Odds 'n Ends

Two things I noticed at school today:

1) This morning in the main teachers' office, a teacher was practically yelling at a student for whatever reason. I've heard of kids being yelled at by teachers in the teachers' office at other schools here in Japan, but I honestly can't recall the same thing happening at my school. Because the teacher doing the near-yelling was one of the new (to my school) teachers, and because he's a rather young teacher, I felt like telling him, "Hey, man, that's not how things are done around here."

I hope he lays off with the yelling, but I doubt he will. After all, I've witnessed countless instances of a teacher berating a student in or near a classroom, sometimes rather viciously, with many students present. And it's absolutely normal for a student to be counseled at a desk in one corner of the teachers' office, sometimes even with the student's parents/guardians present. (I have seen students and teachers discuss various matters in private, as well, however.)

I have no idea what the kids did wrong, if anything, or what the teacher doing the yelling is saying. So it's not entirely fair of me to criticize the yelling. But I don't like to see kids getting yelled at, and I imagine there must be a more effective way of getting a point across.

I just hope the new teacher doing the yelling today doesn't start a trend.

2) A little later in the day, I saw a teacher tell a student to stop running in the hallway. At least that's what I think she said to him. I'm pretty sure that's also the first time I've seen that happen at my school.

In the U.S., teachers are constantly policing the hallways and yelling at students for running and other such "infractions." But not here in Japan, at least not at my school. Why? Well, for the most part, the students don't run. And if the students are running, they're usually not running out of control. So the teachers usually let the kids be kids, if you will.

Guess who told the kid to stop running: Yes. A new (to my school) teacher.

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Lunch at my school is over at 1:00 p.m. The students are basically free to do whatever they want from after lunch until 1:35 p.m.

I usually hang out in the teachers' office after lunch. But last week I realized for the first time that right after lunch many kids go the the gym or the gym area to play soccer, badminton, volleyball, and basketball, for example. So lately I've started to go to the gym to shoot some hoops.

Today, I'd say there were about 20 kids in the gym while I was in there. There were no adults present, besides me. Even had I not been there, the kids would have been free to do whatever they wanted. Isn't that fantastic!?

See, over here, the kids are rather responsible, even at an early age. So they go to the gym, grab whatever equipment they need, and put everything away when they're done. And I'd be willing to bet that if they broke something, they'd tell the appropriate person. Too bad that's not how things work in the States.

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Tonight I have a "baseball" game. (If you're not sure why I write the word "baseball" in quotes, read this.) It's game two of the season. We play the Pirates. Last Monday we lost the first game of the short season 4-3. We played against "yakuba," the town hall team. That game was extremely disappointing and frustrating for me. Why? Well, I made two errors and feel responsible for three of the opponent's four runs.

I expected to be playing in the outfield, but shortly before the game started, when I asked the coach what position I was playing, he said, "Sado" (third base). No problemo, I thought.

We scored a run in the top of the first to take a 1-0 lead. We didn't hold the lead for very long, however.

The first batter in the bottom half of the inning bunted, and in my attempt to get the speed burner, I rushed my throw and overthrew first base.

Two outs later, with their leadoff batter then on third and us still ahead by a run, the clean-up batter hit a shot to my left. I reached down for the ball and got a glove on it, but the ball popped out of my mitt. I still don't understand why that happened, but I obviously must have not been "concentrated" enough. (Sorry, that's a bit of an inside joke.) 1-1.

The next batter hit a two-run inside-the-park (or, as the Japanese say, "running") homer. 3-1. Ugh! That's just baseball being cruel, I suppose.

We gave up a run later in the game and came up in the last inning trailing 4-1. We managed to score two more runs, but we left the tying run on second.

I was in the on-deck circle when the game ended. So I didn't get another chance to redeem myself. That's just how it goes sometimes.

Yeah, so as you can imagine, I'm pretty fired up for tonight's game.