Job Discussion Forums

[rxk22]

Just so there is no mix ups, I am not insulting my JTs, nor am I saying that they are dumb or lazy.

I work at a JHS, which is pretty small, there are 6 classes total of about 140 kids. There are also 14 FT JT teachers plus 6 PT JTs, and the school nurse, Personal assitant, and the cleaning lady.

Thing is, that even my English JTs are seemingly always busy. Even the guys with only 8 classes total a week. They seem to always have some sort of thing to do. Which usually is not related to class at all.

just wondering what they are doing? As they always find some way to keep themselves busy. They usually have 2-3 classes a day, and only a few teachers have clubs, on account of there being so few kids.

Again, not knocking them. I just think that Japanese and US working cultures are just so different and all. So I would like to hear your reasons.

[Ikki]

You're right-Japanese PS teachers are saddled with all kinds of responsibilities that have nothing to do with "teaching" as most Westerners understand it. Some teachers are heavily involved with clubs, some are home room teachers(there isn't enough sake & sashimi in Japan that ever would bribe me to take that job), and many are on all sorts of committees or departments(general affairs, academic affairs, etc.).

In N. America, if PS teachers were given such workloads, they'd be on strike before you could say "sayonara".

[G Cthulhu]

[wayne432]

Yup, other teachers are in charge of budgets and accounting, etc etc...

[Glenski]

Some will have clubs.

Others will be on committees (plural). In a small school, people will be
spread out very thin. Committees may meet weekly but may have ongoing duties during the day.

Others will have gakunen assignments.

Others may be homeroom teachers (which often includes PTA functions).

Others may have admin functions (hiring/firing/discipline; library; running/maintaining an LL room, etc.).

Most of the teachers I used to work with in a private JHS/HS never even left the office until after 9pm every day, and they came in on 1 or both days of the weekend to boot. Personally, I think there is a lot of inefficiency in the way J teachers operate, but there is also a lot of stuff they try to keep track of that you wouldn't imagine. Little details about students' personal lives, academic lives, club lives, and so on. This often gets handed down in March or April to the next year's teachers, and that takes time, too.

[rxk22]

It's too bad. With the teacher to student ration being so low, if they allowed it more, we could have 7-10 kid sized classes.

[seklarwia]

Not unless all the teachers were trained to teach every subject.

In ES that might work since the homeroom teacher tends to teach them most everything. But it wouldn't work in a JH/SH.

[rxk22]

[timothypfox]

A little aside ... I will add about my own previous experiences in public school in New York City...

North American teachers in public schools are almost as busy. They just hide the fact by taking work home at night or doing it on weekends. There is a lot of paperwork including lessons plans that have to be shown to a principal whenever requested, data collections sheets to update into a computer system, homework and tests to prepare. There is increasing pressure to show "rigor" by showing "accountability." This often means more paperwork including unit rubric's assessed for each students, tests, presentations, assignments etc. Most schools hand teachers a vague outline of what the kids need to know and when to cover it. The teacher then has to fill in the dots and dream up a lot of things while being pre-occupied with classroom seating arrangement, staff assignments, and frequently updating the bulletin boards. In special education, each student has their own individual education plan (a 10+ page legal document) written by each student by their teachers. Public school teachers in NA tend to teach 5 -6 classes a day 5 days a week, and are also expected to join committees. Also a spirit of antagonism persists between administrators and the union and consequently the teachers. You have to watch your back, and the political climate does not like teacher benefits.

So the grass is rather well-worn on the other side as well...

[seklarwia]

[move]

Here's a few reasons at my school why teachers are so busy:

Teaching
Home visits to parents
Student committees (school lunch, broadcasting, leadership, etc)
School clubs (usually ending 2+ hours after classes actually end)
Collecting money (for regular students and clubs)
Endless meetings
Inputting grades
Student counseling
Preparing students for HS interviews
Discipline (IMO not actual discipline more like talk)
Student monitoring during lunchtime

If you can do anything to make their lives easier I am sure they would be very grateful. I always ask if there is anything to do, but they usually say there is nothing to do. My advice is just to see what everybody else is doing and pitch in. School lunch set up and clean up is an easy area where you could help out.

[steki47]

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

You didn't mention if it was a public or private school. I'm assuming it's public, because a private school wouldn't be able to operate at that kind of a level.

If the teachers weren't busy, then there is a really good chance that the school would be closed. Students would be bussed to another school, and the teachers would be sent to other schools (if possible), or else they get to sit at the BoE, or a public library or maybe a museum most of the day.

So part of the reason why your Japanese Teachers all look so busy is that they make sure they look really busy all of the time.

As others have said, Japanese teachers are saddled with all kinds of responsibilities that have nothing to do with 'teaching' as we would think of it. In fact, I think I remember an article in a newspaper or something that said that Japanese teachers did more non-teaching duties than teachers in any other country in OECD.

Read what Timothy Fox wrote about teaching in North America. Japanese teachers don't do any of that. Japanese teachers pick up the book and do page one, then page two, then page three. They make up tests, but the actual classroom teaching and preparation for it part of their job is a small part of what they do. That's what a Japanese teacher told me. He also told me that most of the teachers in the public sector don't want to stay in teaching, but they want to move in the BoE, and then back into the schools as principals (principals in North america are required to have advanced degrees in Educational Leadership. They are just ordered to be Principals by their bosses at the BoE, even if they don't want to. Just like they are sent to the BoE whether they want to stop teaching or not).

[rxk22]

[rxk22]