Which is Worse?
Most of the time my classes go without any snags. There are few discipline problems for either the JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) or myself to deal with. However, one of my JTE’s is much more strict than the others. He insists that the female students wear their skirts at the proper length (they all roll them down before he enters the room), he makes sure that each and every student bows properly at the beginning of class, etc. Sometimes an issue occurs that I haven’t even noticed, when he starts scolding the student, very publicly and forcefully, it ends up making things rather uncomfortable for me and the other students.
A few weeks ago in our class he all of a sudden made me stop explaining the directions and he went over to one of the students. He made the student stand up and he started scolding him quite loudly. A minute or two passed and the student was allowed to sit down and the JTE came back to the front of the room and told me that I could continue.
Once I was done explaining the directions and the students started working, I asked him what had happened. And he told me that the student had been chewing gum during the lesson.
Sure, chewing gum is generally not allowed in schools. Sure, I can appreciate that the teacher would want him to stop. But, as he was scolding this one particular student I looked around my classroom and saw that at least two or three other students were sleeping (giving directions tends to be the most boring part of the lesson and students that really struggle with english have a hard time following, some of them just choose to sleep).
Given that several students were sleeping, I was sort of surprised by the level of outrage that the gum-chewer caused. To me, sleeping during class is much more disrespectful than chewing gum ever would be. At least the person chewing gum was engaged enough in the lesson that he was making eye contact with me and the JTE, he was raising his hand when I was asking the students to tell me whether or not they understood. He was, obviously, being an active member of the class.
When I asked a JTE about this later on I was informed that chewing gum was a conscious decision made on the part of the student in order to be disrespectful to the teacher. Sleeping, on the other hand, could not be helped. If a student is very tired or exhausted, it is impossible to fight the sleep. Therefore, he thought that chewing gum was much more disrespectful than sleeping in class.
So, is my response merely a westerners take on this phenomenon? What do you think? Which is more disrespectful, chewing gum or sleeping in class?
You know, given the specifics of the case I actually agree with your JTE on this one. At one of the kindergartens I teach at there were several days where they cancel class and have me tag along with one of the classes to some assembly or another where I am expected to sit quietly and pay attention to people talking on and on in a language I don’t understand. Given that this always happens on monday mornings I find I usually have to struggle to fight back sleep during these times, and I know I’ve failed in that struggle once or twice. I see this as embaressing on my part, but I don’t think I was being disrepsectful.
On the other hand, if I had been chewing gum or knitting at these events than my actions would be a concious decision, and therefore would be disrespectful to the teacher if I knew they were something the presenter was not ok with.
In my opinion chewing gum in class isn’t terribly disrespectful, but it is something that one can be found blameworthy for. Sleeping during a mandatory foriegn language class that you feel is far beyond your capacity to handle is something I have a harder time blaming on the students.