This is turning into a weekly installment brought to you from Wall Street... J-Class! ...I need to think of a more catchy name for it... Operation Asian Sabotage... hmmm, too Fu Manchu.
After this Tuesday's class, I decided to try to write a post about performing/entertaining for my students in after-school. Basically, my supervisor keeps telling me that I can't expect to turn out fluent speakers by June. We meet for basically an hour once a week to learn whatever we can while eating pizza or mochi after being in school since 8am. What can we possibly do in such little time? (The answer, of course, is a lot, but first...)
I am worried that in the absence of real material, I am basically performing a racialized culture of "Japaneseness" for the entertainment of my students and for the agency that employs me, instead of being a facilitator/educator. There are a few reasons why I feel this way:
After this Tuesday's class, I decided to try to write a post about performing/entertaining for my students in after-school. Basically, my supervisor keeps telling me that I can't expect to turn out fluent speakers by June. We meet for basically an hour once a week to learn whatever we can while eating pizza or mochi after being in school since 8am. What can we possibly do in such little time? (The answer, of course, is a lot, but first...)
I am worried that in the absence of real material, I am basically performing a racialized culture of "Japaneseness" for the entertainment of my students and for the agency that employs me, instead of being a facilitator/educator. There are a few reasons why I feel this way:
- My students see me as Japanese. And I am. But that's not the only thing that I identify as and that others identify in me. John Lie talks about typological thinking - the kind of thinking that groups people according to types that have no basis in real research. For example, one of my students said "I heard that all Japanese boys are shy." Whoever told her this could not have possibly met every single "Japanese boy" in the world, much less in the US or Japan alone. I am afraid that I will become a type of Japanese: one of my students, N__, told me the other day: "Ms. Mika you're so lucky... You have long hair and you're skinny..."
- A bunch of agency and foundation heads are coming to watch my class in a couple of weeks. I guess in the non-profit industrial complex (look out for another blog post that explains this particular industrial complex, a.k.a. the NPIC), it's important for higher-ups and funders to make sure that programs are being implemented according to proposed procedures and that they are meeting standards. But I thinkthat the NPIC is wack.
- The structure of an un-structured "Japanese" classroom sets up an expectation that everything that occurs during this time is representative of "Japan." In my class I try to introduce concepts that are relevant not just to life in Japan, but life in the U.S. as well. For example, immigration, "majority"/"minority" dynamics, gender issues, etc. But this is not the way I was ever exposed to Japanese society/culture/history except in specialized college courses. I sometimes fear that Japanese people from Japan - if they ever observed my class - would write me off as too strong-willed (「強い性格」) or too Americanized (「日系」).
Comments
i can relate to your feeling that if anybody from Japan ever saw your class they would think you are too "strong willed" and "americanized." i couldn't tell if you think this is bad - but, it kinda sounds like you do.
i think you shouldn't. because:
- you are "americanized" there's no escaping that!
- you are "strong willed" and that is what is so amazing about you and what makes you a great teacher!
- your students should know you are providing them with information that from a perspective that is japanese/american/japanese-american/colored in the u.s./.... etc. kinda like what you were talking about before, that you aren't only "japanese."
love you