The Importance of Being Important...

ALT. Assitant language teacher. Assistant language teacher. That's what I am here in Japan. Some days, usually at the elementary school, I am actually running the show. From conception to design to execution of English communication lessons, I am the boss. Though I am supposed to engage in team teaching with the homeroom teacher at the elementary school, I only do this in 1 out of 6 grades. And that's fine. I like being in charge and having the responsibility. It gives me something to do when normally there would be nothing. I research games, make worksheets and handouts, select the singing music and consult textbooks for inspiration and direction. Most of the time, my lessons are the bomb rather than a bomb. I'll be blunt - English is not the most important, or even an important subject in the curriculum, so after the first few initial months of learning the ropes, I was figuratively, and sometimes literally, on my own. Sometimes, I'm all alone in the classroom (a big no-no), managing the little ones, and I like it better that way. During these times, I'm not an ALT, I'm the language teacher.

This is at the elementary school.

At the junior high school, it's entirely different. My JTE runs the show. He plans everything and leads the classroom, and that's fine, because that's his job. He's a trained English teacher and I'm his assistant, and that's also fine. But what's not fine is how I'm often relegated to the sidelines while he goes over grammar points, vocabulary and verb tenses only in Japanese. I've wasted hours over the past year and a bit just standing there, watching the interaction and trying hard not to daydream lest he chooses to utilize my knowledge and have me join the conversation.

What is difficult for me, and what continues to be a recurring theme in this job is how unimportant I am. I'll admit, I feel somewhat important to the kids and I'm proud with how far I've come with them, and not necessarily in terms of their English skills. And at the end of the day, I know it's what matters the most. But it's that feeling of being useless, of being expendable, that eats away at me.

I think it wouldn't so bad if I wasn't so damn lonely in the day time. The Japanese office culture is SO different than back home. People are perpetually busy and have very little time to do things other than what they're doing (however, I've also seen that the teachers I work with are amazingly inefficient with their time). I do speak to the non-English speakers, but our conversations are so brief due to the language barrier, but it's cool that we at least try. From time to time, I have really good, non-work related conversations with the science teacher and my JTE, and my JTE has apologized for not talking to me more (which was pretty sweet). When we got a new Japanese teacher who is fluent in English, I was so happy and my JTE was like "It's good that you've now got someone to talk to", but she's just as busy as the rest of them. I'm dying to get to know her better, but she's got a job to do so I'm on my own.

I'm not sure if I can adequately explain all of this without sounding like spoiled brat, but it really, really hurts. But I'm thankful for the internet, this blog, my books, the telephone and the weekends. I'm also thankful for those times when I feel useful, like I'm a real part of the team. Last week, all the other teachers were busy so my surrogate dad asked me to take a group of 10 first-graders (7 year olds) to the bus stop and wait for their buses to arrive. That was the first time it had happened and I had several little heart attacks during the 20 minutes we were waiting by the road, but it all went off without a hitch. They got on their buses, each yelling "Sayonara, Kaki-sensei" and I yelled back, waving and calling out each of their names. For me, this was a big something, out of a day filled with a whole lot of nothing.

I'll be handing in my recontracting papers next week when I have a free moment to to discuss it with my JTE. The NO box will be firmly checked. I was going to wait until the new year, but there's no point. I'm not going to change my mind. I was going to hang on to them , just in case, but no matter what happens, I'll have to leave. While I believe that work is something you do in order to live, I need to feel like I'm worth something, like I'm earning my pay. Like I'm important.