Job Discussion Forums

[Woofy I Toby]

I`d really appreciate any advice from fellow teachers in Japan regarding the following hot potato.

One of my students is writing letters to me. She is 12. There have been three in the past two months. They usually have "I love you" written on them and ask to come to my house.

I took the first one, on the day I received it, to a teacher at the school. She helped compose a reply making it quite clear this was unacceptable, but encouraging the girl to keep studying English.

Christmas came and went, all was quiet. Great. I thought the issue died down. In the past week, I got two more.

After the second one, I spoke to several teachers at my base school, and went back to the original school to discuss handling this matter (ie - don`t isolate the girl for a silly crush, but please let all students know suggesting coming to a teacher`s house is way off limits.) After this meeting, I went home to find a third letter in my mailbox.

Which, again, I have showed to my teachers. The teachers at the school itself were really apologetic to me and have promised to deal with the situation.

Anyone else been in a similar situation, or know someone who has, and can advise if there is anything else I should do? I hope I have handled the situation responsibly and sensitively.

Thanks.

[movinaround]

Happens all the time. The thing is to do nothing different, unless you have realized you are doing something to cause this (not saying you have, but sometimes you realize you are causing something only after it happens). Treat her the exact same as everyone else. This may be a little difficult at first, but just do whatever you would have before.

Maybe even have a class on letter writing and have everyone send you a letter every week (or month). You should provide the stamps though (not really that expensive). It will make her letters just a part of the class and she will get bored of them if everyone else is doing it. You can never tell with children, but I think it might work. If other people don't think so, let me know and why.

[Woofy I Toby]

Hmm, I was thinking of a similar approach

My other suggestion to the school was that all students are welcome to write letters to me to find out about my culture and me, etc, but all letters must be given to the teachers to give to me rather than posted to my address.

I guess it is just the posting to my home address that is the only thing that makes this situation different from experiences I have heard all my other teaching friends here have.

Thanks for the advice

[Gordon]

How did she find out your address? This should not be something students (at any age) should know.

[Woofy I Toby]

No idea.

I live in quite a small town so all the students see me coming and going. I live in an apartment block of four apartments and the apartment directly opposite has two of my students living in it. Another two live in the apartment below.

I guess it isn`t that hard but somehow she even knows the post code/zip code/whatever the thing is called here. Maybe they`re easy to work out, I dunno. Japanese addresses baffle me.

[Gordon]

[Woofy I Toby]

Man, that sounds familiar.

I had to write a pin number down for my supervisor to set up a bank account for me.

[JimDunlop2]

I've encountered this on occasion but not often enough to have a standard operating procedure. However, I usually just politely point out to the student that it is the board of education's policy that any sort of fraternizing with students outside the classroom is disallowed, and coming to a student's house -- even more so.

Whether that is the actual, honest truth is a grey zone -- but for the purposes of getting love-sick teens to cool down a bit, it tends to get the job done. Also, making it a known fact that I'm married help a fair amount too.

Good luck though!

[G Cthulhu]

[Neongene]

[Gordon]

[Eva Pilot]

I have a student that loves me. She's 4. Her mother always brings me cakes and food after class. It's great.

[movinaround]

[Eva Pilot]

[Gordon]