Incident at Toyotama

The school day for teachers officially begins with a morning meeting. The principal and head of the office enter the staff room, the bell rings (8:20 at Tsushima High, 8:30 at Toyotama), and the vice principal calls the meeting to order. He greets everyone--"Good morning!"--everyone bows and greets him in return--"Good morning!"--and he hands the meeting over to the head teacher. (The head teacher is a post assigned every year by the principal and vice principal.) The head teacher makes basic announcements involving things like changes to the day's schedule and upcoming events. Other teachers who have announcements to make are given the chance to do so. The vice principal will ask if there are any other announcements; if there are none, he will close the meeting: "That's all; yoroshiku onegaishimasu."

Today, at Toyotama, the last announcement was made by Komatsu-sensei, the dean of students. His tone was very somber and regretful, almost ashamed, as he explained an incident involving two first-year students a few days prior. There was an accompanying handout with the boys' names and a detailed report, but I couldn't read enough of it or understand enough of what Komatsu was saying to keep up. At one point, Komatsu's eyes were glassy; discreetly looking around the staffroom, I saw a couple of other teachers similarly flustered. All I could go by was tone of voice and body language, which let my imagination throw together possible explanations: had the two boys been in a fight? Had they been caught smoking? Had their uniforms not been up to standard?

After the meeting, I asked Iwase-sensei what had happened. The week before, it turned out, the boys had been throwing bits of eraser during class. Some of those bits hit the teacher, who told them to stop. They didn't. This was the same teacher who I had seen yelling at a first-year boy the week before, when that boy had been inexplicably left for a couple of hours in the soundproofed announcement room adjoining the staffroom. As Iwase explained it, I realized that had been the day it had happened, and that was one of the two boys who had done it.

It was also reported that several other teachers had told the same boys to stop doing the same thing. I know of one student who more or less constantly throws bits of eraser during my class (not at me), and Yoshida-sensei's mild scolding never stops him. (ALTs are more or less forbidden from disciplining students, which makes class that much more interesting when I have to fly solo because so-and-so is on a business trip.) It turned out that he was the other student involved in the incident.

After hearing the story from Iwase, I had two diametrically opposed reactions. The first was incredulous: Seriously? Throwing bits of eraser is enough to warrant yelling from the teacher, a ten-minute report during the morning meeting, and accompanying documentation? Warn the student, call his parents, and if he keeps doing it, kick him out of class. The second was disturbed: This is a big deal. Students simply don't display this kind of willful disobedience here. Sure, plenty of them misbehave and most of them get away with it, but to undermine a teacher's authority right in front of him?

Both of those boys seemed to be on much better behavior the rest of the week.