opinios

Or Else What??

I work with some really nice teachers.

They are friendly, jovial and have a good rapport with the students. Even the principal is Mr Smiley. In fact, especially the principal: he walks around beaming a big grin from ear to ear and is always super chatty (maybe because he doesn't have to do any work and just delegates everything to the vice principal!)

The thing is, I remember when I was in primary school in Australia, our school principal was a mean, grumpy, intimidating old man. He scared the bejeezus out of me.

And this meant that the teachers had a fall-back plan for when one of the kids acted up in class. If you were talking at the back of the room, or being a smart-arse, the teacher would threaten to send you to the principal's office.

Now that was one place you did not want to go.

I remember being hauled in there with a group of four other boys when I was in second grade. A teacher had seen us spitting on the school yard. I almost shat my pants and was whimpering like a friggin cissy. You see, I was scared out of my wits (not least because of the big cane that the principal was wielding and intimidating us with.)

It was a system of discipline that worked. The teacher had something to threaten the kids with.

In Japan, there is nothing. One of my kids the other day threw a piece of chalk to/at me from the back of the room and it shattered on the floor. Another stuck some clothes pegs to the dress of his teacher when she wasn't looking. And once I saw one of the nastier of my second year boys being Mr Cool Guy and staring up a girl's dress while paying her compliments while she was sitting on the stairs, not sure whether to feel flattered or disgusted. If talking in class is the only misdemeanour for the day then it has been a successful lesson (even if it was all the way through a listening test!)

And teachers have nothing to fall back on.

The kids know that they can get away with whatever they like, because they think "Or else what? You're going to send me to the principal's office??

In this country that would almost be a reward, so it doesn't happen.