Zombie teacher

Teaching on cold medicine is interesting. Yesterday I learned which of my classes have learned how to self-propel, and which haven't. It came down to fifty-fifty.

The doctor had given me stronger medicine to dry up the noisal discharge, and all day a tiny little man with a tiny little vacuum cleaner was hard at work inside my sinuses, sucking them dry. This new medicine is so effective I kept expecting my face to collapse. I was also very, very thirsty all day, and since the medicine made me sleepy I drank a lot of coffee.

The physical sensations were accompanied by a happy, spaced-out feeling, and I didn't really care much about anything. This is not a very good condition to teach in, and at around 6.30, when the last class had finished and I was eating dinner, and the second dose of the day had well and truly worn off, I started to worry about how far I'd set myself back. How long is it going to take me to get those two bad classes back on track? The others went fine - the students just carried on, following instructions and teaching themselves and each other and using me as a resource - but in those two bad classes many of the students didn't DO anything, because I wasn't being 'mother' and urging them back on task every five minutes as I usually have to do. I just sat there, happily spaced out and marking them down in my gradebook. Quite a large number of the students did nothing I could grade them on, so I didn't. I took notes instead. It was easy to take notes, because I wasn't wandering around the class urging them to do the work. I took really detailed notes.

Hiroshi: Reprogrammed phone (15 minutes), gossiped with partner (J) (10 minutes), read magazine (J) while still gossiping (multi-tasking!) (20 minutes), slept (25 minutes). Textbook unopened, no English spoken, written, read, or listened to. Percentage of task achieved: 0%. Points for today's classwork: 0. Shot self in foot.

I wrote notes like this for about 18 students, out of 28. Now and again I looked over what I'd written and thought, I should be appalled, but I wasn't appalled. Appalled seemed to have temporarily departed my emotional lexicon. Instead I was irrationally delighted. Amazing! I thought. Absurd! And Ha ha!

A few students did work hard, and asked questions, and learned something. I gave them full points for making such efforts despite the distractions around them. They'll get full points in the review test next week, too. The good classes were far more tiring, because they were so much more demanding.

But after work I got worried. Will the bad students think I've gone soft and expect to get away with it again next week? Have I made my job harder for myself? I was awful. I let down the good students by not stopping that nonsense. They trusted me, and I failed them.

Feeling discouraged and tired I took my last dose of medicine for the day. Before long I couldn't see what the problem was. Who cares? I pretend to teach and they pretend to learn. Isn't that what Japanese universities are all about?

When I got home I went to bed quickly before the medicine wore off. Now it's 5 o'clock and I'm up again, ready to wreak havoc and destruction on another day of classes.



Technorati Tags: ESL, Japan, Education