Doubts

Like on most decisions I make in my life, I'm starting to have doubts.

I'm starting to have doubts about whether my decision to stay in Japan for another year was a right one. In these last few days, I witnessed and experienced some of the most frustrating moments all piled into a short period of time. I got sick (again), had some more frustrating lessons and felt like my role as an "assistant language teacher" will never change.

One of the teachers I teach with has been one of the main source of my recent frustration. I used to believe that she was a very orderly person. Last academic year, on many occasions, she told me that class was canceled (for me only) when she wanted to give the students a test or when she decided that the class would involve grammatical explanation in Japanese. I always had this idea that she had her entire plan laid out and no one would be able to affect it. In a way, while I didn't think those were adequate reasons for her to limit my interactions with the students, I sort of respected her neat and orderly ways. The times that I did get to go to class, they were very well structured with activities moving seamlessly from one to the next. The students, although always looking a little bit less than stimulated, always did the assignments and did them well. They were very well disciplined.

My opinion of her completely changed this year. Maybe it's because she has a lot more added responsibilities or perhaps she was never really the way I pictured her. This year, she is the 3rd grade sub-chief as opposed to a homeroom teacher. Even though I sit next to her, I could never really get a 5 minutes' worth of productive lesson planning conversation with her.

Every time I ask her what she would like me to plan, usually it ends up being a 15 second conversation that goes like this. "Please prepare an 15 minute activity for the grammar point on p. 12." After I spend my time preparing the activity and the lesson plan, I place it on her desk. When I get to class, I realize that she hasn't even glanced at what I gave her. One time, in the middle of class, she realized that she hadn't explained the grammar point to the students yet, so she told me that doing the activity I had spent some time preparing after my work hours for was "impossible."

In the middle of the class, she thrusted the stack of tests the students had just finished and said, "Louise, please go to the staffroom and correct these while I explain the grammar point in Japanese to the students." So, I had to walk out in the middle of the class which students staring at me questioningly while she gave no explanations to why I was leaving so abruptly! Ahhh...makes me mad just thinking about it.

Yesterday, at the end of second period, she says, "Louise, are you free for 4th period? If so, I would like you to come 4th period. Can you plan for activities for the entire 50-minute period because I haven't planned anything yet."

Can you believe that? Man, I'm not a magician. I don't just pull English activities out of my rear end at a moment's notice. But as expected , I went to class and produced mediocre results. I feel like the discipline she used on these same students last year also melted away. When students were talking incessantly, she just chose not to care.

I feel like when I teach with her now, it's like teaching with that same teacher that told me I was weird and that I was confusing the students last year. It's like another person added into that club of let's-watch-her-sink-and-not-help kind of situation.

Maybe it's just me, expecting too much. Perhaps, it's super frustrating for her to teach with me too. I don't know. I just feel like a mentor in the professional sense will come in really handy right about now.