Ms. Green

Among the many new people I have met in Japan, Ms. Green is one of my best friends. Ms. Green is the pseudo main character of the set of English textbooks used in my middle school. She began her journey as a naïve English teacher at Wakaba Junior High school. Every day we hear about her life. I know that she plays the guitar, has a sister Lisa, a brother Bill, and speaks a sukoshi (little) amount of Japanese.

Today in my 7th grade class, the kids were, as usual, not listening to the lesson and drawing in their textbooks. This is pretty common. I’m not sure if the kids have to buy the books or if they are provided by the school, but they are allowed to write in them. Usually kids are just doodling, but some kids will draw their entire comic book storyline to supplement Ms. Green’s life in Japan. I caught two girls today giggling in the back of the classroom and looking at something they drew in their book. I walked behind them and saw the object of their laughter. And yes. They had drawn a full set of boobs on Ms. Green. Japanese junior high school girls tend to be pretty shy, so this surprised me and I almost giggled with them. It helps to be at the same maturity level as your students.

Another classic teaching in Japan moment happened soon after that class ended. I was walking back to the office, when I was bombarded by two students hitting me, yelling “pah-do! Pah-do! Pah-do!”. I soon figured out that they were saying “pardon” since they had learned it in the previous lesson. This is probably the closest they will ever come to using an English phrase correctly, so I had to compliment them.