Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Patience with the system

Yesterday I cleaned the house again for yet another visitor. This time it was for the annual visit of my daughter's teacher. If you haven't heard about this before, all the teachers in Japan take time out of school to go and visit every house of every student in their class. That's right - if you have 40 students in your class (which is not uncommon here) you have to visit 40 houses! It sends all the mothers into a flap and is a very weird experience as far as I am concerned.
Yesterday the teacher arrived (fortunately she brought my daughter home with her) came in, sat down and then proceeded to not talk.... I confirmed today with some other parents that it is usually the role of the teacher to keep the conversation flowing, but obviously this teacher is a little different. So after 20 minutes or so of me asking questions and getting one word answers she left and I was left wondering why on earth she had come!
Today I started teaching at another primary school....I was thinking how restless the children were, but the Japanese teachers kept asking me how I managed to keep them so focused - I guess we have different expectations!

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