Jack-O-Lanterns

I’m a bit late in posting this obviously, but in the last few days before Halloween we continued to do Halloween themed lessons in English class.

One of the English teachers at the Junior High School wanted to teach the students how to carve jack-o-lanterns for the elective English class.

Pumpkins in Japan are different than the pumpkins in the US. In Japan they are green, and small, and almost resemble squash more than pumpkins. So they’re not ideal for making jack-o-lanterns. We looked into buying imported pumpkins, but it was too expensive so we just got Japanese style pumpkins and decided it would be good enough for the kids to just get the idea.

The first two classes I team-taught with the Japanese teacher. The last class the Japanese teacher was absent, so I was sent in to teach by myself.

This was the “low-level” selective English class, filled with all the problem kids. The Japanese teacher was worried about how things would go. “It will be okay,” another teacher said. “The students will be so frightened to see a foreigner that they wouldn’t dare misbehave.”

“No, those days are long gone,” the English teacher said. “Students these days are so used to feeing foreign teachers that they’re not intimidated by them at all anymore.”

Ain’t that the truth. If those days ever did exist, they must have disappeared long before I ever got to Japan. (Again, reference Justin’s post.)

Japanese kids know nothing about carving jack-o-lanterns, so even the simplest things need to be explained. For instance “be sure and cut the top big enough because you’re going to need to fit your hand in afterwards to scoop out the insides.” Or “make sure the top is all in one piece. Don’t just hack at it when you cut it out because you’ll need to fit the top back on later when you’re all done.” Or “it works better if you draw the face on with a marker before you start cutting.”

The problem though is, like kids anywhere else in the world, they just don’t listen. I tried to explain but they were just talking to their friends or daydreaming, and then when the pumpkin carving began, it was mass chaos.

I was going everywhere at once trying to answer questions or tell kids to be careful with the knives. In spite of my warnings, one of the girls cut her finger with the knife. She asked to be allowed to go to the nurse’s room.

It wasn’t a deep cut. Only a trickle of blood was coming out, and that only when she squeezed the tip of her finger to squeeze it out. Obviously this was just an excuse to get out of class, but I didn’t feel like arguing about it, and I figured one less student in the classroom would only make my job easier.

Permission slips for the nurse’s room were kept on a pouch by the door. I filled on of them out and gave them to the girl. “This is all wrong,” she said. “You put your name where my name was supposed to go.”

I know enough Japanese where I probably should have caught that one, but I wasn’t paying close attention. I threw away the first slip and filled out another, and she was on her way.

“Okay, now no one else cut their fingers, okay? Okay?”

Five minutes later, a boy gave himself a nasty cut on the side of his finger. It wasn’t life threatening, but it was bleeding a lot.

He was actually quite proud of himself. He had a big grin on his face as he showed his wound off to his classmates. Blood was getting on the floor. I grabbed some tissues and gave them to him. There was a sink out in the hallway, and he went there to wash his cut. A number of the other students followed to watch. Since the scene had carried over into the hallway, it was now in full view of other classrooms, and I was now not only given the impression of incompetence in front of my Japanese peers, but disturbing other classes.

I filled out a slip for the nurse’s room and handed it to the boy. “You put your name where my name was supposed to go,” he complained.

“That idiot. It’s the second time he’s done this,” I overheard another student saying behind me.

“It’s fine. Just go.”

“I can’t go. You filled out the form all wrong.”

“It will be fine. Just show this to the nurse.” What was she going to do? Refuse to treat him because I had filled out the form wrong. I pushed him in the direction of the nurse’s room, but he decided to stay and wash out his hand a little bit more and show off his wound to the other classrooms. Eventually he left.

I made another announcement for everyone to be careful. “I don’t want anyone else cutting their fingers. Two students to the nurse’s room is enough.”

Of course it is always embarrassing to be the teacher of a class that sends not one, but two students to the nurse’s room. But on the other hand, jack-o-lanterns weren’t my idea. And these kids were all 14 or 15. They were old enough to watch out for their own damn fingers.

But, the following day several Japanese teachers mentioned the incident to me. All I could really say was “I’m sorry. I tried to tell them to be careful.”

Link of the Day
You've probably heard about the US troop cuts in Okinawa. The Japan Times has a good article on the Okinawan perspective