Job Discussion Forums

[abufletcher]

Here's your chance to post examples of the sorts of totally cockeyed, illogical, contraditory, decisions made every day in Japanese schools (and universities).

Here's mine. At today's (6 hour) department meeting we spent something like 45mins. debating whether students who wanted to get the English Teaching Certificate that we offer should be allowed to take Korean-language courses instead of English-language courses. At least half the faculty felt it would be unfair not allow these future JTEs to take Korean courses (which are of course taught primarily in Japanese) instead of English. Never mind the fact that the English-medium TEFL methodology courses that I (and I alone) teach are not even listed on the set of required classes for our English Teaching Certificate. When I asked why that was, the department chair (who's actually a nice guy) said I'd have to take that up with the local BOE as they set the requirements.

Oh well another day another little pile of yen.

[kdynamic]

Hmmm well when I proposed that I interview a guest on my TV show one cameraman said no because "We can't seat three people at the table we usually use."

He later tried to shoot my suggestion to broaden the scope of the show to include more diverse international issues by saying, "I don't see the point. When you see a whitey on TV you expect them to be teaching English and not saying anything else."

Luckily he got transfered and my ideas were approved by someone higher up the food chain

[ntropy]

At a high school I taught at, we spent 3 hours in a staff meeting discussing whether the incoming Australian exchange student would have to dye her hair black as school rules stated all students must have black (ie natural [for Japan]) hair.

If I recall correctly, the decision not to force her to passed by only one or two votes.

[shuize]

Man, I hear this. It is a regular part of my working life. In fact, just recently I had the pleasure of sitting through a long meeting in which the faculty spent well over an hour debating the question of whether it was appropriate to fail students who never came to a required core course. That's in: Never. Came. Once.

Thankfully, I don't have to teach that class. But at the time, I remember thinking to myself how much happier I'd be if I didn't understand Japanese and could just sit back and imagine serious issues were being discussed instead of counting the seconds of my life painfully slipping away.

There's a reason these people are in academia. It's simple. They would never survive in the private sector:

"No, Mr. Sato, I really think we should spend another hour of company time debating whether to pay our employees for never coming to work ... I insist."

[gaijinalways]

Hee, hee. And to think I thought I was missing out on all those 'exciting' meetings!

I have heard about some real no brainers, talking about what to do with students who refuse to do anything (at a JHS) for three hours after regular school hours had finished. Final decision; to be discussed at the next 3 hour meeting (hopefully with whiskey and hotter babes )!

[Nismo]

I have a manager who has never once made a decision or actually, *gulp*, managed anything. Oh, she can yell at mistakes, but she can't fix them, or offer anything constructive to fix the problem. So, what it comes down to is the failure is always the fault of the foreigner, no matter who the source was, and the success is all from management, again, no matter who the source is. I've seen the manager's name on a thank-you note from the regional director for a proposal that I made.

I've also sat through a one hour meeting where we had to decide where to hold a farewell party for a teacher. The place had been previously decided, but one of the 60 attending students (ONE OF THEM) complained about the restaurant's food, and we had to change the place to make everyone happy. Hence, the reason the meeting took an hour was because no one in the staff would come out and pick a place (despite that I was sitting there naming a place - the foreigner's opinion counts for nil!).

[abufletcher]

To be fair, I suppose we should acknowledge that at least some part of all this silliness is the result of using a consensus approach to decison making. Still, it does seem like my Japanese colleagues never want to look beneath the surface of any issue.

Of course, I've also learned that meetings are not considered the right place to address any of these meaty issues -- that should all be handled via nemawashi long before any topic actually appears on an agenda.

[fluffyhamster]

I developed some ways to help pass the time in meetings e.g. I'd somehow keep calling the failing students - a mere handful - 'akachan' rather than 'akaten', and suggest things for the JTEs rather than the AETs to do with those retards over the summer.

[Sweetsee]

I always get to meetings early so I can get my seat at the corner where I can do crossword puzzles clipped from the paper on my clipboard. Mainly because I have nothing to add to hours-long debates over the top button of the students' blouses.

Another thing, do folks sleep in meetings at your schools? For that matter, do folks sleep at their desks, regularly?

[shuize]

[abufletcher]

Oh, I never said anything is actually DECIDED in advance.

Just that it's talked about QUIETLY AND BEHIND CLOSED DOORS outside of public meetings. In fact, I feel certain that I have never in 10 years actually seen any decision overtly "taken" in a department meeting. It's more like we drift in a certain direction and then well before a conclusion is reached we end the meeting promising to continue to discuss the matter at a latter time. But of course we never do and some months later we'll see the result of our communal "drift" formalized in some document.

Often things that I put out there in rough draft or "brainstorming" form, I'll find fossilized as carved in stone department policy and people will wonder why I disagree with parts of it since I wrote it.

BTW, my Japanese is limited, enough to follow roughly what we're talking about but not any of the details so that's about perfect for meetings. However, just yesterday one of the foreign faculty members (a Hungarian) who does speak excellent Japanese announced in the meeting that it had nothing to do with needing a translation, he said it was a problem that what was said was so vague or ambigous that no meaning could be taken from it even if it were to be translated into English for the "benefit" of non-Japanese speakers.

Of course I know all this so I just don't sweat meetings. I come loaded with books to read, notebooks to review and my laptop. Maybe if I get an Airport Extreme for my office I'll be able to chech the posts on Dave's during meetings!

[kdynamic]

Yep, nemawashi and the group consensus thing are real. It...takes...forever! But the reason it the decision making process must be carried out that way, by the japanese way of thinking, is to make SURE everyone is onboard with the consensus, without actually asking anyone to express their opinion persay (since that might put someone on the spot).

I am slowly learning effective ways of getting my ideas taken seriously and learning how to sway the group - even though it is like trying to shove a cloud. You have to patiently blow a breeze, since shoving a cloud will get you nowhere. But I find that written proposals are the way to go. Once it's on paper, no one can argue with it! It's weird... like how if you put a piece of packin tape along a cat's back he just KNOWS there is something above him, and thus walks aroudn crounched down. OBEY THE TAPE.

Sorry that might not have made much sense.

Anyway, I have oft fantasized about lobotomizing myself during a meeting, just wishing I DIDN'T understand the Japanese, since it's painful how long they take going over and over nothing of substance.... bleh.