The Physical, Pt.1

I had survived for fourteen months. Fourteen months without being assigned any kids classes. For anyone to last that long whilst working full time at an English language school in a surburban area was nothing short of a miracle. Most were lucky to hold out for two, maybe three months before they received the call up, but for some reason or another I had slipped under the radar.

There were other teachers at my school, trained and more experienced, taking care of those classes, and they had yet to quit their positions and move on to greener pastures. The general practice was that, unless a new teacher specified that they particularly wanted to teach kids, each new employee was given a short reprieve whilst they got their footing in adult classes first. Once a teacher left the school, or else demonstrated a disturbing ineptitude for dealing with children, someone would be required to take over. But I had held out for fourteen whole months, even witnessing others who had come after me get picked.

What was my secret? It's not as if the Head Teacher hadn't approached me on numerous occasions and asked if I'd like to take on a few groups of little tikes; he had. I always said I didn't have the passion for entertaining young, screaming, underdeveloped humans, and that it would be a disaster waiting to happen, placing me in a room with them. I imagined myself accidentally doing something like stepping on a child's face whilst trying to extinguish a fire that had somehow ignited in the corner of the room as I was attending to another kid who had gotten their leg stuck in the ceiling fan. And all this during the introduction part of my lesson. The coming together of two elements that should never be mixed could prove catastrophic.

It had been an accepted speech that had continued to buy me time. Whenever the topic was raised by my colleagues about why I didn't have any kids classes of my own, I would successfully shake it off, by either swinging the conversation towards something else, like the agony of being in a small cubicle with the eccentric adult students that I had endured earlier that day, or by saying that I had put my hand up numerous times but the powers that be had decreed that my teaching style was not suited to juniors.

But they had grown more envious and suspicious over time, and I had to keep my stories straight so that one of them wouldn't decide to take the matter further, say, to the Head Teacher himself. They had to pity me; to understand my plight. I had even considered appropriating a true story I once heard about a guy who requested a transfer to a school with only adult students, because secretly he was a virgin who was not accustomed to another's touch and was horrified to find he would unintentionally spring a boner whenever the children got close to him in class. I could put myself in the role of erectus automaticus, pretending that I suffered from that very affliction. However, in the end I thought it best not to use that story; the cons definitely outweighed the pros.

Many times each working day I would see other teachers gather up their things as the bell rang, and herd a group of children down a corridor to the kids room whilst everybody else headed to the cubicle area for their adult classes. They would always return to the staff room after kids class looking frazzled and sore, demoralised and broken, like someone who had just gone a round with a heavyweight champ whilst being forced to watch a snuff film. Their hands shook as they tried to put away their class materials, and they spoke of their students in tones of disgust and dismay as they relayed their antics:

"Daiki ate a crayon that had been up Shunsuke's nose."

"Genki took off his underpants and threw them out the window."

"Asuka vomited on herself and gave me a hug."

I would chuckle at the stories and pity my colleagues, all the while harbouring a deep fear that the day would come when that was going to be me sharing tales of horror whilst wiping vomit from my tie with a damp towel.

And then my time came.

The head teacher sat me down one day and perched himself opposite. He looked decidedly nervous and solemn, and for a moment I thought he had come to share convicting evidence of me gallivanting in nightclubs the evenings before those many sick days I had called in. I needed an extra pair of hands to count how many times I had done that so far during my time at the school and, if found out, the punishment could have been severe. But if only it had been that.

"Jeremy," he said. "As you know, a couple of our teachers will be quitting and returning to their countries this summer. Now, I know you don't want to do it, but we need for you to start teaching kids classes. If you can't do it, then we'll have to move you to another school, as we need all our teachers here to take on a few classes each week."

I slumped back in my chair, and took it all in. They needed me to step up, or else they had no option but to ship me out. I really liked working at this school; I didn't want to have to transfer. All I had heard were terrible things about other schools, from arsehole managers, to grating coworkers, to heavy teaching loads, to psychotic students. My school had none of those things. In fact, teachers from other schools who came to cover a shift at ours always remarked upon how great a place to work this was. And I got to work with good people who had fast become my best friends. Plus, if I did get found out about my constant days off and addiction to Osaka nightlife, having gotten myself into a position where I was highly valued and needed by the school could override any proposed disciplinary action.

The decision was simple. I leaned forward and smiled at the head teacher. "I'll do it," I said. "Give me some kids classes."


On the day of my first class I received a free period beforehand to get my lesson plan ready. I had been to training, which meant that I had been made to feel like an idiot in front of about ten teachers from other schools who, to be fair, had also been made to feel like idiots in front of me and each other. We had been forced to take turns leading the group through classroom activities as everybody else had to pretend to be students. We had sung children's songs badly, and had gotten into some compromising physical positions trying to recreate common classroom scenarios for our overly bubbly trainer. At the end of it all I still felt woefully underprepared for my first class, and now had the added displeasure of knowing a new batch of people that I would have trouble looking in the eye should I ever run into them in a bar somewhere.

All the other teachers were well aware that this was to be my first day entering the unknown. Earlier in the day couple of lucky, newer ones had been loudly heralding their childless schedules; the experienced ones had worn smug expressions as they told me that it had been nice knowing me.

The lesson bell rang and the other teachers began to appear from their cubicles. Suddenly I felt a tremor in the pit of my stomach. I was a little dizzy and grabbed onto the table for support. What had been disdain for getting mixed up with kids had now evolved into fear. How could I be so scared of such tiny little things? I was going to be teaching five five-year-olds; they were likely to be more scared of me. I had what I thought to be a tight lesson plan, and all the materials I needed. Christ, I was teaching them the names of different fruits; how many complications could there be? Yet I still felt myself gasping for air beneath a tidal wave of malaise.

Rodney, an English teacher, had just reentered the room. When I say "English teacher" I mean that he was from the country of England, not that he was a teacher of English, which he in fact was, of course, or at least he gave the impression of being, as we all did. He had been teaching in the kids room last lesson and I needed to get the flashcards from him.

"Hey Rodney," I said. "Can I get those fruit flashcards from you?"

He wandered into the middle of the room and sat down at the table. "'Ere, what do you mean flashcards?"

"The fruit ones. You just taught a class of five-year-olds, right? And I have the same age group now, so I need the same cards."

"Yeah, but what's this about flashcards. What flashcards?"

Byron, an American, turned around from his point at the filing cabinet. "Wait a minute, Rodney. Are you saying that you didn't use the flashcards for that lesson?"

A grin formed on Rodney's face. "That lesson. Any lesson. I didn't know there were flashcards. What's all this?"

"You don't know that we have flashcards to teach kids lessons with?"

"Somebody could've told me, innit."

He let out a laugh as the attention of all the other teachers fell on him.

"How on Earth did you teach that lesson without flashcards?!" another asked.

"Y'know, I just did gestures, didn't I."

We all fell silent as we puzzled over this. Here I was worrying about my lesson going off without a hitch when somebody else was in the room gesticulating edible plant growth. Nobody dared to ask how he had taught the kids "banana".

The befuddlement was cut off by the sound of the bell, signalling the beginning of the next class. Well, this is it, I thought. Let's get it over and done with. I shot out of my seat and gathered my things, including the fruit flashcards which had been sitting with the other supplies all along. Before anyone else had a chance to leave the room, I strode forward confidently; out and around the reception, and off to the right, down the corridor. Sure enough, there were five kids waiting for me, and they looked up with delight.

"Hallo!" I exclaimed. "Are you ready?"

They stood up and grabbed their bags as I opened the classroom door. One kid even cheered. As they ran past me and into the room, I took a deep breath and summoned up all my courage. Here we go. I stepped into the room and shut the door behind me.


to be continued...

© Jeremy McMahon, 2011