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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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 Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 6:31 am Post subject: |
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| seklarwia wrote: |
| Glenski wrote: |
| Number one, it is illegal to have the ALT in the room as the only teacher. |
Do you have an official link for this? |
No, sorry.
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| My old junior high school principal told me that they understood that this had changed and that only in elementary schools was this actually illegal now. He believed that for JH and above it wasn't necessarily advised, but it wasn't actually illegal anymore. |
Even if it is not illegal, I think that the principal's feeling about it being ill advised is sound, so your next remark about "no reason that it need be considered so unsafe" doesn't hold water here. I don't know about the kiddie eikaiwa classes, whether they have people immediately available for emergencies, but we're talking about a big difference if one is comparing eikaiwa for adults vs. ALT classes of elem ed to HS age kids. Aside from the age difference, there is also the matter of how many one is responsible for (eikaiwa could be 2 to a dozen, while JHS and HS could be 30-40).
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| This kind of thing works in schools all over the world. Even in my UK secondary school, |
But the point is not about a UK school. It's about a foreign one where a fire, earthquake, crazed madman with a knife, internal squabble with students, etc. should not be resolved with an ALT. In fact, in Japan most ALTs are not even employed directly by the school where they work, so they have no business dealing with such things, and they have not been given the school's training in how to respond, even if they had the language ability. |
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seklarwia
Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano
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| Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 9:45 am Post subject: |
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| Glenski wrote: |
| Even if it is not illegal, I think that the principal's feeling about it being ill advised is sound, |
I never said that was how my principal felt. In fact, the staff at my school were quite happy to allow me to take classes entirely on my own. People from outside the school had even seen this taking place.
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| Aside from the age difference, there is also the matter of how many one is responsible for (eikaiwa could be 2 to a dozen, while JHS and HS could be 30-40). |
Apart from the poster in question is talking about taking groups of 5/6 students, not 40. And last I checked, many eikaiwa classes are nothing but JH/SH students with some having kids far younger.
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| But the point is not about a UK school. It's about a foreign one where a fire, earthquake, crazed madman with a knife, internal squabble with students, etc. should not be resolved with an ALT. |
We may not have earthquakes, but do you not think that those other things you mentioned happen in the UK or other countries, too? Hell, we even have students stabbing or shooting each other and my school had a false bomb alert when a suspicious package was found on school grounds by students doing PE... prompted our headmaster to order the craziest terrorism drills since it was just after 9/11 and people had started believing that our city, being the "religious capital", might be targeted.
And no, the language assistants shouldn't be dealing with these situations in other countries since they are the same as ALTs; they are to call for assistance. Which was exactly what I would do; pick up the phone in the classroom, dial up hokentsu say, "Come to class x, please" in English. They may not speak english but even they know the numbers 1-11. One would come and sort out the situation.
Never had serious problems, but I've had students who've had spontaneous nosebleeds or kids sitting there burning up and still insisting they were still ok during flu season.
Even had an impromptu firedrill once. Told the kids to put on their caps, cover their nose and quietly line up (all things that the students had been drilled to do in anycase) then waved down one of the many members of staff whose job it is to stand in the corridoors making sure that the kids file out quietly and orderly and handle any situations that might arise. They escorted the kids to the evacuation point.
The point is there is little difference between what happens in other countries and what the poster is suggesting even right down to the ages (secondary school kids are 11-18 so that is the same as JH/SH here). If it works in other countries and is quite productive, why couldn't it work here? |
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Xanato
Joined: 04 Feb 2011
Posts: 18
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| Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 11:58 am Post subject: |
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| seklarwia wrote: |
You seem to have this magic way of making things sound awful.
| Xanato wrote: |
| ... and get experience with kids as a volunteer at a library or through psych-related work. |
Who suggested this as a good way to get experience? Sounds as if you took the "helping the kids in some way" part way too literally. |
Working at a daycare facility qualifies as a job relating to psychology. From my perspective, that's reasonably close to babysitting.
I was testing the water with that statement, not saying that that was what I was going to do and none of you were going to stop me. A simple, "What do you mean by 'psych-related work?'" or "I wouldn't go that route since it might send the wrong message about how you'll interact with children," would've sufficed. On the contrary, quoting an entire list of plans and saying something along the lines of, "Lol. This guy is hopeless," does nothing but patronize me. |
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