Respect

   Thanks to Azrael and his posts at Outpost Nine, one of the most well-known aspects of teaching in Japan is the kancho -- a "game" where kids shove their pointed index fingers up your ass.

   I have a bunch of problems with this on so many levels. It's always bothered me that the one thing everyone seems to know (and popularize) is this stupid game. It just exaggerates the lack of respect everyone has for ALTs, including the ALTs themselves!

   I'm not denying that it happens.

   I feel like the practice of being kanchoed is something that's more the ALT's fault than anything. Yes, it would be nice if students would stop doing it, and of course, it would be nice if teachers would discipline them. But they won't and they don't -- there's nothing that ALTs can do about that.

   On the other hand, ALTs are pretty much the only ones (playmates aside) that get kanchoed. This tells me that it's likely an issue with ALTs rather than the kids. The way I worded the first sentence of this paragraph should give you a hint about what I think the problem really is: ALTs are more like playmates than teachers.

   A lot of people who come over here want to be friends with the kids; I'm not denying that I don't feel that way, because I certainly do. My kids are all incredibly important to me and I enjoy talking and playing with them. At the same time, though, I'm a teacher, so there are certain lines that I have to establish.

   Those lines, ironically enough, weren't as firm at my old school, despite it having much stiffer discipline than Fujimi. I wasn't included with all of the teachers in the various parts of... being a teacher. Nobody discussed student problems with me or invited me out to school events like teachers at Fujimi do, so I always felt like an outsider. Naturally, I went to the group that would accept me: the students.

   I tried treating them like younger friends, though I had some basic boundaries set up -- especially in the last year, when I was getting stricter with students who wouldn't study.

   On the other hand, the teachers at Fujimi have been great. They've accepted me from square one, so I feel much more like a teacher. In a lot of ways, I was still a kid when I came to Japan; coming to Fujimi has made me more of an adult. I've had to mature a lot as a person to deal with the kids up here. I could have just been their friend, like I was at Azuma, but I'm not.

   I'm a teacher.

   I feel like other ALTs, who are less invested in the job or less mindful of what their job actually is (as opposed to what people say it is [that is, a human typewriter or class clown]), tend to joke around a lot more and stay in the "friend" or "funny guy" zone more than anything else. Once you drop down to the students' level, though, you're just one of the guys and they think it's "okay" to kancho you, or "okay" to use a certain level of politeness in speech to you.

   These things are all symptoms of a lack of respect. If they don't do it to the "real" teachers, then why are they doing it to you? What makes you different as a person?

   Why am I ranting about this now?

   I've gotten a lot closer to ALTs this year than ever before, and they all talk about being kanchoed. It really bothers me, because it's never been a real issue for me and I don't see why it should be for anyone who shows that they respect their own job.

   On the other hand, it could also be a problem stemming from a lack of communication; if, as an ALT, you cannot speak Japanese, the number of people you can talk to is very small. In addition to that, disfluency is seen as a sign of a lack of intelligence by most people; ALTs may be intelligent, but if Japanese people can't communicate with them fluently for whatever reason, there's a tendency to see them as not being intelligent -- or vice versa.

   So students, who can never really get a look at the "professional" side of the ALT, may begin to view him/her as more of a "funny pet" than anything.

   While you can screw with your pets, you can't screw with your teachers.