![[Table of Contents]](/icons/up.gif){kind=icon}
Some teachers had dreamed of being a teacher since elementary school, others just happened into the career, and still others carefully plotted their career entrance based on their calculations of the types of colleges they could enter, the stability of the job, or even health problems. In addition, several mentioned family influences and a few mentioned the influence of teachers, although both good and bad teachers were the source of a desire to become a teacher. Excerpts from some of the responses show both the idealistic and pragmatic reasons for teaching.
The teacher mentioned earlier who had been a successful juku teacher had made a lot of money and had great independence. He also stated that he had considered entering politics and felt he was well-known enough in the city to have won a local election. I asked why he wanted to become a regular school teacher, wondering if maybe it was because teaching is a more secure profession. He responded:
Teacher: That didn't really matter, and it wasn't because of money. It was, I guess, because as I said before, I wanted to do broadly-based education about science. And now, in fourth grade, we can do that. When it rains and things, we can use that text (the fifth-grade text he developed as a science supplement for teachers). And it is really interesting . . . . And of course, as for politics, if you don't put all your energy into that, you don't go forward. I decided not to go into basic research and I'm not particularly good at politics, so I decided to do education.
This teacher's route into elementary school teaching involved doing graduate-level science research, teaching part-time at a high school and in a juku, and attempting to raise funds for community education. He entered elementary teaching with considerable experience in teaching and in science. His decision was partially based upon idealism about the contributions a public school teacher can make. However, his education and abilities provided him with many options other than teaching.
His female colleague's experiences and reasons for entering teaching, however, were quite different. She rather self-deprecatingly told me, "Well, my major (in college) was kindergarten education. Yes, and without becoming a kindergarten teacher I came to elementary school, so, I don't have one, a major, for elementary school. So, I always feel embarrassed." This initial statement emphasizes how even though she has a 4-year college degree from a respected university, and she was respected as a teacher within her school, she still felt less qualified than many of her colleagues. She went on to say that her basic motivation was her love of children. She described her sister who is a clerical assistant in a large company and said that sometimes she envied the way her sister could take time off and travel, arrive home by 5:30 every day without work to finish, and call in sick when necessary. Even so, she still was glad she was a teacher, a profession in which she could use her creativity and be around children.
Another female elementary school teacher who majored in Japanese language (kokugo), mentioned her love of both literature and children. She immediately began talking about how a book she read as an elementary school student convinced her that she wanted to become a teacher. From that very early decision point she pursued her dream and became a teacher.
One of the elementary school teachers came from a family where both his mother and his father were junior high school teachers, so he knew about the demands on teachers. But he first told me, "After all, as a boy, I really rebelled against my father, so during junior high and high school I really didn't want to be a teacher." He made his decision when he was 18 and deciding on a college. Initially he wanted to become a junior high school teacher and have more time to pursue his major, Japanese history. He was initially assigned to an elementary school despite his expressed preference for junior high, and now he says he prefers elementary school. The work must have appeared to be sufficiently rewarding, and his parents must have felt it was a good career if they encouraged their son to follow in their tracks.
One elementary school teacher entered teaching after realizing his own privileged position when he passed the college entrance examinations to a teacher's college and a close friend did not:
In my diary from my second year of junior high school I wrote that that is what I wanted to do in my future (become a teacher). When I entered high school I had forgotten that and thought I would become a usual office worker but it just happened that the university I got into was that one (referring to the education university he attended). And my friend from high school had parents who were teachers, and from the beginning he had wanted to be a teacher. Once I took the exam and got in and my friend who wanted to get in failed, then I thought I had to enter and be serious.
An older high school teacher described a different set of circumstances based on his health and seeing higher education and teaching as less strenuous than other kinds of more manual work:
I went to (a national) university in arts and sciences and studied educational things. The reason I entered that, well, it was because my body wasn't very strong. And my home wasn't very well off, so I took the examination for Japan National Railways. And I did well. But as I began working I realized that it was no good because my body was so weak. And in order to make my body stronger, more than to become a teacher, that was my reason for entering college. But I didn't get better and realized that I would have to do something on my own so I entered a judo club and was knocked around like a toy. The good thing was that I did a job search and got a job teaching at a school and the school was on an island. I worked with the judo club and I've done that all along.
Within the sample of teachers as a whole, most men had also considered other careers while the women remembered considering only the profession of teaching. Teaching provides a stable job with a chance of advancement and relatively good hours, but some of the men chose it only after realizing they would not succeed in fields such as engineering or research science. A few, like the teacher quoted above, chose teaching after deciding they were not strong enough for more physically demanding jobs.
Most teachers mentioned some differences in what they expected a teaching career to involve and what they actually do at work. In general the biggest surprises were due to the heavy burden of duties other than actual teaching. For example, teachers are expected to be heavily involved in committee work within their schools and to attend various research groups and training sessions in and out of their schools. Most Japanese teachers are homeroom teachers which involves being a counselor to the children in that class and keeping all the records for those students — usually 40 to 45 students. In addition, teachers are expected to go on school trips and class excursions with students, take part in daily cleaning activities, supervise clubs after school hours, and eat lunch in their homeroom with students. Elementary school teachers are expected to visit the homes of students in their classrooms at least once a year, while junior high and high school teachers also visit homes whenever anything is amiss. While many teachers-to-be have some awareness of these demands, most expressed surprise over the amount of time the tasks take and particularly the amount of paperwork and bureaucratic work required.
Many teachers entered teaching from fairly sheltered, middle-class lives, and with good educations, and they were surprised by the experiences of their students. A typical response was given by a math teacher who described his first 4 years of work at a night high school before he was transferred to Naka Vocational High School:
It was a good experience I think. Those (students) who get in are a bit different you know. Their grades, that is one thing. And well, their personalities, things about rules. Somehow they really are the lower level. The families, ones that are broken or something and also fathers who only drink alcohol all the time and things. Those kinds of things, for the average person, are things you would hardly ever see. So I didn't know that kind of society at all. It seemed like a different place, you know. Like what you read in a book. Those kinds of families have knowledge of things you usually only read about in a newspaper. Of course everyone knows that night high schools exist, but almost no one knows anything about that sort of school. The society doesn't really see them. I feel as if I received an education there.
A junior high school teacher also commented on this exposure to a world many individuals would not normally see and drew a conclusion I heard from several teachers, "I realized that I came from a lucky family. I had a family and lots of preparation for studying, and was sent to college, and all my food was prepared for me."
Learning about the diversity within their own society seemed to be an essential part of being a teacher. This experience is a part of most teachers' lives because of the rotation system. A junior high school teacher described encountering students he had not anticipated meeting during his first assignment at a lower-track private high school:
Even when I was giving them guidance as a homeroom teacher, well, there would be times when I was a little bit strict, right? And then, they rebelled against me. What I still remember even now–I had given some guidance (shidou shite) during school and when I left (one of the students said), "I'm going to kill you." No matter how much you get one student to understand what you are saying there are times you can't communicate everything to the whole school, right? And when we were patrolling the school, you'd see students hiding and doing things and you knew if you said something to them there would be problems.
Most teachers agreed, however, that teaching was harder and more bureaucratic than they had expected.
There is a lot of that kind of work, much more than what I had expected. I thought I would be with children every day and talking with them about things about humans, and also while teaching them math, discussing those things, and teaching classes, and thought that would be all. But of course that isn't all, of course I am teaching children about life through math classes, but other than that, there are lots of other things to do. And that kind of thing takes quite a bit of time. (Midori teacher)
And teachers unanimously agreed that their work is difficult:
It's different, you know. It's harder than I expected. Yes, I had looked at it through rose-colored glasses (amaku miteimashita). (Shimogawa teacher)
It is rough (kibishii) you know. There are many kinds of students so you get many types of responses and that is difficult. It is much more difficult than I expected. If it were just teaching it would be OK, but there are many other things to do, too. I don't know if out in the world there are other jobs as rough, but I don't think so. (Midori teacher).
But, like many teachers in this sample, an elementary school teacher summed up the mixture of feelings she has about her work:
Before I just thought that I liked children. Well, of course, if I had hated children I wouldn't have become a teacher. At first there were lots of things I learned as I was working. It isn't just that children are cute, you know. There are times when I think that there can't be anything better than being a teacher. Of course there are things that I think, "well, this is my work so I have to do it," but of course it's work so that is natural.
Despite a willingness to complain about the difficulty of teaching, the long hours, and the bureaucratic tasks required on top of caring for students, these teachers expressed interest in their work and enjoyment in being with students. Most also compared their work to other jobs available and felt that their work as a teacher was a good choice. Even the one young female junior high teacher who said she may not continue as a teacher felt that the work was interesting, and challenging, and she felt privileged to interact with other teachers even while she felt she might not be up to the challenge.
A few high school teachers complained that there was no extra compensation for overtime work and work that was not explicitly required in their contracts. In particular, some math and science teachers reported that they felt underpaid and undervalued based on their sense that they could be making more money in private industry. One mentioned the lack of overtime pay but also described the flexibility of hours and the chance to do his own work at the school. Overall he seemed to believe that the positive features outweighed the negative aspects of teaching.
The principal at Meiji High School told me that there are also less dedicated and more problematic teachers in Japan.
We call them baggage (nimotsu). "Window gazers" (madogiwa). And recently, also due to emotional issues, there are quite a few who have problems, but it is difficult to do anything about those things quickly. If there are one or two teachers like that around it is really a problem you know. I guess all you can do is carry them along (kakaenagara ikazaru o enai). Even if you get them transferred to another place, well, they will still be that kind of person. And if you just bounce them back and forth like a ping-pong ball, they won't be helped at all.
In general teachers and administrators mentioned that although there were problematic teachers, there were at most one or two in a school. At Arata High I was told by three people that there had been two problematic teachers in the school until the previous year. However, these less effective teachers were clearly a minority and were usually dealt with, as the Meiji principal said, "by carrying them along." Teachers with skill and enthusiasm and a willingness to work harder than required seemed to shape the atmosphere at all the schools studied.
[Chapter 5 - Teachers and the Teaching Profession in Japan (Part 3 of 7)]