This post is part 4 of a series of stories recounting all the ups and downs of my ~6 year journey around the world to all seven continents and seven seas.
Following the 2014 summer vacation, I started teaching at the “special” school I was slightly forewarned about.
At no fault at all to my school’s staff or company in general, unfortunately, this contract was just a result of a culturally ineffective solution for students on the social fringes and little to no information regarding the demographics and purpose of the 90-minute classes I’d be asked to teach each week.
Walking into the class was like entering an abandoned building with neglected animals running wild.
Some students were sleeping, some chasing others, some yelling, some on their phones, one throwing a chair, and a few literally shaking from terrified anxiety.
I soon realized these students all had some sort of special needs.
If they were slightly different, they were put in this school.
Autistic, ADHD, anger and disciplinary issues— they were all here.
Together in the same room.
As I tried and failed to even get the kids to sit down, it was clear that no teaching or learning would be happening.
The more I tried, the worse it got.
The two Japanese teaching assistants had long given up and when I asked them for the names of certain kids they told me they had no idea.
30 minutes into “class” I threw all dignity and fucks out the window and focused on making the next 60 minutes pass as painlessly as possible.
Remembering I used to pretend to teach my silent, inanimate stuffed animals when I was a kid, I proceeded to treat this class the same way.
For the following hour, I taught into the air, saying target phrases no one would be learning and asking the class of two terrified students staring blankly back at me to repeat after me, all while a chaotically deafening circus continued to erupt around us, slowly eating away at my soul and will to live.
“Great job!” I exclaimed into the void, high-fiving myself and laughing at my loss of sanity, continuing on with my lesson to absolutely no one.
I dreaded every Tuesday, wishing to get hit by a car again on my way over.
I began seeing the class as a game; my mission: to survive.
After a couple of weeks I stopped even “pretend” teaching, and instead sat and talked to the anxiety-ridden kids for the entire class time.
Like cats, the more I ignored the circus ringleaders, the more interested the formerly aloof students became.
One by one over the course of the dumpster fire contract, they would slowly come to hang out for a few minutes or just stop by to say hi.
I took it as a win.
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