Preconceived Notions

Before coming to Japan I had myself convinced that Japanese students are going to be a lot more behaved than American students. This is where I was totally wrong. Over the months you have read my stories of students swearing at me, saying nasty things and generally misbehaving in class. Yesterday was the pinnacle of such terrible behavior.

There are about 3 or 4 exceptionally bad students in school and you get used to their antics. Don’t get me wrong, most of the students are nice, funny, quiet and well-behaved as you may expect. I guess every country has their murderers, robbers, and gunmen chasing cops. Takuma would be in that last category. He sleeps in class, hisses and grunts at me. The worst part is, is that he is very intelligent, just lazy and mean.

During lunch I started to hear a commotion. Takuma was yelling and throwing chairs and tables. He looked as though he was about the beat up one of the teachers. A woman, might I add. Due to lack of Japanese, I had no clue what he was saying. It took 5 teachers to restrain him and get him out of the lunch room.

I asked the teacher that he was threatening what had happened. She said yesterday he stabbed another student’s milk and orange with a letter opener. She told him not to do it again and apparently he didn’t like this suggestion. She said that she likes him and he is a smart kid but he plays too many violent video games. I asked her what his parents are like and she said they are bad. So, as you can see, not all Japanese children and well-behaved.