toasted the departing teachers individually, making their rounds and saying their goodbyes. At the end, for the customary singing of the school song, the conductor led the group for the last time, visibly weeping as he did so. Another fixture of faculty parties is the "yell." I put it in quotation marks because what they call it in Japanese--エール--translates literally as, and is derived from, the English word "yell." This consists of any faculty member singling out another faculty member, standing in the center of the circle of the faculty, and chanting that teacher's name in an impassioned yell, intended to channel their energy. Though they've done this at other faculty parties (after graduation and way back in September after the field day), this time all the departing teachers got one. They were divided among the departments, with the remaining faculty standing behind one member who would deliver the yell to those teachers leaving that department.

The band conductor, obviously a wreck, sobbed as he received his yell. The third-year math teacher, giving a send-off to the four teachers leaving the department, stripped down and gave a different, completely silent presentation. One of the English teachers later explained that he practices karate, and so was performing a ritual from that, and that it would traditionally have been performed naked. At any rate, I got a picture of it here.

Now that I've witnessed the effects of the transfers, I feel I understand the teachers' party mentality much better. While transfers aren't entirely unexpected--the transferring teachers may find out early, and only so many teachers are moved--it nonetheless means that from one year to the next, the dynamic of the faculty changes entirely. That means that there are only a handful of opportunities to enjoy socializing with the current group of teachers, that there's a very real possibility that the teacher sitting next to you in the faculty room will be transferred next March, and you'll never cross paths again.

Having seen all of this, I understand so much better the spirit behind the teachers here. When I first got here, I made the mistake of interpreting all the sternness and obsessive-compulsive attention to detail as a lake of emotion or passion. I've since learned it's simply not true. These people (at least, the overwhelming majority of the ones I've met) pour their heart and soul into this job. That's what drives them to stay so late each day and to come in on the weekends. That's what makes them discipline their students so strictly. That's what makes them cry like babies when they watch the students graduate.

This more or less encapsulates my motivation for being a teacher: the desire to make a difference in the students' lives, and to work together with other similarly motivated people for that purpose. If I can find back home a school with teachers half as passionate as the ones here, I think I'll manage just fine.

Every time I think about all this, I wonder: does this happen with American teachers? My closest friends and I prided ourselves on being cynical and sarcastic in high school, so I don't trust the impression of apathy and indifference I got from most of my teachers--that was probably me projecting. I have a hard time picturing Mr. Whytlaw, Mrs. Rowe, or Mr. Rey shedding a tear over graduation. I don't mean that to reflect heartlessness on their part; I just have a hard time imagining the same bond developing without the close relationships between teachers and students here.

At any rate, there are pictures from the goodbye parties here.