My pal Vincent mentioned to me that there is still the on-going debate about whether the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) Programme is still needed in Japan.
The complaints range from the fact that the kids don't seem to be getting any better at English, it's expensive to have your own AET (assistant English teacher) at a Board of Education, and that some of them aren't really worthy additions to the community.
As for point one - it's possible that the Japanese kids aren't getting any better at English - then again, we only have the Japanese school method of evaluating such claims. I don't believe that kids who are visited once a week every six or seven weeks (like what happened with me) actually makes the kids better at English.
I would have to have a supreme ego to believe that. Perhaps there are some JET AETs who get to teach the same students several times a week. In my three years in Japan, that never happened.
I saw a marked improvement in the adults I taught English to on a weekly basis - a job I did on the side with the blessing of the Ohtawara-shi Board of Education (OBOE). But along with teaching English, I was also paid (on the side) to do English conversation, which involved me talking to my adult students about current affairs so that they could practice their English.I would have done that in a bar for a beer or two, but if they wanted to pay me the equivalent of $50 a head - sure. I never set the price. I was always approached by individuals who were interested in practicing the English they knew and making it better.
Point 2 - expensive to have your own JET. Yes... I am sure the additional (at the time) ¥3.6 million yearly salary I pulled in was an expensive thing. Hell, I made more money than Japanese teachers who had been working for 20 years. That is a fact. A sad fact. In 1993 dollars, I made US $36,000 a year. That's not tremendous money. I would have made that as a first-year newspaper reporter with the Toronto Star - if they were hiring. They were not.
It really just means that Japan's teachers were (in 1993) woefully underpaid. I can't speak for 2013 teacher salaries.
So... relatively speaking, every JET participant did cost a school board a lot of money.
And that doesn't even talk about the then $10,000 a year a board could spend on the AET to make them comfortable. I got a specially-built bicycle built for a large Japanese or average-sized Canadian. I got an air-conditioner/heater for my apartment. I got new tatami put into my bedroom after I let my bedrolls sit too many weeks on the mats and had them start to go black with mold. I got a large queen-sized bed to assure that would never happen again. I also never again got burns on my knees from copulating on tatami mats.
I'm pretty sure the bed was used, though the mattress was new.
I also had subsidized housing - with no key money paid up front by myself. I was in the grandest apartment building in the city. The tallest building. It was a 3-bedroom suite, LDK (living room-ding room-kitchen), 2-balconies with a Western toilet and a shower. I lived in luxury compared to many other AETs. Luxury. I was spoiled. But... yes, I was an expensive deal for the OBOE. I also paid a higher rent relative to most AETs not living in Tokyo or Osaka - and they lived in small flats. So they got burned.
And... I was also the last JET applicant for the OBOE. They chose to get their next AET via a sister-city programme, as Ohtawara-shi was sistered up with St. Andrew's of Scotland. Ah... I can just picture all of those students rolling their 'rrrrrrrrrr's' with a Scottish burr. Maybe they went back onto JET. I don't know.
Did the OBOE get their money's worth? It depends on what they were hoping to get out of the JET Programme - and I have no idea what that was.
But point three - some JET AETs weren't worthy additions to the board of education or to the community in which they lived. That is true.
I wrote once about a JET who borrowed money from people - scammed them, sold all the apartment furniture - furnished by his BOE (board of education, and then flew home. I knew this bastard. I know this urban legend to be true.
I also personally knew many AETs who never left their apartment once work was over. Who never participated in any of the reindeer games. Why? Perhaps they wanted personal space. Perhaps they were afraid. Perhaps they thought that they were there to only teach English.
But that's not the value of an AET - any AET - regardless if they are on the JET Programme or not.
Being forced (forced is not the right word) to examine myself by my friend Vince who brought all of this 'down with JET, I realized I did quite a lot while in Japan. And while I wasn't quite pedal-to-the metal, as this may sound, I was quite the busy bee. Matthew, too.
He and I are are whom I will speak about because I know that he was as busy as me, and as entwined in the community - I won't speak about others because I don't know their levels of involvement. I have my suspicions, but, I could be wrong.
Me? I was a fixture in my city... hair whipping behind me when I sped my bicycle down the streets (or getting hit by cars - twice).
I was at all (ALL!) the events the city had - festivals, parades, did archery at the local kyudo club (I sucked and never wanted to do it, but when in Rome... I did it for three years and came to enjoy it and even have my own set here (in Toronto) in the basement, though I don't play anymore), was apart of the international society in my city and taught night school English to adults, went to their parties to chat... visited every place I could in Ohtawara - temples, shops, shrines, farms, parks, whatever... just got out by myself to familiarize myself with my home town (Yes, I had that mindset that it WAS my home), took the trains, got lost often, ate the food whenever I could, participated in every school club activity from music to sports to acting to English - even just to watch them play... offered insight on coaching for baseball, co-coached soccer teams, played clarinet with them, helped with speeches, theater arts.
I did homestays to see what life was like for the typical Japanese family, dated gaijin, and then when I had more confidence dated locals, got into watching Japanese baseball and sumo on TV because that's what the men did (I do love baseball and quickly got into sumo), and that ability to relate is SOOOO important to not feeling like an outsider.
I did ikebana (flower arranging) to fit in with the women, partook in tea ceremonies, bought 150-year-old artwork (ukiyo-e) because I liked it, though the average Japanese couldn't afford what I was purchasing (they had families and/or debt like we all do now), did photography around schools and the city sharing my pix with the locals when I saw them again, studied Japanese history, got drunk with locals and found out all about them (drinking is a great way of getting people to open up and have fun).
I also visited other towns and stayed at other gaijin places...
Geez... I did a lot, now that I think about it... more than I though before I started writing this piece.
I watched local TV, studied the language (not very successful!)... but really tried to understand just who the Japanese people were - as individuals and as a whole - you can't really lump a whole country as all having the same dreams or goals (but you can in a grand scale), traveled around the country as much as I could, bought local trinkets, did pretty much whatever I was asked to do, did radio and newspaper interviews and talked about how wonderful the country is - rather than the differences - because the Japanese like to hear that their country is nice... that means a great deal to them...
I set up aquariums for the mentally-challenged kids at a school, had my own aquarium at home, did numerous 5,000 piece puzzles (I did one of the universe - black with lots of white dots), built model kits, read lots, and even began writing, first with a daily diary and then doing some fiction and non-fiction
In fact... I wrote my first It's A Wonderful Rife article for the JET Tochigi newsletter, The Tatami Times, about a month after landing, and wrote at least one a month for three years. Became the publisher of the Tatami Times, quit when I felt under-appreciated; was asked by the Japanese fellows who ran JET and CLAIR to become the Tochigi-ken leader after the current one quit suddenly (I turned them down). Not only did I continue to supply Rife columns, I also began writing five or six other stories a month, began supplying different Rifes for another prefectural magazine or two, and then for a privately run newsletter for foreigners in Japan - and got paid for it!
Hell, Matthew and I even got paid to put on a cooking class - me... the guy who had no idea how to cook when he left Toronto for Japan... I got paid to teach the Japanese (women) how to cook chilli con carne - and Matthew for Ice Cream Cake.
Yeah, yeah - this is all from memory. And is me writing it all in a flurry of activity in essentially one sitting.
JET... I stopped being a dues-paying JET member after my second year because I didn't need their support after the first year....
So... is JET necessary for Japan?
JET has many positives - but it's an exchange.
WHO cares if Japan needs JET.
What seems to not be discussed is whether JETs (and other ALTs) need Japan. They do.
>That's the word people keep forgetting about when defining JET. Exchange.
So... screw all you people out there wondering if Japan needs JET. I know that folks like Matthew, Charlie and Kristine bust our ass on a near-daily basis. We wanted to fit in, and did all that was humanly possible to do so.
Speaking for Matthew and myself only, we did fit in. No, we weren't Japanese, but what did it matter? We fit in, and our city of Ohtawara accepted us. The people accepted us for who we were. We never were gaijin (after the first six months, perhaps) - we were Andoryu-sensi, and Massu-sensei. Teachers.
Our board of education offices got their money's worth from us, so did the students and the people of our city. And we got everything back that we put into it.
So... does Japan need JET or foreigners teaching English?
Yes... but it needs people who give as much as they take. You can't value what some people put into Japan by mere dollars and cents or yen. You can't even value it by how well they learned to speak English.
We affected people's lives in a good way. We talked about discrimination. Sexual inequality and much, much more. And we did something about it. We may not have changed Japan, but at least we put forth the idea that things could be different - and maybe some of those people we talked to helped affect change.
Hell, I know there were one or two junior high students of mine who said they wanted to learn to speak better English so they could communicate with me better - and if not me, then then other foreigners. They wanted to be teachers! What's wrong with helping people define who they are?
Yeah, JET and other English teachers play a necessary role in the development of people. Not just in changing Japan... but in helping people grow. And they did the same for us.
How do you measure that?
Cheers
Andrew Joseph
The complaints range from the fact that the kids don't seem to be getting any better at English, it's expensive to have your own AET (assistant English teacher) at a Board of Education, and that some of them aren't really worthy additions to the community.
As for point one - it's possible that the Japanese kids aren't getting any better at English - then again, we only have the Japanese school method of evaluating such claims. I don't believe that kids who are visited once a week every six or seven weeks (like what happened with me) actually makes the kids better at English.
I would have to have a supreme ego to believe that. Perhaps there are some JET AETs who get to teach the same students several times a week. In my three years in Japan, that never happened.
I saw a marked improvement in the adults I taught English to on a weekly basis - a job I did on the side with the blessing of the Ohtawara-shi Board of Education (OBOE). But along with teaching English, I was also paid (on the side) to do English conversation, which involved me talking to my adult students about current affairs so that they could practice their English.I would have done that in a bar for a beer or two, but if they wanted to pay me the equivalent of $50 a head - sure. I never set the price. I was always approached by individuals who were interested in practicing the English they knew and making it better.
Point 2 - expensive to have your own JET. Yes... I am sure the additional (at the time) ¥3.6 million yearly salary I pulled in was an expensive thing. Hell, I made more money than Japanese teachers who had been working for 20 years. That is a fact. A sad fact. In 1993 dollars, I made US $36,000 a year. That's not tremendous money. I would have made that as a first-year newspaper reporter with the Toronto Star - if they were hiring. They were not.
It really just means that Japan's teachers were (in 1993) woefully underpaid. I can't speak for 2013 teacher salaries.
So... relatively speaking, every JET participant did cost a school board a lot of money.
And that doesn't even talk about the then $10,000 a year a board could spend on the AET to make them comfortable. I got a specially-built bicycle built for a large Japanese or average-sized Canadian. I got an air-conditioner/heater for my apartment. I got new tatami put into my bedroom after I let my bedrolls sit too many weeks on the mats and had them start to go black with mold. I got a large queen-sized bed to assure that would never happen again. I also never again got burns on my knees from copulating on tatami mats.
I'm pretty sure the bed was used, though the mattress was new.
I also had subsidized housing - with no key money paid up front by myself. I was in the grandest apartment building in the city. The tallest building. It was a 3-bedroom suite, LDK (living room-ding room-kitchen), 2-balconies with a Western toilet and a shower. I lived in luxury compared to many other AETs. Luxury. I was spoiled. But... yes, I was an expensive deal for the OBOE. I also paid a higher rent relative to most AETs not living in Tokyo or Osaka - and they lived in small flats. So they got burned.
And... I was also the last JET applicant for the OBOE. They chose to get their next AET via a sister-city programme, as Ohtawara-shi was sistered up with St. Andrew's of Scotland. Ah... I can just picture all of those students rolling their 'rrrrrrrrrr's' with a Scottish burr. Maybe they went back onto JET. I don't know.
Did the OBOE get their money's worth? It depends on what they were hoping to get out of the JET Programme - and I have no idea what that was.
But point three - some JET AETs weren't worthy additions to the board of education or to the community in which they lived. That is true.
I wrote once about a JET who borrowed money from people - scammed them, sold all the apartment furniture - furnished by his BOE (board of education, and then flew home. I knew this bastard. I know this urban legend to be true.
I also personally knew many AETs who never left their apartment once work was over. Who never participated in any of the reindeer games. Why? Perhaps they wanted personal space. Perhaps they were afraid. Perhaps they thought that they were there to only teach English.
But that's not the value of an AET - any AET - regardless if they are on the JET Programme or not.
Being forced (forced is not the right word) to examine myself by my friend Vince who brought all of this 'down with JET, I realized I did quite a lot while in Japan. And while I wasn't quite pedal-to-the metal, as this may sound, I was quite the busy bee. Matthew, too.
He and I are are whom I will speak about because I know that he was as busy as me, and as entwined in the community - I won't speak about others because I don't know their levels of involvement. I have my suspicions, but, I could be wrong.
Me? I was a fixture in my city... hair whipping behind me when I sped my bicycle down the streets (or getting hit by cars - twice).
I was at all (ALL!) the events the city had - festivals, parades, did archery at the local kyudo club (I sucked and never wanted to do it, but when in Rome... I did it for three years and came to enjoy it and even have my own set here (in Toronto) in the basement, though I don't play anymore), was apart of the international society in my city and taught night school English to adults, went to their parties to chat... visited every place I could in Ohtawara - temples, shops, shrines, farms, parks, whatever... just got out by myself to familiarize myself with my home town (Yes, I had that mindset that it WAS my home), took the trains, got lost often, ate the food whenever I could, participated in every school club activity from music to sports to acting to English - even just to watch them play... offered insight on coaching for baseball, co-coached soccer teams, played clarinet with them, helped with speeches, theater arts.
I did homestays to see what life was like for the typical Japanese family, dated gaijin, and then when I had more confidence dated locals, got into watching Japanese baseball and sumo on TV because that's what the men did (I do love baseball and quickly got into sumo), and that ability to relate is SOOOO important to not feeling like an outsider.
I did ikebana (flower arranging) to fit in with the women, partook in tea ceremonies, bought 150-year-old artwork (ukiyo-e) because I liked it, though the average Japanese couldn't afford what I was purchasing (they had families and/or debt like we all do now), did photography around schools and the city sharing my pix with the locals when I saw them again, studied Japanese history, got drunk with locals and found out all about them (drinking is a great way of getting people to open up and have fun).
I also visited other towns and stayed at other gaijin places...
Geez... I did a lot, now that I think about it... more than I though before I started writing this piece.
I watched local TV, studied the language (not very successful!)... but really tried to understand just who the Japanese people were - as individuals and as a whole - you can't really lump a whole country as all having the same dreams or goals (but you can in a grand scale), traveled around the country as much as I could, bought local trinkets, did pretty much whatever I was asked to do, did radio and newspaper interviews and talked about how wonderful the country is - rather than the differences - because the Japanese like to hear that their country is nice... that means a great deal to them...
I set up aquariums for the mentally-challenged kids at a school, had my own aquarium at home, did numerous 5,000 piece puzzles (I did one of the universe - black with lots of white dots), built model kits, read lots, and even began writing, first with a daily diary and then doing some fiction and non-fiction
In fact... I wrote my first It's A Wonderful Rife article for the JET Tochigi newsletter, The Tatami Times, about a month after landing, and wrote at least one a month for three years. Became the publisher of the Tatami Times, quit when I felt under-appreciated; was asked by the Japanese fellows who ran JET and CLAIR to become the Tochigi-ken leader after the current one quit suddenly (I turned them down). Not only did I continue to supply Rife columns, I also began writing five or six other stories a month, began supplying different Rifes for another prefectural magazine or two, and then for a privately run newsletter for foreigners in Japan - and got paid for it!
Hell, Matthew and I even got paid to put on a cooking class - me... the guy who had no idea how to cook when he left Toronto for Japan... I got paid to teach the Japanese (women) how to cook chilli con carne - and Matthew for Ice Cream Cake.
Yeah, yeah - this is all from memory. And is me writing it all in a flurry of activity in essentially one sitting.
JET... I stopped being a dues-paying JET member after my second year because I didn't need their support after the first year....
So... is JET necessary for Japan?
JET has many positives - but it's an exchange.
WHO cares if Japan needs JET.
What seems to not be discussed is whether JETs (and other ALTs) need Japan. They do.
>That's the word people keep forgetting about when defining JET. Exchange.
So... screw all you people out there wondering if Japan needs JET. I know that folks like Matthew, Charlie and Kristine bust our ass on a near-daily basis. We wanted to fit in, and did all that was humanly possible to do so.
Speaking for Matthew and myself only, we did fit in. No, we weren't Japanese, but what did it matter? We fit in, and our city of Ohtawara accepted us. The people accepted us for who we were. We never were gaijin (after the first six months, perhaps) - we were Andoryu-sensi, and Massu-sensei. Teachers.
Our board of education offices got their money's worth from us, so did the students and the people of our city. And we got everything back that we put into it.
So... does Japan need JET or foreigners teaching English?
Yes... but it needs people who give as much as they take. You can't value what some people put into Japan by mere dollars and cents or yen. You can't even value it by how well they learned to speak English.
We affected people's lives in a good way. We talked about discrimination. Sexual inequality and much, much more. And we did something about it. We may not have changed Japan, but at least we put forth the idea that things could be different - and maybe some of those people we talked to helped affect change.
Hell, I know there were one or two junior high students of mine who said they wanted to learn to speak better English so they could communicate with me better - and if not me, then then other foreigners. They wanted to be teachers! What's wrong with helping people define who they are?
Yeah, JET and other English teachers play a necessary role in the development of people. Not just in changing Japan... but in helping people grow. And they did the same for us.
How do you measure that?
Cheers
Andrew Joseph
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