Brutal Planet
November 20, 2008
You know, I’ve actually been in a pretty good mood all this week. Which is odd, for me.
And then I went and stumbled on this. And I remembered we’re coming up on 10 years since Columbine.
I can speak first hand about the kind of things the Slashdot article talks about. My junior and senior high school years were quite unpleasant for me. I wouldn’t go as far to say “nightmarish”, but it is a period of my life I don’t recall fondly at all. I was awkward, ostracized and occasionally persecuted. I’m not going to claim I never contemplated violence; that would be disingenuous, not to mention a bold-faced lie. And with the benefit of hindsight, I think I can safely say it subconsciously influenced my decision to move away from my hometown the second I got the chance.
Now, I’m working as a teacher and my perspective has shifted somewhat. I’m now in the position to do something about this kind of thing. It doesn’t seem to really be a problem in Japanese schools, probably because the culture emphasizes getting along with your classmates/ coworkers / contemporaries. But I can still attempt to make a difference, to put a stop to this sort of asinine bullying if I see it, and to show that you should never be ashamed of being intelligent. As a wise nerd once said, “It may be hard for you now, but trust me: Out here? In the real world? We run shit.”
I’ve heard that eventually, all teachers just stop caring. It’s hard to look after hordes of other people’s children all day and not get burned out. The gradual erosion of your empathy is probably inevitable. That’s not a reason to abandon the effort though. And I am certainly going to try for as long as I can.
No jokes this time. I feel far too serious right now.
I’ve got a pocket full of bullets
And a blueprint of the school
Hey Matt,
I liked this post a lot, and I think its a really important thing to address. Teaching in Canada has given me a slightly different perspective though. While I have also heard that teachers often become jaded to issues of violence and exclusion (and many other issues), I can honestly say that not all teachers become like this. In Toronto District (and likely elsewhere, but I am limited to Toronto for first hand knowledge) there is a huge focus on anti-bullying initiatives right now. I can’t really say how well these initiatives are working yet, but at the very least I think it shows that the administrators are putting effort into solving some of these problems.
Also, in regard to the bullying in Japanese schools, I also thought it wasn’t really an issue because I did see any of it while I was there. It turns out that isn’t really true at all, and there was actually a pretty violent situation that I didn’t hear about until well after the fact due to language barriers. So yeah, these problems exist everywhere but some teachers do care, and I like to think that the general attitude will get better rather than worse.
matt, just about everyone in our school was a loser, FYI. except me and you of course.