To Teach

16/4/12

I am sitting at my new desk at Imaichi Junior High School Teacher’s Lounge, just before noon. Weaving seamlessly through all of my activities in Japan up to this time was the ironclad rule, legislation my own writing, lobbying, and approval, that one day I would become a teacher, even if only an assistant. The me of high school age once resolved with all possible resolve than available to never teach, and if I did teach, to for the love of god never teach English. As my girlfriend would say, “Never say never”.

Much of my preparation up to this time has been aside from this fact, running parallel to it, providing at best indirect support. My standard response to standing in front of a classroom is avoidance. In the absence of this option, there is usually some heart pounding, an abbreviated stammer, and copious planning, usually involving something that functions as an escape route. If there are others banished to the front, I keep my eyes on them. Filling five minutes I think of as filling two, and somehow the other three will slide. Do I constantly talk? Do I provide enthusiasm for entertainment? Ask questions, involve the audience? How do I save face if no one answers? Words, to me, are a matter of ideas, speaking a conveyance, and a speech a sort of argument or point of view, the saying of which an act of convincing or enlightening. How vigorously do I argue? Will there be counter arguments? What if they are stronger?

Information in preparation is control in this case, and I want a trial run – I learn best from example. What is at stake, what is the point of doing this and what is best accomplished and ignored? This is what I want to know, and it comes from experience.

My co-teacher today is Okayasu-sensei, though I should call her Mrs. Okayasu while we speak English. When I realize it, she looks unbelievably like my ex-stepmother, but a Japanese version. She is wearing a windbreaker indoors, has gray hair at the temples, which comes out in about the same width, has the same sort of enthusiasm towards kids, and moves quickly in sneakers. At one point, I stare into her face for a moment, searching for physical markers that suggest she never married my father. However, I get along with her much more easily, and she is more than happy with the prep work I’ve done for the class – were her ideas of questioning added onto my work the night prior, I’ve probably done enough to handle the entire class by myself, were they a higher level.

As we walk into the first class, Mrs. Okayasu and me, I am adopting the approach that I adopt on first dates and early flirtation: the outcome doesn’t matter to me because I own the place. Fear has no address if it is not heeded. I am not afraid of the students, I am not afraid of them staring at me, I’m not afraid of their apathy, nor their rambunctiousness. These are no longer arguments but statements of fact. I’m not afraid of speaking, I’m not afraid of looking silly, bending odd ways, miming verbs. I don’t like dead space, but I’m not afraid of it. My speech is slowed down adequately, my voice loud. I have my prepared speech. So where is the leak? Where is this fear getting in?

And yet, as I talk and introduce myself to the class, I begin to feel hot. By the time I realize what it is, removing my jacket does nothing. There is a tingling in my head, I can feel my own pulse. Completely out of place, I kneel as Mrs. Okayasu is talking, and to cover a little, I act like I’m sorting my papers, but I only have three, and the subterfuge is weak. Kneeling helps a little, but not enough, not enough to stand again and write, which I must do. This is pure nerves, and the wave it washes upon me in is tall. I stand again, with no choice, and my peripheral vision shuts off. I can only see things I’m directly looking at. My grip weakens automatically and I drop the chalk accidentally. It breaks into three, but when I bend down and try to pick up the pieces, I can’t see them. Blood has stopped flowing to my eyes and now it stops flowing to my head. From experience, I know the color is quickly draining from my face.

“Are you alright?” Mrs. Okayasu asks me, “do you need some water?” Spatial awareness is still working, and I find her face and excuse myself, asking after a little water, and leave the room as I break into a cold sweat.

As soon as I step out of the doorway, my vision begins to return, and just down the hall is a trough with several spigots. I pick one of the ones pointing down, twist, cup, and drink from my hands. This used to happen when I was younger, though it’s been several years since the last time. I know it’s anxiety, though I’m too proud to tell my co-teacher when the time comes. This is not how I expected the first class to go. I kneel in a weak draft coming down the stairs. I suspected it might happen, but now I know it had to. I realize I wasn’t afraid of anything except being afraid; looking for fear is what let it in. But it was unavoidable in some way, that this is the only way not to be afraid of teaching. Now that my nerves have had the bottom kicked out, they never will break again for this situation.

My cold sweat begins to disappear, and I am returning to normal. Twenty minutes have passed since we walked into class, maybe two since I walked back out. I walk in again, and I am fine for the rest of the period; nothing is unknown, I have learned through example what I needed. I try to be bouncy and over-enthusiastic, which for me, is probably externally not that different. The class finishes and some of the students (who all know Ichiro and One Piece but none know Nirvana) ask me additional questions about music I like, what they like, and in the case of two giggling girls, simply introduce themselves and request, “Please teach us English” which, adjusting for the situation and Japanese politeness and formality, I’m guessing translates into American as something like, “Welcome to the class” (for our first class of the day, two students come to the teacher’s office and ask us to come teach them – they ask me for the appropriate phrase in English, but there really isn’t one – I try to tell them “We’re ready for you now”).

Though we teach the very next period, Mrs. Okayasu and I return to the teacher’s office and I attempt to tell her what happened, but it doesn’t seem to matter much. Later she’ll simply ask if I was nervous, and I say yes weakly, unable to give much more of an answer, but for now we must go to another class. I’ve executed my first lesson plan, and we’ve taught my first class. It’s now time for the second.
-Schuyler

 

Summation of the Action: Still alive.