Breakdown - but not mine

I'm glad to find out that I'm not the only one who has difficult days from time to time at the Junior High School.

Today I was walking through the library at the school, searching for nothing in particular.  The librarian and I like to chat about books and life when we have some free time after school.  I am often able to find some kind of book to read for fun, and I just enjoy looking even if I can't read anything.  Don't forget, this is a library in a Japanese school...

I was looking around for a few minutes, paying little attention to the librarian who was putting books away from the previous class.  She went to her desk once or twice to get a tissue to blow her nose, but there was very little communication between us for the first five minutes as she tidied.  Finally, we ended up near the same bookshelf and at last she said, "Oh it's no use."

I saw her sniffling and holding a tissue, so I asked her, "are you sick?  Did you catch a cold?"

"No," she replied, and her eyes started to water.  "It's just because I'm crying.  I'm so mad."  At this point the real tears came, and she started to choke over her words.  I finally figured out that she had been softly crying that whole time.  I asked her what was wrong, and we talked about her day.

Several classes had come in to use the library that day, and the last class of the day had been particularly childish and difficult.  I only understood about 20% of what she was trying to tell me, but I got the main gist of everything.  On top of the misbehaving students, she was also offended by a teacher in the staff room who made a back-handed joke about her age.*  We talked about the situation for a while, and I reassured her that these specific students were not only bad for her, but for everyone.  Also, I told her that it isn't her fault that they act this way.  There are probably a large number of reasons that the students have turned out this way; they want to impress their friends, they are still children, they have mental/social disorders, they have a rough time at home, their parents have problems, they only think about themselves and don't worry about how it effects other people, they grew up in a bad environment, and so on.  We ended up talking for about an hour or so, and tried to gear the conversation away from the students so that she could stop thinking about her bad day and think about something else fun.

I was sorry to see her so upset, but glad that I could be there to support her, and also glad to see that other people sometimes feel hurt by the words or actions of the teenagers at the school.  I do my best not to let the youngsters get to me, but every once in a while when a variety of events pile on top of one another, it's normal to break down a little.  Even someone who's been teaching for 20 or 30 years can still feel these things.  It makes me feel a lot better to realize that everyone has similar problems.

After our conversation she was worried that I would bring bad memories of Japan back with me to America.  I told her that every once-in-a-while there were indeed difficult and trying days, but in general my image of Japan and sentiment is still a good one.  I will most definitely bring all of my good stories and experiences back to America, and I think that the ones that I'll remember the most will be the good ones.

Today was actually a good day for me, despite having a few difficult classes of my own.  First period I was supposed to go to a first year class, but on my way through the hall there was news of a special education class that got changed and would have no teacher for the period.  There were only two girls in the class (both of whom I teach English to once a week) and I volunteered to just sit with them while they did some Japanese worksheets for the hour.

I've gotten a lot better at what I do as an ALT I think.  It may seem like a weird time to post this, but I'm really happy that I came to Japan, even though originally I would have preferred to come as a CIR.  I've learned a lot about Japan, about human nature, about consulting, Japanese, communications and more.  I think I'm stronger now, too.  I'm definitely ready for the next step in my career, and I'm excited to see where the experience and connections of the past year and a half will take me come July.

Thanks for your constant encouragement and support!

Sincerely,

Lana Kitcher