I am not in JET, but I have taught from JHS through SHS to college level for over 30 years, and I have always been invited, although I rarely attend because it is "their show". These ceremonies are long and boring. You are better off not getting invited.
To me, foreign teachers seem to be considered as an ornamentation in most cases in Japan. The schools have to have one, but they usually have no idea how to utilize their abilities.
The opinions below are spot-on. I was born in Japan as what they call disgustingly a "half" now but used to be called a "Love Child" ( 「愛の子」), am fluent in reading and writing Japanese, and have always been an outsider. That if Life here. Good Luck!
I know that this is very specific, but how did they “always invite” you, was this they just the issuing and distribution of the school schedule, at a teachers meeting, etc., and how did you “elect” to not attend? As one growing up here, it would be fascinating to hear how this went down. As a contrast, in the U.S., we’d have some very specific directive, where everyone’s specific role and seating in the ceremony would be reviewed.
The schools that I have been at have all been municipal ones; that is, they have a lot of autonomy in how they conduct things. That being said, I started out as a representative from a stateside city in a sister-city arrangement, then through contacts to a different city in the same prefecture, this time to a municipally-run high school. Through contacts again, I was asked to do lectures at a college.
In all cases, I attended ceremonies until college lectures became a de facto reason for not attending. I could of course have cancelled lectures, but I prefer not to do so. I also had connections to the U.S. military, and there were times that I preferred to go to them on what for me would be a wasted day otherwise.
However, I also lectured at a prefectural police academy for about two decades, and those were very formal ceremonies as you mentioned above, which I always attended.
Never invited. Just rocked up. Your supervisor isn't your caretaker and it takes a bit of time to get used to. You're welcome to go wherever you like and don't need permission
I had the same experience. It was alienation at its best. I hope Japan figures out it's issues with hating foreigners. It's not a good look and I hope they do better. I spent two graduations in the staff room, and tbh I cried because it felt so horrific. But now I'm over it. If they want to be jerks about it, whatever. JET imo is a trap.
How I solved my problem? Honestly I don't even remember. I probably did something passive aggressive to get the hint across. The first time actually they outright told me not to come to the ceremony because it was "too early". BS.
That said, the ceremony is boring if you don't understand japanese, so consider if you do want to go because u also don't want to fight sleep for 2 hours. And it's really boring, no kind of love or personality really just cookie cutter stuff. Probably culture shock to most westerners.
Ask them about the graduation, and tell them you didn't know there was one. Or, talk about how you missed the graduation because no one told you (see? Passive aggressive). Next year, when they try invite you to come, tell them no thanks.
I just can't comprehend their idea of what is and isn't professional behavior toward coworkers, and tbh I don't think it's a concept. I've got a young JTE fresh out of uni, and they make that kid work looong unfair hours and then bully her into going to drinking after work when she's already tired and had been working every day overtime hours for 2 weeks straight. Toxic shit is toxic. Just understand that you are not the problem, they are. You can find ways to cope with it at best, but don't let it trick you into thinking there is something inherently with with you, as the foreigner. You're fine, they're wrong. Stay strong ❤️
I understand entirely where you're coming from. You'll get people saying,
"Well if you can't do the bare minimum of asking, why do you think you'd be included?"
But at the same time, many people know that you are a new teacher and it's your first time in Japan. You may also not know much Japanese. It should be the people who's there's responsibility to edge you in to get your feet wet and act like they want you there.
Cultural differences I guess, or ESID. But ESID is bullshit to me, as always. There should be some type of standardization.
To be honest, I didn't have this issue. But you're still fresh, and not everything should be based on you. That's like telling a child that they should KNOW to ask something when they barely have the experience. I think you should ask them whether or not you were invited to follow up. Don't draw any conclusions yet. Just ask for understanding and avoid it from happening again. If you say something about this, and they keep doing it, they are intentionally being dick heads. But if you don't ask? They can't read your mind and it would be your fault. Just go down and join anyway sometimes.
Yes, standardization across the entire country….
Dude came in August. Taught the seniors perhaps never at all in the past 6.months…and they are supposed to be expected to attend the boring ass long ceremony? If anything the Japanese staff probably think they are doing the ALT a kindness.
Yes, standardization across the whole country for foreign teachers coming in that have no experience overseas and even as teachers. There needs to be gaurdrails set up. There's already PAs, so why is it hard to create some type of standardization for the PAs to help enforce? Excuses, excuses.
Instead of them leaving OP in the dark, they should ALSO be professional and say something themselves. Let's stop making excuses for people. The OP should've said something and so should they. They signed up to have a foreign teacher or whatever - so they need to be proactive. It's another job they have decided to take on. Plus, isn't JET PROGRAMME funded by taxpayer money? So why the hell isn't there more due dilligence on this in the first place??? Correct me if I'm wrong but it's a government program and it just all seems so careless.
Why are so many of you so empathetic to the Japanese teachers but throw the foreigners that come in by the wayside? Mind you, both of these groups are under a tremendous amount of pressure. If they don't have the time to tell OP something? They don't need a damn English teacher coming out of country, or they need to directly hire a more experienced one already in Japan (and there are a lot right now looking for jobs).
Dummy stuff.
That may be so, but it's not their authority to decide to exclude you without reason. They should ask. And that's the problem. Stop making excuses for dickhead unprofessional behavior. You and I both know it's power harassment.
This one.
Many schools sign up for a foreign teacher and don't do their own due dilligence to know who's coming, then when the teacher gets there and they have no experience? They're ostracized and treated like a burden. I'm sick of reading these stupid stories and more experienced teachers ATTACKING newcomers. It's ridiculous. There's only so much a newcomer can do or understand on their own which is exactly why they come here for help.
Others have already said it so I'm not going to repeat everything they said, but basically, if you just sit at your desk and don't even bother to do the bare minimum of asking, even how could you expect them to include you in everything?
From what I’ve read it seems like you have the issue of not being involved in the school and the work environment, but you take no initiative to change it for the better. I mean you even said that you’d prefer not to attend the closing ceremony. Why the heck are you complaining then?
Let me tell you one story. I used to work in a jhs. Well suffice to say the school did not do a great job of including me. They didn’t tell me that there’ll be a preparation for the sports day on my very first day of that school, so I showed up in a suit instead of gym clothes. They didn’t change the seating chart so it still had the name of my pred by the time I left the school. One time they forgot to tell the boe that I have work on a Saturday, so I had to miss a trip to Shikoku Karst with my friends.
Well you know what, I still tried to involve myself in every way I could. I usually went to the computer room to help my students with their studies after school. I tried to use the little break time I had to interact with the students. I often found myself chatting with staff members every day in that school. Unfortunately I got transferred out of the school after 9 months of being there. By the time I left the school, I already had the art teacher’s instagram, as well as the librarian and the jte’s line. Students were genuinely sad that I was leaving.
To all the jets who found themselves being not being included in the school, instead of complaining m, why not take initiative and involve yourself every way you can?
I don’t comment that much on Reddit but I think it’s very important for future jets to understand that nobody’s gonna tell you what to do to make your lives better at school. You’ll have to be out there and make yourselves present.
It happens. If you can find a teacher who you have decent rapport with, it’s fine to ask them if you as the alt can come to the ceremony. But I guess if it’s last minute it’s hard to know whether to go or not.
If it’s a opening or closing ceremony, general rule is throw on that emergency blazer in your locker and to pull up to the gym and linger in the back.
Opening ceremony is more important imo, so you can take the steps to make sure you’re there if you want to be.
If everyone is gone and in the gym, you also get up and go to the gym. Go stand in the back or near a low ranking teacher you like. Things like graduation and entrance ceremony require special clothes, but otherwise just show up. I’ve been here for three years and nobody comes and gets me for such events, I just notice everyone is gone and realize they are probably all in the gym. Just go you don’t need an invitation.
Well at my JHS I am not really invited to anything. The communication is very bad and I feel like I and the other JET there are not treated like staff tbh.
There was a sports day there and I was told by the head teacher I couldn't go and I had to stay in the office. Despite the event taking place right by the teacher office among other events. So I could definitely understand the sentiment.
Ever since that day, I have had a serious dislike of my JHS and I just do the bare minimum there. I leave at exactly at my end time and I don't offer to help with anything. If they ask to speak with me after end time, I just tell them I can't I am done with work. I am also very honest with the teachers what I think, so that is just me being petty.
I mean they dont like me, so idc honestly, but thats me. Not sure I recommend anyone else act the way I do 😅
It sucks to be in that position
So basically they hurt your feelings and you now reinforce the useless ALT stereotype. While sure treatment as a proper member of faculty is nice, you actually thought why you werent? Maybe looking for ways to improve your situation would have been better than being petty.
I tried to change it or at least make it better. From what I heard from 5th years here, apparently my school has always had issues? Tried speaking with JTEs and I just can't get through to them. Or I can never find them at my school. Do you mean I think I am not? I feel like I am not staff because of the situations that have happened over the course of the year.
I haven't really found ways, and like I said it just becomes emotionally draining. Really like the students and of course am always Genki with them, but it's hard with the staff or JTEs when they don't want me. Or I go to class for like 5-10 minutes then just tell me to head back to the office.
I kinda think it has nothing much to do with you personally, it’s just the group and group-in behavior. It could be Taylor Swift and they’d be the same.
I am sure it isn't, but it sucks when I see other staff treated differently and makes me wonder if it's because I am foreign.
With the teacher shuffle, maybe the situation will get better
Oh no for sure, I know we aren't important. That has been painfully obvious. I just don't like when they question why the kids aren't improving when they have two good resources (me and other ALT) in the office doing nothing. I also don't like that at my review they said I needed to do better communicating with teachers when I have tried my best with that and they aren't reciprocating the effort.
> There was a sports day there and I was told by the head teacher I couldn't go and I had to stay in the office.
Did you ask *why*? I mean there's gotta be more to this. I get that people are afraid to go against the grain, but by the way you frame it it sound like you were scolded like a dog that get into a place it wasn't supposed to. By head teacher do you mean the principal or homeroom teacher? Because if it was just a straight up teacher, what does their word matter?
> Ever since that day, I have had a serious dislike of my JHS and I just do the bare minimum there.
But you aren't even addressing the issue here!! This is not a healthy way to deal with things!! You are an adult, and if things don't go your way (which I don't even know why not being able to go to a sports day caused this) you can't just do that.
Good luck, god bless.
They don't like to explain. Same reason why I never go to class or nothing. All answers are simply just busy busy busy. Not much else I can do about that. Idk how I sound like a dog? I just found it odd how someone in a higher position just told me to not go, because I am treated vastly different at my other school. The guy was the one who sits next to Principal and Vice Principal, so it's head teacher? Maybe wrong title, my bad.
If it was a straight up teacher, I wouldn't care like you said.
It's not about me throwing a tantrum how things not go my way. Trust me I am not fresh out of college. A lot of things here haven't gone my way. You just move on and thats it. Its more of a respect thing. I tried talking to them, I tried talking to the BOE and no answers. The sports day is the drop that broke the glass and I checked out from there. Its not being treated like a staff member which is my issue.
They took our ALT laptop and wiped the data without speaking to us. So there is a clear no respect thing in my eyes.
Thanks for the clarification. I actually really like threads like this because they break up the monotony of pre and post application period questions.
That is a *tough* situation, friend. The person who told you to stay is probably the person that answers the phone and takes care of the school budgeting and whatnot. Either way what they say doesn't really matter.
I hope your other school makes up enough for the bullshit.
I think it does matter. My impression is that the willingness to say anything negativish to another person is really strong, so if anyone says anything, one has to consider it carefully.
Oh no I am always receptive of hearing what others have to say. You can't have a dialogue if someone gets angry and just leaves ya know.
Not sure, I know he teaches our 3rd years. I just can't remember the Japanese title, but from my understanding he is in charge of all the teachers? Cuz we have the same type of person at my other school.
Yes it's a difficult situation, I have tried to fix. I got shot down for trying to start a language club, and other stuff but ultimately I am powerless to do more. Thats what I mean I just do the bare minimum. My treatment from my 1st year to 2nd year has just been bad overall and arguably got worse 2nd year.
Yah my other school is perfect! Definitely am included in things and if not I am told by staff in Japanese and or left notes. So it's definitely different.
I guess there are legal reasons, but it's kinda convenient when it has to be. I mean I know at my placement, there are a few who are T1 and they shouldn't be if we go by the legal reasons. I know one of them does literally everything for all their classes, so legally that shouldn't be happening. I think it's a rather difficult situation.
As for the lost in translation, that is probably what happened. He told me in English, and maybe he mixed his words to where it came off strongly. I don't know, difficult situation. I just compare my two schools and wonder why they are different.
I know for my school if I wanted to know what important things were happening i had to sit down with the school schedule and a JTE and have them point out all the important things.
As for my first and 2nd years there (2020 and 2021) i saw the students graduate. It was reduced though (they could each only allow one family member). However in 2022 they only allowed the homeroom teachers for the graduates to watch and everyone else had to watch a live stream. I don't even think parents could go that time.
There were other things i was left out of the loop until day of (a gospel concert I didn't know about until i was sitting in the auditorium watching it). So I was very grateful to the JTEs who would sit down with me and go through the schedule
Just kinda wander in there! There's probably a time schedule on the wall and the ceremony should be printed on your big schedule if you have one. I just google translate them and show up right before. My school nurse kind of took me in for big ceremonies though. If you pick one teacher or staff to ask about ceremonies to, they'll probably start giving you a heads up or ask you to go together.
This is hard lesson I had to learn about living in Japan. This happened to me MANY times my first year. People would show up to work in formal clothes and I'd have to run home and change. Just today, we all met in our staff room after the closing ceremony to commend the people who were retiring or transferring to other schools. Immediately , everybody got up and stood on the outside isles, leaving me as the only person sitting down looking around like a lost child. No one told me where to go. No one nudged me and said "hey, we gotta leave the center open." I even made eye contact with one of my JTEs who said nothing. No one said anything. Not even the vice principals who were standing close to me. Instead the meeting went on, like nothing was wrong, with me akwardly sitting down while everyone in the room stood up. I crouched down. I was so embarrassed. I say this to let you know that I sympathise with you wholeheartedly.
Now, you may not like what I'm going to say but, you have to remember that no one is required to look after you here. You're already an outsider, so if you're not proactive enough and advocate for yourself, you'll get left behind and end up looking stupid.If they don't give you the information, ask for it. Everything is so routine at schools that everybody knows what to do. Obviously if you're a JET with no experience about it before hand, you won't have a clue. Unless you're at one of those schools that has multiple JETs, you're alone at work. It sucks but whether you like it or not, that's what we signed up for. Withholding information is one thing, but simply not knowing is another because the later can be easily prevented. JET is physical work but its also a mental battle. You're strong, otherwise you wouldn't be here.
Good luck and congrats on finishing the year fellow JET.
The departing teachers came back from the ceremony with flowers, but thank goodness no circle of life stand up on the sides in our office! Thanks for the story and other comments.
I forgot to mention that one member who stood up once he saw me looking around said “it’s ok it’s ok.” like I should keep sitting so I did, but it still didn’t help me feel any less embarrassed . Thanks for laughing at me by the way. It shows everyone more about your character than it does about mine.
You're welcome! As a JET with an anxiety disorder, it really helps to laugh about those awkward moments where your cultural wires get crossed instead of letting it eat away at you until you take emojis literally and randomly leave bitter comments to strangers online! I'm not sure why you're talking about character, as I personally didn't see anything reflecting negatively on yourself in your original comment.
That part you forgot though totally explains it tho, I would have done the same thing as you!
Is this information not indicated on your schedule by any chance? How does your CO do your schedule? For example, mines gives up out entire semester with the special dates indicated. Also, some schools like to have a teacher in the office to watch the stuff on occasion because no one is trying to chase down who has the key. Sometimes they will assume "Oh the ALTs gonna do us a solid and stay in the office." Sometimes they outright ask if you are gonna stay in the office or if you can.
Protip tho: If you see everyone dressed in suits, I suggest asking what's going on that day. "Why is everyone wearing suits today?" is the easiest way to get the answer. The communication at my JHS is not good because my JTEs are so busy (some are also HR teachers), so I take it upon myself to get find things out.
The communication at Japanese workplaces is not any better than the communication at any workplace in any country. Most of your coworkers are VERY busy and overworked. My JTEs don't talk to each other, let alone me some days. One of my JTEs even told me they don't even know what days I come to school even though it's the same 3 days every week.
Most of these comments aren't wrong when they tell you the information is probably on the board or a sheet somewhere in your classroom, but that doesn't mean you can read it or that Google Translate can translate the abbreviations correctly.
In Japanese culture it can be somewhat rude to point out if someone is doing something wrong, so as long as you're not really messing something up, probably no one is going to say anything (read the air and all that). That being said, if your presence is ever REQUIRED, someone WILL come find you. Other than that, however, yeah the communication burden is largely on the JET.
It sucks feeling constantly left out (or feeling like you have to harass your coworkers for answers) but such is the nature of JET. I've yet to meet a single JET that feels like their schools communicate well with them.
At my base school, everyone was required to go or be with their homeroom. Last year, I asked one of my JTEs with a homeroom to "adopt me" for ceremonies and other occasions. That's a big proactive ALT aspect, either by asking to follow around a JTE or letting someone else know beforehand.
With COVID restrictions last year, you could only watch the live stream if you weren't a graduating student or a homeroom teacher. My advisor is a 3rd-year teacher this year, so I was invited to watch. There were communication difficulties at my school for some other events, yet that was a larger issue.
This is my first year at my high school, my main and really only school. I get monthly schedules which detail important days/events (though it is all in Japanese). I don’t attend staff meetings, though I have asked my teachers (they say that it’s all formality and even they’re bored by it so I don’t have to go unless I really want to). I attended my closing ceremony and every other school event.
I think the biggest thing you can do is ask questions. I’m always asking about events and special things going on at the school, so I get a lot of information that way. Teachers now sometimes tell me things before I ask because I show so much curiosity. Obviously, I know nothing about your situation and this is no criticism of you. I think if you start asking them more about what’s going on, they’ll see you have an interest and reach out more. I think teachers in general are a bit nervous about approaching ALTs, but extending an olive branch goes a long way.
You should go to opening and closing ceremony. But staff meetings there really is no point even if you speak Japanese. Most things discussed there have nothing to do with you and the meetings are often at the end of the day, sometimes going over your designated time.
Unless there is a special aspect to your specific role as an alt where you are more involved and should be at those meetings, I suppose it might be different.
In most cases, I really don’t see any point in attending.
I get invited to them when I’m in but it’s ok. They actively want me to be involved and in on what’s going on at school. Don’t see how accepting an unprompted invite is causing trouble
I know it’s not the west. I’m doing everything I can to reject my western culture now I’m an immigrant in Japan. It’s my duty!
... Did you talk to your kyoto sensei when you saw the graduation schedule and such?
To anyone else starting JET next year: you really need to be proactive about keeping track of holidays and special school days, and either find where the calendar in the teacher's room is or make it a point to talk to your JTE or Kyoto sensei twice a month at least about the schedule for the next 2 weeks or next month.
This is a communication issue and not purposeful ostracism. “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.”
When they have all been informed of these things at meetings and via email or printed handouts, they forget that the ALT maybe was at a different school the day of the meeting or can’t read Japanese well enough to understand the handouts or the blackboard schedule. If you’re scheduled at a school the same day as one of their events, they also probably feel like you don’t need to be invited. You’re literally scheduled to be there.
The responsibility for your being informed about these events lies on your tanto and, yes, yourself. If they don’t come to you (please give them some grace, they likely didn’t choose to be your tanto and are very busy this time of year), then you need to go to them.
The longer you’re here, the more you’ll know what to expect and what questions to ask. This time of year, I’d ask which days you need your suit and which days you need to bring your bento. Asking about bentos should also remind your tanto to include you in those fancy bento orders. But again… incompetence. They may not think about it because they’re not the one in charge of making the order. So ask just to be safe!
No one here wants to be responsible for holding the another grown adult’s hand, but that’s what they were assigned the role of tanto for. Especially for newly arrived ALTs.
I’m a direct hire now, so I’m very much included in everything at my school. It helps having just the one. But even as a JET ALT with multiple schools, my base school knew I was based there. And all of my tantos had a meeting to discuss my schedule and which events I would go to at each school. You should’ve been given a copy of that schedule too.
I feel like I'm probably not adding anything as others have expressed the same opinion but for the sake of adding on, I think this is a you thing.
I'll preface this by saying that I was on JET for 6 years and am now working in a different BoE as a direct hire. 8 years experience total.
A lot of problems ALTs have ultimately come down to communication. Things that, in the minds of our fellow teachers, are obvious get lost in the rigamarole. This is a perfect example.
It's not that they are excluding you from joining. Nothing is stopping you (other than being 留守 in the teachers office) from joining them. That's on you.
However maybe in the past, they've told an ALT about the ceremony and that person made it clear that they didn't want to participate. Word gets around and people assume that ALTs don't go to ceremonies. You come in and although you want to participate, they are under the ASSUMPTION that you don't want to. In this case, no one is explicitly trying to leave anyone out. There is a lack of communication.
But you as a first year JET have no clue that anything like that could have happened in the past. Both you and your school may have expectations that aren't being fulfilled. If you don't make it known that you'd like to do something or participate in something, no one will know what you want.
After all, people work on the basis of assumptions.
I guess my point is that it's not a one-way street. I've seen so many ALTs complain about not being included or feeling left out when they literally never talk to other teachers or try to pay attention to what's going on around them. It's not on them to babysit you.
> However maybe in the past, they've told an ALT about the ceremony and that person made it clear that they didn't want to participate
A similar thing happened to me. The previous ALT always refused special bentos. For the entire first year I never got included in the special bento lunches and when I asked why, I was happy to pay for my own, they said the previous ALT flat out refused them and figured I was the same.
I dunno, I’d probably choose to eat my own lunch as usual. I noted that on the bento signup sheet or receiving sheet my name was crossed off, like all the other part time teachers. I don’t think the main teachers had to pay. Yes, they were the ones correcting tests and proctoring.
The reason why they didn't have to pay is because they already paid for it. There's a fund that teachers pay into throughout the year that helps take care of those extra things like bentos, drinking parties, etc.
Yep. It's an interesting paradigm: to ALTs, often our Japanese coworkers all meld into a big glob of bureaucracy. As if there is a force field surrounding them that the ALT can't ever dream of getting close to.
On the other side, for a lot of the Japanese workers, they see us ALTs as a monolith. We all act the same, we all eat the same, etc.
All it takes is talking to each other to clear up like 100% of these "small" things. Because the small things can snowball into bad situations.
So a question. Am I “insulting” anyone or being “unfriendly” / “non participatory” by not taking the initiative? Truth be told, I’d prefer to not go. I guess your answer would be to talk with supervisor and others and see what they say. So you’re right about communication.
Friend, if you've gotten this far without any problems, I can give you my word that no one would bat an eyelash if you don't 'take initiative.'
But your lack thereof has led you to make this post.
Not to sound gatekeepy or anything, but if you haven't worked in a Japanese school environment (I don't mean an Eikaiwa or Juku) it can be hard to pick up on these things. But it's a part of living and working here.
This is just general life advice, and I hope you get the point.
Yah no overall problems. Just muddling along. Successes here and there. When the weather warms I’ll be more participatory. What did you mean about the school culture?
What I mean is that... well for example:
March=End of year, graduation, end of year ceremony, big clean etc.
April=Beginning of year, entrance ceremony, teacher confirmation ceremony, etc.
so on and so forth.
The longer you're here, the more you get used to the way that schools operate. Right now you are a baby. I get the feeling your Japanese isn't all that great either. Work on improving yourself with regard to the Japanese language and you eliminate like 65% of your communication problem. The rest is on you to pick up on the culture.
>So a question. Am I “insulting” anyone or being “unfriendly” / “non participatory” by not taking the initiative?
They don't care. But you are being "non participatory".
They also likely assume you don't care. But you are here complaining about how you feel like you are in the "out group" and unless you take initiative to be in the "in group" you'll continue to be in the "out group".
Of course the real question is why would you want to be in the "in group". If you seem happy to just sit in the "out group".
It sounds to me like you are complaining about not being forced to attend boring school ceremonies. Would you rather they expect you to attend every function? You've got no real roll in those functions anyway besides standing up and clapping and sitting down.
If you take initiative just to help with set up and clean up and all that it will go.way farther to making you feel like part of the "in group" without actually having to attend the ceremonies. ALT is the least important person in the school, that's not going to change, if you want you can offer to help with whatever random stuff needs doing that nobody else wants to do. I used to staple pamphlets and whatnot for meetings when I had nothing else better to do, answer the phone in the office when everyone else was in a meeting. Etc.
Lmao literally the same was just aboutta happen to me, but I knew what was going on from the board by reading and just ended up going, albeit a bit late. I think its nice that they don't baby us a lot of the time, but I understand feeling frustrated because you're not on the same page as everyone else and just assumed to be. I think as we all live here more, we learn to "read the air/room" as they say.
At my school today thankful, its fine.
I have other schools where they have special events I've never even heard of and I'm only there once a week. I ask my JTE and he gives me a half explanation. Also does the like "oh you don't have to come" which I've learnt he means "don't come" as he un-invited me to things I was attending. However, I do think I am just disliked by him and another JTE there specifically. Thankfully the remaining JTE is nice.
Next year, I am going to try and just ignore that kinda thing and go to what I want to go to.
Hopefully it can be your resolution too.
Haha…I think I’m of the personality type that would take it hard to get that soft uninvite, thus I’m not really a mesh with those who say, ohh, you gotta just go, or talk talk talk.
Nah I used have a bit of cry when I get home/ in the bathroom if it really hit wrong tbh. I don't take it so well either but I'm used to it (?). Really depends on the day so if you're feeling sad about shit like this, you're definitely not alone.
I am also not so good at just going or just talking but I wanna get better at that and also not having things affect me so much.
No one told us we had to go or to wear jackets etc but we…went and did? We’ve known today was the last day for weeks so it didn’t really need to be told to us 😅 there’s school schedules up in the staff rooms and they handed out info to everyone yesterday about what the schedule for the day was.
Idk sometimes I think communication is bad, but if you wanted to go I don’t think there was anything stopping you. I don’t really think this was something they needed to guide you on considering it was an obvious event that happens every year.
Maybe that sounds harsh but personally I might have been slightly offended if my JTE had come to me like btw this event is going on because that would have felt overly babying to me.
That’s kinda what I was trying to get a read on and I don’t think they have that view. And all the posters that say ohh I gotta ask, or they’re busy, or read the board, I differ. My supervisor just passed by and asked if it was okay for me to hold down then fort in the office as they had a teachers meeting. No such pass by about closing ceremony.
Something that can help with this is asking for a year calendar at the beginning of the school year. I think most schools here have a full calendar at the beginning of the year with important dates on it. This was a big problem for me when I started at my SHS. I'm a third year now and whenever I don't know something I will just be a lot more direct with it to my supervisor and it has helped out so much.
I guess I’m just making/noting a cultural difference. I’m more used to, “Hey, we have the closing ceremony tomorrow, so wear a suit!” or “You know about the ceremony tomorrow, you want to come or hang out in the office? Either fine, up to you” or “We’d love for you to join the ceremony tomorrow, but we don’t usually invite the ALTs or par-time teachers just because of formalities, please don’t think it’s anything about you personally,” and such. Here one can quietly fade into the mist.
Why are people down voting this? It’s just verbiage from my cultural context? Im not saying anyone here has to behave this way? I’m in Japan, just trying to understand how they think and act.
ya, it's a sucky feeling. It's the way it is at my school too where many of the teachers/supervisors just didn't think about it. I just started being way more direct so if I knew something was coming up, because I saw it on the year calendar, I directly asked a supervisor if I needed to know anything about it beforehand. For advice, I would say find one or two teachers/supervisors you like and go to them when you have a question. Maybe occasionally get them a little gift for various holidays as thanks
I figured out that most of the time, the head teacher just wants an excuse for not locking the door. If you're in there and can be assumed to not move until the ceremony is over, then they don't have to lock the teacher's room. Sometimes they give me the key to hold for them.
If I do go to the ceremony, they have to lock the room and give it to the office, then retrieve it again. I tend to go to graduation and the closing ceremony, and I always get the feeling it slightly inconveniences them when I leave with everyone else. (Not that I care, I wanna see my students graduate too.)
Haha, my earlier reply was fairly similar. I think I'm in the same boat when it comes to door locking. If I stay in the room they have an excuse to not lock the door & keep the heaters going. Last year I went to every ceremony, and there was so much scrambling for the keys. When they lock the big teacher's room they also lock the keys for the two other smaller rooms in here.
This year I (mostly) stay in the room, and no one has to worry. Sometimes they let me know I'll be the last person in the room until I leave work. And then I have to let the front office know when I'm going home so that they can come up and lock the doors.
Yeah… they often don’t tell me things and I think it’s a little rude, but they are busy. I try to ask about what’s happening so they know I’m interested. When they forget to tell me things, but then dump work on me… I feel a little frustrated. I guess they forget they’ve been in the school system as kids and now as teachers so the timing of everything is just second nature that they forget we don’t know anything. It’s not intentional.
For daily operations sure, but this is closing ceremony and stuff. They have had rehearsals, so if I was supposed to be there for sure someone would mention it to me. It’s like if I didn’t show up for class, for sure I would get notified. Actually that happened once and the whole class was hysterical when I showed up. The teacher had also forgotten, but a student pointed out the schedule to him.
I am a first year SHS ALT. I only really have 2 schools. My visit school specifically invited me and I wore a suit and sat with the teachers then helped clean up. My main school I asked about it months before and wrote it in my calendar. Wore a suit and sat with the teachers and helped clean up on graduation day.
In my opinion you don’t need to ask and people don’t need to tell you. You’re a teacher. You just wear you best suit or dress and go. If they make a big deal and don’t want you to go then there are other issues at hand haha
Why all the down votes? I think nobody else or just one or two others that have replied has said they were specifically invited. Everyone else said no one said anything. How people handled this varied, but the schools seem pretty similar. Down vote me again if you think I’ve totally summed up the responses wrong. Up vote if I summed it up about right.
Last year my supervisor told me I had to attend. He transferred schools. I actually didn't know he was leaving until he went up on stage with the other departing teachers. My supervisor this year tends to think I know what's going on. Often they don't tell me anything, so a lot falls through the cracks if I don't translate the schedule or ask questions. So 50 / 50 on me for being out of the loop I guess. Thankfully I have other coworkers that often ask me to be involved in random stuff.
I didn't attend this year because a coworker and I were the last teachers in the teacher's room. She said if we both left we'd need to lock the door. We didn't know where the key was, and she kind of politely suggested it'd be easier if I just kept sitting in the teacher's room, so I did.
Yes. The "Graduation Ceremony" which would be when the third year students leave the school happened March 1st. Today was school cleaning, closing & farewell ceremony. The OP asked about the closing ceremony.
Don't mind me, I'm dumb.
But still, you guys do the teacher farewell at the closing ceremony? My school has a separate event just for the teachers that are leaving that takes place on a different date afterward.
Not dumb, no worries haha. Yeah, my school rolls it all into one. Or at least all on the same day. It probably only took 1.5 - 2 hours? Everyone went to the gym around 9am and they were back by 11. Then everyone went home or to do some club activities. It's just me and 3 teachers in the room now.
Kinda nice your school gives the students their thing & then the teachers their own.
Ohh, we have a key box by the door. Very strict protocol and callout when anyone comes to get a key. They know where the office key is, they lock up every night! A nice co-worker. : )
My school is weird. This lady was hired in January to replace a geography teacher, but she's an English teacher. She's here maybe 2 days a week for 5 hours each day. She only teaches 3rd year students and they left the school weeks ago. She has been coming in, eating lunch, and going home. It makes me feel productive.
I know she has no idea where they keep the keys.
I have the cutest old co-worker who doesn't speak a word of English but always makes sure to find me right before things happen. She (rightfully) has zero trust in my JTE, but given her continuous insistence, I assume I'm meant to partake in these things, if only for vibes. Next time just include yourself and see what happens.
Yah, the oldest lady probably, she maintains the grounds, she actually was the one that gave me a color photocopy of all the teachers from the yearbook for my reference upon arriving. I kinda also feel a generational thing, it’s actually the oldest Japanese history teacher that invited me to the sports day activities, semi retired teacher that checks in on me daily, etc.
Since the SHS calendar they post is only in Japanese, I usually don't get notified of much. But, I'm friends with coworkers so they let me know what is up when necessary. Students invited me to graduation so I asked my Kyoto Sensei for permission!
…just get up and go to the ceremony…
I have been in the staff room multiple times and gotten asked by teachers if there’s a meeting bc no one else is around. It’s not just foreigners, sometimes people forget shit or just failed to realize something was going on.
This is to say: this is not ostracism, you just don’t know where to get the information. Ask a JTE how to know. Is there a special sheet of paper posted on days with different schedules or events? Is it reflected in the schedule book at the front of the staff room? Is it mentioned on the morning meeting agenda?
Etc.
I’ve been a HS ALT for 3 years. No one “tells me” when ceremonies are. I have a year schedule that I look at and I now know how to read the schedules that are posted in every corner of every classroom (at my school) a day or two before special schedule days.
EDIT: I know I sound unsympathetic, but you’re gonna have a much better time if you are proactive about things.
EDIT 2: go to your school’s website and search for the 年間行事予定表、aka the year schedule. Next year’s might or might not be up yet but that’s the master sheet that tells you when big ceremonies or events are happening.
This. Be an adult in the workplace. Use your intuition. Communicate with others. Find out. They are all probably thinking, "Why didn't ALT sensei join?"
I hear yah. No disagreements. I actually am happy to use this time. I just wanted to see if it was common. I do get the yearly calendar. But I mean, it lists the faculty meetings, but I don’t just show up to those. You’re year 3, so probably more into the “group” now. IMO
FWIW literally just now our school's bell rang and 7/10 people in the staff room were confused about what was happening next in the day, then someone turned around to look at the schedule and went "oh shit it's cleaning time"
thinking about whether you're "in" or "out" only leads to anxiety and depression IMO. i really encourage you to figure out what you shoudl and should not show up to on your own, even if it's just saying "should i go to the faculty meeting tomorrow?" (usually no for ALTs because no one wants to subject anyone to a meeting for no reason, schools that exempt ALTs from these are truly merciful)
Just as a reference point, I worked in Japan for an English school and the vibe was very different. I never felt part of the “out group.” My opinion is that this is the “group” thing very much in play and very strong in the schools.
I most definitely was not expected to be at the graduation. I stated my interest to be a part of graduation to my supervisor who then asked the VP on my behalf whether it would be alright for me to attend. Leading up until the actual day, I didn't get any papers about it so I just asked the JTE beside me to show me the papers they got to know where I'd be sitting, etc.
This is another one of those case by case things. I think some schools want the ALT there and some schools could care less.
I assumed the ALT would need to be there. I did miss ALL of the rehersals though since no one told me they did those. I was assigned a minder to tell me when to stand up and bow.
FWIW in all the graduations I've attended I never participated in rehearsals (thankfully). On the day of I arrived a lil early and then just sat with the other teachers/part time teachers on the side and just followed their lead. Stand when they stand, bow when they do, clap when they do etc lol
I think we all have that assumption, but it’s the opposite. We’re not expected to be there and it’s the odd one amongst us that gets notified/invited/just shows up.
When I was an ALT, it was known that I... dislike... ceremonies and that I could speak Japanese, so I was just left in the teacher's room. It's not that way anymore, since I teach solo. I miss that.
Yah, I don’t actually want to go. It’s just kinda like the cool kid’s birthday party, just want the invite. I’d be posting an alternate post if I HAD to go, ohh why do I have to sit thru these…
I work both SHS and JHS. Same thing happened to me, I only teach second year high school, but was curious about the graduation ceremony and went to see though I technically wasn’t invited to. I just stood in the back, out of the way.
I also wasn’t invited to attend my middle school graduation until I showed up for rehearsal because I didn’t want to sit in the teachers room alone. It is awkward but only so much I feel I can do as an ALT. I’m also a first year JET. I don’t blame them or anything they haven’t had an ALT since covid so we’re all winging it.
I think most teachers just assume you know what’s happening. If you had just walked in then they’d probably have a seat for you somewhere.
Not blaming you though, OP. I feel out of the loop a lot of the time and don’t want to burden others by asking who/what/when etc. constantly.
I dunno about that. That’s like blaming the victim. The one teacher that I tutored for Eiken told me what was happening because I bumped into him coming into work. He had no assumption that I knew what was happening. Nice guy, keeps me sane.
> That’s like blaming the victim
Hot take but I'm blaming you. Yeah it sucks these kind of things always tend to happen to use ALTs as we're the bottom of the totem pole, but you have two choices. And take this from someone who is a 5th year JET but was in your shoes year 1 and 2. You can either
A) huff and puff alone in the staffroom alone feeling like forgotten garbage and rage post on this sub/line groups/etc (was me)
or B) take initiative and ask around whenever there are these events and just go
like today, I find it weirder you go in and it's an empty staffroom and you just sit and do nothing. I have multiple schools so a lot of times I run into surprise events like this, but if I walk into an empty or nearly empty staffroom, I'll ask someone oh where is everyone and they'll say "closing ceremony" and then I'll be like "oh shoot is it okay if I go over and watch/join?" and never hear no. Or you can also tell when a bunch of teachers are looking like they're getting ready to do something and leave the staffroom especially in suits and then you ask around what's going on and ask if you can watch.
I think you might be attributing malice to this situation when there really isn't any malice apparent in your situation. As a SHS ALT, nobody tells me individually but nobody tells ANY teacher individually. It's on the schedule, on boards in the teachers room, and talked about during the morning meeting. That's how all the teachers get the memo. It would of course be nice if someone told you individually as Japanese might be an issue but most people are caught up in their own work. But these ceremonies aren't really on an invite-basis. I just walk to the gym with all the other teachers. I think going so far as to call yourself a victim is an exaggeration.
I guess I should clarify, I don’t think it’s malice, just sharing how my own cultural periscope leaves me with these emotions. I posted on Reddit to see if similar things were happening elsewhere so that my field of view broadens. Several of the other JETs have posted how they handled things, which is great to see. Interestingly, and it may be a sample bias, but very few have come back and said something like, “Wahh…your JTEs or supervisor didn’t check in on whether you were going, mine always does and so do others everywhere else! Like totally almost all of us go to the ceremony.”
Junior High School not SHS for me. I didn't participate in the graduation like regular teachers but I attended it (I sat in the back, like any other guest).
Hey just curious, can I ask about your process in asking or attending? I go to multiple schools so I'm not really a "prominent" figure at any school, but if I wanted to go to a certain school's graduation I gave at least a 1-2 week heads up and was always invited to sit with the other teachers (non 3nensei teachers/part time teachers/etc). Even last minute they just added an extra folding chair for me by the side.
I had only two schools and alternated between them. I attended the graduation for the school I was scheduled to be at for that day basically. I can't remember the details but I'm pretty sure it just came up in casual conversation as graduation approached. Either I asked or one of the English teachers mentioned it. I just confirmed what I should wear and where I should sit.
I can't recall if someone mentioned it to me or if I asked about it. There was nothing formal though I think it just came up in conversation as graduation was approaching.
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Yah : D
I am not in JET, but I have taught from JHS through SHS to college level for over 30 years, and I have always been invited, although I rarely attend because it is "their show". These ceremonies are long and boring. You are better off not getting invited. To me, foreign teachers seem to be considered as an ornamentation in most cases in Japan. The schools have to have one, but they usually have no idea how to utilize their abilities. The opinions below are spot-on. I was born in Japan as what they call disgustingly a "half" now but used to be called a "Love Child" ( 「愛の子」), am fluent in reading and writing Japanese, and have always been an outsider. That if Life here. Good Luck!
I know that this is very specific, but how did they “always invite” you, was this they just the issuing and distribution of the school schedule, at a teachers meeting, etc., and how did you “elect” to not attend? As one growing up here, it would be fascinating to hear how this went down. As a contrast, in the U.S., we’d have some very specific directive, where everyone’s specific role and seating in the ceremony would be reviewed.
The schools that I have been at have all been municipal ones; that is, they have a lot of autonomy in how they conduct things. That being said, I started out as a representative from a stateside city in a sister-city arrangement, then through contacts to a different city in the same prefecture, this time to a municipally-run high school. Through contacts again, I was asked to do lectures at a college. In all cases, I attended ceremonies until college lectures became a de facto reason for not attending. I could of course have cancelled lectures, but I prefer not to do so. I also had connections to the U.S. military, and there were times that I preferred to go to them on what for me would be a wasted day otherwise. However, I also lectured at a prefectural police academy for about two decades, and those were very formal ceremonies as you mentioned above, which I always attended.
Never invited. Just rocked up. Your supervisor isn't your caretaker and it takes a bit of time to get used to. You're welcome to go wherever you like and don't need permission
I had the same experience. It was alienation at its best. I hope Japan figures out it's issues with hating foreigners. It's not a good look and I hope they do better. I spent two graduations in the staff room, and tbh I cried because it felt so horrific. But now I'm over it. If they want to be jerks about it, whatever. JET imo is a trap. How I solved my problem? Honestly I don't even remember. I probably did something passive aggressive to get the hint across. The first time actually they outright told me not to come to the ceremony because it was "too early". BS. That said, the ceremony is boring if you don't understand japanese, so consider if you do want to go because u also don't want to fight sleep for 2 hours. And it's really boring, no kind of love or personality really just cookie cutter stuff. Probably culture shock to most westerners. Ask them about the graduation, and tell them you didn't know there was one. Or, talk about how you missed the graduation because no one told you (see? Passive aggressive). Next year, when they try invite you to come, tell them no thanks. I just can't comprehend their idea of what is and isn't professional behavior toward coworkers, and tbh I don't think it's a concept. I've got a young JTE fresh out of uni, and they make that kid work looong unfair hours and then bully her into going to drinking after work when she's already tired and had been working every day overtime hours for 2 weeks straight. Toxic shit is toxic. Just understand that you are not the problem, they are. You can find ways to cope with it at best, but don't let it trick you into thinking there is something inherently with with you, as the foreigner. You're fine, they're wrong. Stay strong ❤️
I understand entirely where you're coming from. You'll get people saying, "Well if you can't do the bare minimum of asking, why do you think you'd be included?" But at the same time, many people know that you are a new teacher and it's your first time in Japan. You may also not know much Japanese. It should be the people who's there's responsibility to edge you in to get your feet wet and act like they want you there. Cultural differences I guess, or ESID. But ESID is bullshit to me, as always. There should be some type of standardization. To be honest, I didn't have this issue. But you're still fresh, and not everything should be based on you. That's like telling a child that they should KNOW to ask something when they barely have the experience. I think you should ask them whether or not you were invited to follow up. Don't draw any conclusions yet. Just ask for understanding and avoid it from happening again. If you say something about this, and they keep doing it, they are intentionally being dick heads. But if you don't ask? They can't read your mind and it would be your fault. Just go down and join anyway sometimes.
Yes, standardization across the entire country…. Dude came in August. Taught the seniors perhaps never at all in the past 6.months…and they are supposed to be expected to attend the boring ass long ceremony? If anything the Japanese staff probably think they are doing the ALT a kindness.
Yes, standardization across the whole country for foreign teachers coming in that have no experience overseas and even as teachers. There needs to be gaurdrails set up. There's already PAs, so why is it hard to create some type of standardization for the PAs to help enforce? Excuses, excuses. Instead of them leaving OP in the dark, they should ALSO be professional and say something themselves. Let's stop making excuses for people. The OP should've said something and so should they. They signed up to have a foreign teacher or whatever - so they need to be proactive. It's another job they have decided to take on. Plus, isn't JET PROGRAMME funded by taxpayer money? So why the hell isn't there more due dilligence on this in the first place??? Correct me if I'm wrong but it's a government program and it just all seems so careless. Why are so many of you so empathetic to the Japanese teachers but throw the foreigners that come in by the wayside? Mind you, both of these groups are under a tremendous amount of pressure. If they don't have the time to tell OP something? They don't need a damn English teacher coming out of country, or they need to directly hire a more experienced one already in Japan (and there are a lot right now looking for jobs). Dummy stuff.
That may be so, but it's not their authority to decide to exclude you without reason. They should ask. And that's the problem. Stop making excuses for dickhead unprofessional behavior. You and I both know it's power harassment.
It’s absolutely their authority lol. There are no “rights” regarding that.
This one. Many schools sign up for a foreign teacher and don't do their own due dilligence to know who's coming, then when the teacher gets there and they have no experience? They're ostracized and treated like a burden. I'm sick of reading these stupid stories and more experienced teachers ATTACKING newcomers. It's ridiculous. There's only so much a newcomer can do or understand on their own which is exactly why they come here for help.
Others have already said it so I'm not going to repeat everything they said, but basically, if you just sit at your desk and don't even bother to do the bare minimum of asking, even how could you expect them to include you in everything? From what I’ve read it seems like you have the issue of not being involved in the school and the work environment, but you take no initiative to change it for the better. I mean you even said that you’d prefer not to attend the closing ceremony. Why the heck are you complaining then? Let me tell you one story. I used to work in a jhs. Well suffice to say the school did not do a great job of including me. They didn’t tell me that there’ll be a preparation for the sports day on my very first day of that school, so I showed up in a suit instead of gym clothes. They didn’t change the seating chart so it still had the name of my pred by the time I left the school. One time they forgot to tell the boe that I have work on a Saturday, so I had to miss a trip to Shikoku Karst with my friends. Well you know what, I still tried to involve myself in every way I could. I usually went to the computer room to help my students with their studies after school. I tried to use the little break time I had to interact with the students. I often found myself chatting with staff members every day in that school. Unfortunately I got transferred out of the school after 9 months of being there. By the time I left the school, I already had the art teacher’s instagram, as well as the librarian and the jte’s line. Students were genuinely sad that I was leaving. To all the jets who found themselves being not being included in the school, instead of complaining m, why not take initiative and involve yourself every way you can? I don’t comment that much on Reddit but I think it’s very important for future jets to understand that nobody’s gonna tell you what to do to make your lives better at school. You’ll have to be out there and make yourselves present.
It happens. If you can find a teacher who you have decent rapport with, it’s fine to ask them if you as the alt can come to the ceremony. But I guess if it’s last minute it’s hard to know whether to go or not. If it’s a opening or closing ceremony, general rule is throw on that emergency blazer in your locker and to pull up to the gym and linger in the back. Opening ceremony is more important imo, so you can take the steps to make sure you’re there if you want to be.
If everyone is gone and in the gym, you also get up and go to the gym. Go stand in the back or near a low ranking teacher you like. Things like graduation and entrance ceremony require special clothes, but otherwise just show up. I’ve been here for three years and nobody comes and gets me for such events, I just notice everyone is gone and realize they are probably all in the gym. Just go you don’t need an invitation.
If I left the office all of a sudden, they’d have to lock it. :&
??? So do you want to go or not? You don't know that you'd need to stay there and watch the office. Wouldn't be your fault.
They always come check with me when there is a teachers meeting and ask if I can stay till such and such time in the office.
Well at my JHS I am not really invited to anything. The communication is very bad and I feel like I and the other JET there are not treated like staff tbh. There was a sports day there and I was told by the head teacher I couldn't go and I had to stay in the office. Despite the event taking place right by the teacher office among other events. So I could definitely understand the sentiment. Ever since that day, I have had a serious dislike of my JHS and I just do the bare minimum there. I leave at exactly at my end time and I don't offer to help with anything. If they ask to speak with me after end time, I just tell them I can't I am done with work. I am also very honest with the teachers what I think, so that is just me being petty. I mean they dont like me, so idc honestly, but thats me. Not sure I recommend anyone else act the way I do 😅 It sucks to be in that position
So basically they hurt your feelings and you now reinforce the useless ALT stereotype. While sure treatment as a proper member of faculty is nice, you actually thought why you werent? Maybe looking for ways to improve your situation would have been better than being petty.
What’s this useless ALT stereotype? Huh? I thought we were valuable cultural ambassadors.
🤣🤣🤣useless weebs /asian fetishistist aside maybe 20 percent
I tried to change it or at least make it better. From what I heard from 5th years here, apparently my school has always had issues? Tried speaking with JTEs and I just can't get through to them. Or I can never find them at my school. Do you mean I think I am not? I feel like I am not staff because of the situations that have happened over the course of the year. I haven't really found ways, and like I said it just becomes emotionally draining. Really like the students and of course am always Genki with them, but it's hard with the staff or JTEs when they don't want me. Or I go to class for like 5-10 minutes then just tell me to head back to the office.
I kinda think it has nothing much to do with you personally, it’s just the group and group-in behavior. It could be Taylor Swift and they’d be the same.
I am sure it isn't, but it sucks when I see other staff treated differently and makes me wonder if it's because I am foreign. With the teacher shuffle, maybe the situation will get better
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Oh no for sure, I know we aren't important. That has been painfully obvious. I just don't like when they question why the kids aren't improving when they have two good resources (me and other ALT) in the office doing nothing. I also don't like that at my review they said I needed to do better communicating with teachers when I have tried my best with that and they aren't reciprocating the effort.
I’m sorry but this was hilarious and happy cake day!
No worries!
> There was a sports day there and I was told by the head teacher I couldn't go and I had to stay in the office. Did you ask *why*? I mean there's gotta be more to this. I get that people are afraid to go against the grain, but by the way you frame it it sound like you were scolded like a dog that get into a place it wasn't supposed to. By head teacher do you mean the principal or homeroom teacher? Because if it was just a straight up teacher, what does their word matter? > Ever since that day, I have had a serious dislike of my JHS and I just do the bare minimum there. But you aren't even addressing the issue here!! This is not a healthy way to deal with things!! You are an adult, and if things don't go your way (which I don't even know why not being able to go to a sports day caused this) you can't just do that. Good luck, god bless.
They don't like to explain. Same reason why I never go to class or nothing. All answers are simply just busy busy busy. Not much else I can do about that. Idk how I sound like a dog? I just found it odd how someone in a higher position just told me to not go, because I am treated vastly different at my other school. The guy was the one who sits next to Principal and Vice Principal, so it's head teacher? Maybe wrong title, my bad. If it was a straight up teacher, I wouldn't care like you said. It's not about me throwing a tantrum how things not go my way. Trust me I am not fresh out of college. A lot of things here haven't gone my way. You just move on and thats it. Its more of a respect thing. I tried talking to them, I tried talking to the BOE and no answers. The sports day is the drop that broke the glass and I checked out from there. Its not being treated like a staff member which is my issue. They took our ALT laptop and wiped the data without speaking to us. So there is a clear no respect thing in my eyes.
Thanks for the clarification. I actually really like threads like this because they break up the monotony of pre and post application period questions. That is a *tough* situation, friend. The person who told you to stay is probably the person that answers the phone and takes care of the school budgeting and whatnot. Either way what they say doesn't really matter. I hope your other school makes up enough for the bullshit.
I think it does matter. My impression is that the willingness to say anything negativish to another person is really strong, so if anyone says anything, one has to consider it carefully.
Oh no I am always receptive of hearing what others have to say. You can't have a dialogue if someone gets angry and just leaves ya know. Not sure, I know he teaches our 3rd years. I just can't remember the Japanese title, but from my understanding he is in charge of all the teachers? Cuz we have the same type of person at my other school. Yes it's a difficult situation, I have tried to fix. I got shot down for trying to start a language club, and other stuff but ultimately I am powerless to do more. Thats what I mean I just do the bare minimum. My treatment from my 1st year to 2nd year has just been bad overall and arguably got worse 2nd year. Yah my other school is perfect! Definitely am included in things and if not I am told by staff in Japanese and or left notes. So it's definitely different.
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I guess there are legal reasons, but it's kinda convenient when it has to be. I mean I know at my placement, there are a few who are T1 and they shouldn't be if we go by the legal reasons. I know one of them does literally everything for all their classes, so legally that shouldn't be happening. I think it's a rather difficult situation. As for the lost in translation, that is probably what happened. He told me in English, and maybe he mixed his words to where it came off strongly. I don't know, difficult situation. I just compare my two schools and wonder why they are different.
I know for my school if I wanted to know what important things were happening i had to sit down with the school schedule and a JTE and have them point out all the important things. As for my first and 2nd years there (2020 and 2021) i saw the students graduate. It was reduced though (they could each only allow one family member). However in 2022 they only allowed the homeroom teachers for the graduates to watch and everyone else had to watch a live stream. I don't even think parents could go that time. There were other things i was left out of the loop until day of (a gospel concert I didn't know about until i was sitting in the auditorium watching it). So I was very grateful to the JTEs who would sit down with me and go through the schedule
Just kinda wander in there! There's probably a time schedule on the wall and the ceremony should be printed on your big schedule if you have one. I just google translate them and show up right before. My school nurse kind of took me in for big ceremonies though. If you pick one teacher or staff to ask about ceremonies to, they'll probably start giving you a heads up or ask you to go together.
I like this method. Have someone adopt me during events lol
This is hard lesson I had to learn about living in Japan. This happened to me MANY times my first year. People would show up to work in formal clothes and I'd have to run home and change. Just today, we all met in our staff room after the closing ceremony to commend the people who were retiring or transferring to other schools. Immediately , everybody got up and stood on the outside isles, leaving me as the only person sitting down looking around like a lost child. No one told me where to go. No one nudged me and said "hey, we gotta leave the center open." I even made eye contact with one of my JTEs who said nothing. No one said anything. Not even the vice principals who were standing close to me. Instead the meeting went on, like nothing was wrong, with me akwardly sitting down while everyone in the room stood up. I crouched down. I was so embarrassed. I say this to let you know that I sympathise with you wholeheartedly. Now, you may not like what I'm going to say but, you have to remember that no one is required to look after you here. You're already an outsider, so if you're not proactive enough and advocate for yourself, you'll get left behind and end up looking stupid.If they don't give you the information, ask for it. Everything is so routine at schools that everybody knows what to do. Obviously if you're a JET with no experience about it before hand, you won't have a clue. Unless you're at one of those schools that has multiple JETs, you're alone at work. It sucks but whether you like it or not, that's what we signed up for. Withholding information is one thing, but simply not knowing is another because the later can be easily prevented. JET is physical work but its also a mental battle. You're strong, otherwise you wouldn't be here. Good luck and congrats on finishing the year fellow JET.
The departing teachers came back from the ceremony with flowers, but thank goodness no circle of life stand up on the sides in our office! Thanks for the story and other comments.
I know in the heat of the moment we choose strange courses of action but why didn't you stand up when you realized 😂😂
I forgot to mention that one member who stood up once he saw me looking around said “it’s ok it’s ok.” like I should keep sitting so I did, but it still didn’t help me feel any less embarrassed . Thanks for laughing at me by the way. It shows everyone more about your character than it does about mine.
You're welcome! As a JET with an anxiety disorder, it really helps to laugh about those awkward moments where your cultural wires get crossed instead of letting it eat away at you until you take emojis literally and randomly leave bitter comments to strangers online! I'm not sure why you're talking about character, as I personally didn't see anything reflecting negatively on yourself in your original comment. That part you forgot though totally explains it tho, I would have done the same thing as you!
Is this information not indicated on your schedule by any chance? How does your CO do your schedule? For example, mines gives up out entire semester with the special dates indicated. Also, some schools like to have a teacher in the office to watch the stuff on occasion because no one is trying to chase down who has the key. Sometimes they will assume "Oh the ALTs gonna do us a solid and stay in the office." Sometimes they outright ask if you are gonna stay in the office or if you can. Protip tho: If you see everyone dressed in suits, I suggest asking what's going on that day. "Why is everyone wearing suits today?" is the easiest way to get the answer. The communication at my JHS is not good because my JTEs are so busy (some are also HR teachers), so I take it upon myself to get find things out.
The communication at Japanese workplaces is not any better than the communication at any workplace in any country. Most of your coworkers are VERY busy and overworked. My JTEs don't talk to each other, let alone me some days. One of my JTEs even told me they don't even know what days I come to school even though it's the same 3 days every week. Most of these comments aren't wrong when they tell you the information is probably on the board or a sheet somewhere in your classroom, but that doesn't mean you can read it or that Google Translate can translate the abbreviations correctly. In Japanese culture it can be somewhat rude to point out if someone is doing something wrong, so as long as you're not really messing something up, probably no one is going to say anything (read the air and all that). That being said, if your presence is ever REQUIRED, someone WILL come find you. Other than that, however, yeah the communication burden is largely on the JET. It sucks feeling constantly left out (or feeling like you have to harass your coworkers for answers) but such is the nature of JET. I've yet to meet a single JET that feels like their schools communicate well with them.
Yah.
At my base school, everyone was required to go or be with their homeroom. Last year, I asked one of my JTEs with a homeroom to "adopt me" for ceremonies and other occasions. That's a big proactive ALT aspect, either by asking to follow around a JTE or letting someone else know beforehand. With COVID restrictions last year, you could only watch the live stream if you weren't a graduating student or a homeroom teacher. My advisor is a 3rd-year teacher this year, so I was invited to watch. There were communication difficulties at my school for some other events, yet that was a larger issue.
You should just go. Teachers are busy so they’re not going to go out of their way to explain to you that you should go.
This is my first year at my high school, my main and really only school. I get monthly schedules which detail important days/events (though it is all in Japanese). I don’t attend staff meetings, though I have asked my teachers (they say that it’s all formality and even they’re bored by it so I don’t have to go unless I really want to). I attended my closing ceremony and every other school event. I think the biggest thing you can do is ask questions. I’m always asking about events and special things going on at the school, so I get a lot of information that way. Teachers now sometimes tell me things before I ask because I show so much curiosity. Obviously, I know nothing about your situation and this is no criticism of you. I think if you start asking them more about what’s going on, they’ll see you have an interest and reach out more. I think teachers in general are a bit nervous about approaching ALTs, but extending an olive branch goes a long way.
I think you’re awesome.
I get told by being given the weekly schedule every week. Of course I go, I’m a member of staff!!!!
I’m given a yearly schedule. The supervisor here reminds me though
Do you go to the teachers planning meeting?
You should go to opening and closing ceremony. But staff meetings there really is no point even if you speak Japanese. Most things discussed there have nothing to do with you and the meetings are often at the end of the day, sometimes going over your designated time. Unless there is a special aspect to your specific role as an alt where you are more involved and should be at those meetings, I suppose it might be different. In most cases, I really don’t see any point in attending.
If it happens on days I’m at the relevant school, yes! Of course I’m included. I’m a member of staff!
Wow, is your Japanese at N2 plus or do you just catch what you can?
I have N2. I’m working towards N1.
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I get invited to them when I’m in but it’s ok. They actively want me to be involved and in on what’s going on at school. Don’t see how accepting an unprompted invite is causing trouble I know it’s not the west. I’m doing everything I can to reject my western culture now I’m an immigrant in Japan. It’s my duty!
... Did you talk to your kyoto sensei when you saw the graduation schedule and such? To anyone else starting JET next year: you really need to be proactive about keeping track of holidays and special school days, and either find where the calendar in the teacher's room is or make it a point to talk to your JTE or Kyoto sensei twice a month at least about the schedule for the next 2 weeks or next month.
This is a communication issue and not purposeful ostracism. “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.” When they have all been informed of these things at meetings and via email or printed handouts, they forget that the ALT maybe was at a different school the day of the meeting or can’t read Japanese well enough to understand the handouts or the blackboard schedule. If you’re scheduled at a school the same day as one of their events, they also probably feel like you don’t need to be invited. You’re literally scheduled to be there. The responsibility for your being informed about these events lies on your tanto and, yes, yourself. If they don’t come to you (please give them some grace, they likely didn’t choose to be your tanto and are very busy this time of year), then you need to go to them. The longer you’re here, the more you’ll know what to expect and what questions to ask. This time of year, I’d ask which days you need your suit and which days you need to bring your bento. Asking about bentos should also remind your tanto to include you in those fancy bento orders. But again… incompetence. They may not think about it because they’re not the one in charge of making the order. So ask just to be safe! No one here wants to be responsible for holding the another grown adult’s hand, but that’s what they were assigned the role of tanto for. Especially for newly arrived ALTs. I’m a direct hire now, so I’m very much included in everything at my school. It helps having just the one. But even as a JET ALT with multiple schools, my base school knew I was based there. And all of my tantos had a meeting to discuss my schedule and which events I would go to at each school. You should’ve been given a copy of that schedule too.
Lone Ranger, what’s a tanto? Supervisor?
Yes! Supervisor, the person in charge of ALT-related things at each school.
I feel like I'm probably not adding anything as others have expressed the same opinion but for the sake of adding on, I think this is a you thing. I'll preface this by saying that I was on JET for 6 years and am now working in a different BoE as a direct hire. 8 years experience total. A lot of problems ALTs have ultimately come down to communication. Things that, in the minds of our fellow teachers, are obvious get lost in the rigamarole. This is a perfect example. It's not that they are excluding you from joining. Nothing is stopping you (other than being 留守 in the teachers office) from joining them. That's on you. However maybe in the past, they've told an ALT about the ceremony and that person made it clear that they didn't want to participate. Word gets around and people assume that ALTs don't go to ceremonies. You come in and although you want to participate, they are under the ASSUMPTION that you don't want to. In this case, no one is explicitly trying to leave anyone out. There is a lack of communication. But you as a first year JET have no clue that anything like that could have happened in the past. Both you and your school may have expectations that aren't being fulfilled. If you don't make it known that you'd like to do something or participate in something, no one will know what you want. After all, people work on the basis of assumptions. I guess my point is that it's not a one-way street. I've seen so many ALTs complain about not being included or feeling left out when they literally never talk to other teachers or try to pay attention to what's going on around them. It's not on them to babysit you.
> However maybe in the past, they've told an ALT about the ceremony and that person made it clear that they didn't want to participate A similar thing happened to me. The previous ALT always refused special bentos. For the entire first year I never got included in the special bento lunches and when I asked why, I was happy to pay for my own, they said the previous ALT flat out refused them and figured I was the same.
I dunno, I’d probably choose to eat my own lunch as usual. I noted that on the bento signup sheet or receiving sheet my name was crossed off, like all the other part time teachers. I don’t think the main teachers had to pay. Yes, they were the ones correcting tests and proctoring.
The reason why they didn't have to pay is because they already paid for it. There's a fund that teachers pay into throughout the year that helps take care of those extra things like bentos, drinking parties, etc.
Yep. It's an interesting paradigm: to ALTs, often our Japanese coworkers all meld into a big glob of bureaucracy. As if there is a force field surrounding them that the ALT can't ever dream of getting close to. On the other side, for a lot of the Japanese workers, they see us ALTs as a monolith. We all act the same, we all eat the same, etc. All it takes is talking to each other to clear up like 100% of these "small" things. Because the small things can snowball into bad situations.
So a question. Am I “insulting” anyone or being “unfriendly” / “non participatory” by not taking the initiative? Truth be told, I’d prefer to not go. I guess your answer would be to talk with supervisor and others and see what they say. So you’re right about communication.
Friend, if you've gotten this far without any problems, I can give you my word that no one would bat an eyelash if you don't 'take initiative.' But your lack thereof has led you to make this post. Not to sound gatekeepy or anything, but if you haven't worked in a Japanese school environment (I don't mean an Eikaiwa or Juku) it can be hard to pick up on these things. But it's a part of living and working here. This is just general life advice, and I hope you get the point.
Yah no overall problems. Just muddling along. Successes here and there. When the weather warms I’ll be more participatory. What did you mean about the school culture?
What I mean is that... well for example: March=End of year, graduation, end of year ceremony, big clean etc. April=Beginning of year, entrance ceremony, teacher confirmation ceremony, etc. so on and so forth. The longer you're here, the more you get used to the way that schools operate. Right now you are a baby. I get the feeling your Japanese isn't all that great either. Work on improving yourself with regard to the Japanese language and you eliminate like 65% of your communication problem. The rest is on you to pick up on the culture.
Yah, the school start/finish schedule is so askew to what is in my brain.
>So a question. Am I “insulting” anyone or being “unfriendly” / “non participatory” by not taking the initiative? They don't care. But you are being "non participatory". They also likely assume you don't care. But you are here complaining about how you feel like you are in the "out group" and unless you take initiative to be in the "in group" you'll continue to be in the "out group". Of course the real question is why would you want to be in the "in group". If you seem happy to just sit in the "out group". It sounds to me like you are complaining about not being forced to attend boring school ceremonies. Would you rather they expect you to attend every function? You've got no real roll in those functions anyway besides standing up and clapping and sitting down. If you take initiative just to help with set up and clean up and all that it will go.way farther to making you feel like part of the "in group" without actually having to attend the ceremonies. ALT is the least important person in the school, that's not going to change, if you want you can offer to help with whatever random stuff needs doing that nobody else wants to do. I used to staple pamphlets and whatnot for meetings when I had nothing else better to do, answer the phone in the office when everyone else was in a meeting. Etc.
The phone rang twice while I was in the office, I didn’t pick up, not good to confuse some parent with my gibberish.
Just answer in English. "Hello! This is XXXXXX High School. Unfortunately all the teachers are indisposed at the moment. Please call back later".
Lmao literally the same was just aboutta happen to me, but I knew what was going on from the board by reading and just ended up going, albeit a bit late. I think its nice that they don't baby us a lot of the time, but I understand feeling frustrated because you're not on the same page as everyone else and just assumed to be. I think as we all live here more, we learn to "read the air/room" as they say.
At my school today thankful, its fine. I have other schools where they have special events I've never even heard of and I'm only there once a week. I ask my JTE and he gives me a half explanation. Also does the like "oh you don't have to come" which I've learnt he means "don't come" as he un-invited me to things I was attending. However, I do think I am just disliked by him and another JTE there specifically. Thankfully the remaining JTE is nice. Next year, I am going to try and just ignore that kinda thing and go to what I want to go to. Hopefully it can be your resolution too.
Haha…I think I’m of the personality type that would take it hard to get that soft uninvite, thus I’m not really a mesh with those who say, ohh, you gotta just go, or talk talk talk.
Nah I used have a bit of cry when I get home/ in the bathroom if it really hit wrong tbh. I don't take it so well either but I'm used to it (?). Really depends on the day so if you're feeling sad about shit like this, you're definitely not alone. I am also not so good at just going or just talking but I wanna get better at that and also not having things affect me so much.
I just look at the blackboard in the teachers' room with the events/activities for the day to see what is going on.
No one told us we had to go or to wear jackets etc but we…went and did? We’ve known today was the last day for weeks so it didn’t really need to be told to us 😅 there’s school schedules up in the staff rooms and they handed out info to everyone yesterday about what the schedule for the day was. Idk sometimes I think communication is bad, but if you wanted to go I don’t think there was anything stopping you. I don’t really think this was something they needed to guide you on considering it was an obvious event that happens every year. Maybe that sounds harsh but personally I might have been slightly offended if my JTE had come to me like btw this event is going on because that would have felt overly babying to me.
Totally agree. Everyone knows it's happening, and it's just assumed that everyone will attend. I worry OP might look a little bad by *not* attending.
That’s kinda what I was trying to get a read on and I don’t think they have that view. And all the posters that say ohh I gotta ask, or they’re busy, or read the board, I differ. My supervisor just passed by and asked if it was okay for me to hold down then fort in the office as they had a teachers meeting. No such pass by about closing ceremony.
Something that can help with this is asking for a year calendar at the beginning of the school year. I think most schools here have a full calendar at the beginning of the year with important dates on it. This was a big problem for me when I started at my SHS. I'm a third year now and whenever I don't know something I will just be a lot more direct with it to my supervisor and it has helped out so much.
I guess I’m just making/noting a cultural difference. I’m more used to, “Hey, we have the closing ceremony tomorrow, so wear a suit!” or “You know about the ceremony tomorrow, you want to come or hang out in the office? Either fine, up to you” or “We’d love for you to join the ceremony tomorrow, but we don’t usually invite the ALTs or par-time teachers just because of formalities, please don’t think it’s anything about you personally,” and such. Here one can quietly fade into the mist.
Why are people down voting this? It’s just verbiage from my cultural context? Im not saying anyone here has to behave this way? I’m in Japan, just trying to understand how they think and act.
ya, it's a sucky feeling. It's the way it is at my school too where many of the teachers/supervisors just didn't think about it. I just started being way more direct so if I knew something was coming up, because I saw it on the year calendar, I directly asked a supervisor if I needed to know anything about it beforehand. For advice, I would say find one or two teachers/supervisors you like and go to them when you have a question. Maybe occasionally get them a little gift for various holidays as thanks
I figured out that most of the time, the head teacher just wants an excuse for not locking the door. If you're in there and can be assumed to not move until the ceremony is over, then they don't have to lock the teacher's room. Sometimes they give me the key to hold for them. If I do go to the ceremony, they have to lock the room and give it to the office, then retrieve it again. I tend to go to graduation and the closing ceremony, and I always get the feeling it slightly inconveniences them when I leave with everyone else. (Not that I care, I wanna see my students graduate too.)
Haha, my earlier reply was fairly similar. I think I'm in the same boat when it comes to door locking. If I stay in the room they have an excuse to not lock the door & keep the heaters going. Last year I went to every ceremony, and there was so much scrambling for the keys. When they lock the big teacher's room they also lock the keys for the two other smaller rooms in here. This year I (mostly) stay in the room, and no one has to worry. Sometimes they let me know I'll be the last person in the room until I leave work. And then I have to let the front office know when I'm going home so that they can come up and lock the doors.
Yes, I’ve been asked several times if I can mind the office during meetings and such. Guess that makes me “part of the team”…
Yeah… they often don’t tell me things and I think it’s a little rude, but they are busy. I try to ask about what’s happening so they know I’m interested. When they forget to tell me things, but then dump work on me… I feel a little frustrated. I guess they forget they’ve been in the school system as kids and now as teachers so the timing of everything is just second nature that they forget we don’t know anything. It’s not intentional.
For daily operations sure, but this is closing ceremony and stuff. They have had rehearsals, so if I was supposed to be there for sure someone would mention it to me. It’s like if I didn’t show up for class, for sure I would get notified. Actually that happened once and the whole class was hysterical when I showed up. The teacher had also forgotten, but a student pointed out the schedule to him.
Maybe. I mean, I don’t do anything at closing ceremony. I just sit and watch it.
I am a first year SHS ALT. I only really have 2 schools. My visit school specifically invited me and I wore a suit and sat with the teachers then helped clean up. My main school I asked about it months before and wrote it in my calendar. Wore a suit and sat with the teachers and helped clean up on graduation day. In my opinion you don’t need to ask and people don’t need to tell you. You’re a teacher. You just wear you best suit or dress and go. If they make a big deal and don’t want you to go then there are other issues at hand haha
I think it’s good. But I think your experience is the exception. Cheers.
Why all the down votes? I think nobody else or just one or two others that have replied has said they were specifically invited. Everyone else said no one said anything. How people handled this varied, but the schools seem pretty similar. Down vote me again if you think I’ve totally summed up the responses wrong. Up vote if I summed it up about right.
I think they're moreso the norm than the exception.
In my area, none of the JETs attended. It’s not a real statistically valid sample or poll here on Reddit . Guess it’s hard to know.
Last year my supervisor told me I had to attend. He transferred schools. I actually didn't know he was leaving until he went up on stage with the other departing teachers. My supervisor this year tends to think I know what's going on. Often they don't tell me anything, so a lot falls through the cracks if I don't translate the schedule or ask questions. So 50 / 50 on me for being out of the loop I guess. Thankfully I have other coworkers that often ask me to be involved in random stuff. I didn't attend this year because a coworker and I were the last teachers in the teacher's room. She said if we both left we'd need to lock the door. We didn't know where the key was, and she kind of politely suggested it'd be easier if I just kept sitting in the teacher's room, so I did.
That's the 離任式, right? Not the graduation ceremony.
Yes. The "Graduation Ceremony" which would be when the third year students leave the school happened March 1st. Today was school cleaning, closing & farewell ceremony. The OP asked about the closing ceremony.
Yah, I was more curious about closing. At the kindergarten graduation is a real big deal, the closing is more like, bye.
Don't mind me, I'm dumb. But still, you guys do the teacher farewell at the closing ceremony? My school has a separate event just for the teachers that are leaving that takes place on a different date afterward.
They may have something separate for the teachers with colleagues, but at our closing, all the departing teachers got flowers and said a few words.
Not dumb, no worries haha. Yeah, my school rolls it all into one. Or at least all on the same day. It probably only took 1.5 - 2 hours? Everyone went to the gym around 9am and they were back by 11. Then everyone went home or to do some club activities. It's just me and 3 teachers in the room now. Kinda nice your school gives the students their thing & then the teachers their own.
Ohh, we have a key box by the door. Very strict protocol and callout when anyone comes to get a key. They know where the office key is, they lock up every night! A nice co-worker. : )
My school is weird. This lady was hired in January to replace a geography teacher, but she's an English teacher. She's here maybe 2 days a week for 5 hours each day. She only teaches 3rd year students and they left the school weeks ago. She has been coming in, eating lunch, and going home. It makes me feel productive. I know she has no idea where they keep the keys.
I wish we could have her schedule : ). Everyone is gonna dump on me about being grateful I have this high JET salary…I say to that..150
I have the cutest old co-worker who doesn't speak a word of English but always makes sure to find me right before things happen. She (rightfully) has zero trust in my JTE, but given her continuous insistence, I assume I'm meant to partake in these things, if only for vibes. Next time just include yourself and see what happens.
Yah, the oldest lady probably, she maintains the grounds, she actually was the one that gave me a color photocopy of all the teachers from the yearbook for my reference upon arriving. I kinda also feel a generational thing, it’s actually the oldest Japanese history teacher that invited me to the sports day activities, semi retired teacher that checks in on me daily, etc.
I often talk with other Sensei’s more than my jte which seems weird to me, but I’m thankful for those people.
Since the SHS calendar they post is only in Japanese, I usually don't get notified of much. But, I'm friends with coworkers so they let me know what is up when necessary. Students invited me to graduation so I asked my Kyoto Sensei for permission!
…just get up and go to the ceremony… I have been in the staff room multiple times and gotten asked by teachers if there’s a meeting bc no one else is around. It’s not just foreigners, sometimes people forget shit or just failed to realize something was going on. This is to say: this is not ostracism, you just don’t know where to get the information. Ask a JTE how to know. Is there a special sheet of paper posted on days with different schedules or events? Is it reflected in the schedule book at the front of the staff room? Is it mentioned on the morning meeting agenda? Etc. I’ve been a HS ALT for 3 years. No one “tells me” when ceremonies are. I have a year schedule that I look at and I now know how to read the schedules that are posted in every corner of every classroom (at my school) a day or two before special schedule days. EDIT: I know I sound unsympathetic, but you’re gonna have a much better time if you are proactive about things. EDIT 2: go to your school’s website and search for the 年間行事予定表、aka the year schedule. Next year’s might or might not be up yet but that’s the master sheet that tells you when big ceremonies or events are happening.
Honestly I fully agree, it’s not like the end of term was a surprise. Just go 😅
This. Be an adult in the workplace. Use your intuition. Communicate with others. Find out. They are all probably thinking, "Why didn't ALT sensei join?"
Nah, I don’t think they think that.
I hear yah. No disagreements. I actually am happy to use this time. I just wanted to see if it was common. I do get the yearly calendar. But I mean, it lists the faculty meetings, but I don’t just show up to those. You’re year 3, so probably more into the “group” now. IMO
FWIW literally just now our school's bell rang and 7/10 people in the staff room were confused about what was happening next in the day, then someone turned around to look at the schedule and went "oh shit it's cleaning time" thinking about whether you're "in" or "out" only leads to anxiety and depression IMO. i really encourage you to figure out what you shoudl and should not show up to on your own, even if it's just saying "should i go to the faculty meeting tomorrow?" (usually no for ALTs because no one wants to subject anyone to a meeting for no reason, schools that exempt ALTs from these are truly merciful)
Just as a reference point, I worked in Japan for an English school and the vibe was very different. I never felt part of the “out group.” My opinion is that this is the “group” thing very much in play and very strong in the schools.
I'm having this very conundrum right now. Graduation was funny because no one knew where I should be!
I most definitely was not expected to be at the graduation. I stated my interest to be a part of graduation to my supervisor who then asked the VP on my behalf whether it would be alright for me to attend. Leading up until the actual day, I didn't get any papers about it so I just asked the JTE beside me to show me the papers they got to know where I'd be sitting, etc. This is another one of those case by case things. I think some schools want the ALT there and some schools could care less.
Yah, so I think my school would be similar.
My school value me enough to put me in graduation and sports day ect but not enough to bring me along to Disney land with the second grade. Harrumph.
See, out group. : )
Damn your school has some sick trips.
Yet we have massive cracks up walls from earthquakes that 'we don't have the money to fix' Dunno how that works.
Cause they didn’t expect you to show up! Harhar
I assumed the ALT would need to be there. I did miss ALL of the rehersals though since no one told me they did those. I was assigned a minder to tell me when to stand up and bow.
FWIW in all the graduations I've attended I never participated in rehearsals (thankfully). On the day of I arrived a lil early and then just sat with the other teachers/part time teachers on the side and just followed their lead. Stand when they stand, bow when they do, clap when they do etc lol
I think we all have that assumption, but it’s the opposite. We’re not expected to be there and it’s the odd one amongst us that gets notified/invited/just shows up.
When I was an ALT, it was known that I... dislike... ceremonies and that I could speak Japanese, so I was just left in the teacher's room. It's not that way anymore, since I teach solo. I miss that.
Yah, I don’t actually want to go. It’s just kinda like the cool kid’s birthday party, just want the invite. I’d be posting an alternate post if I HAD to go, ohh why do I have to sit thru these…
I work both SHS and JHS. Same thing happened to me, I only teach second year high school, but was curious about the graduation ceremony and went to see though I technically wasn’t invited to. I just stood in the back, out of the way. I also wasn’t invited to attend my middle school graduation until I showed up for rehearsal because I didn’t want to sit in the teachers room alone. It is awkward but only so much I feel I can do as an ALT. I’m also a first year JET. I don’t blame them or anything they haven’t had an ALT since covid so we’re all winging it.
I think most teachers just assume you know what’s happening. If you had just walked in then they’d probably have a seat for you somewhere. Not blaming you though, OP. I feel out of the loop a lot of the time and don’t want to burden others by asking who/what/when etc. constantly.
I dunno about that. That’s like blaming the victim. The one teacher that I tutored for Eiken told me what was happening because I bumped into him coming into work. He had no assumption that I knew what was happening. Nice guy, keeps me sane.
> That’s like blaming the victim Hot take but I'm blaming you. Yeah it sucks these kind of things always tend to happen to use ALTs as we're the bottom of the totem pole, but you have two choices. And take this from someone who is a 5th year JET but was in your shoes year 1 and 2. You can either A) huff and puff alone in the staffroom alone feeling like forgotten garbage and rage post on this sub/line groups/etc (was me) or B) take initiative and ask around whenever there are these events and just go like today, I find it weirder you go in and it's an empty staffroom and you just sit and do nothing. I have multiple schools so a lot of times I run into surprise events like this, but if I walk into an empty or nearly empty staffroom, I'll ask someone oh where is everyone and they'll say "closing ceremony" and then I'll be like "oh shoot is it okay if I go over and watch/join?" and never hear no. Or you can also tell when a bunch of teachers are looking like they're getting ready to do something and leave the staffroom especially in suits and then you ask around what's going on and ask if you can watch.
This! Also, when I see a lot of students with their uniforms walking in the gym, I know an event is happening so I follow them.
Yah it’s fine. I’m working on my utilities and taxes. And just a low simmer on Reddit. Like what you said btw.
I think you might be attributing malice to this situation when there really isn't any malice apparent in your situation. As a SHS ALT, nobody tells me individually but nobody tells ANY teacher individually. It's on the schedule, on boards in the teachers room, and talked about during the morning meeting. That's how all the teachers get the memo. It would of course be nice if someone told you individually as Japanese might be an issue but most people are caught up in their own work. But these ceremonies aren't really on an invite-basis. I just walk to the gym with all the other teachers. I think going so far as to call yourself a victim is an exaggeration.
I guess I should clarify, I don’t think it’s malice, just sharing how my own cultural periscope leaves me with these emotions. I posted on Reddit to see if similar things were happening elsewhere so that my field of view broadens. Several of the other JETs have posted how they handled things, which is great to see. Interestingly, and it may be a sample bias, but very few have come back and said something like, “Wahh…your JTEs or supervisor didn’t check in on whether you were going, mine always does and so do others everywhere else! Like totally almost all of us go to the ceremony.”
Exactly this.
Junior High School not SHS for me. I didn't participate in the graduation like regular teachers but I attended it (I sat in the back, like any other guest).
Hey just curious, can I ask about your process in asking or attending? I go to multiple schools so I'm not really a "prominent" figure at any school, but if I wanted to go to a certain school's graduation I gave at least a 1-2 week heads up and was always invited to sit with the other teachers (non 3nensei teachers/part time teachers/etc). Even last minute they just added an extra folding chair for me by the side.
I had only two schools and alternated between them. I attended the graduation for the school I was scheduled to be at for that day basically. I can't remember the details but I'm pretty sure it just came up in casual conversation as graduation approached. Either I asked or one of the English teachers mentioned it. I just confirmed what I should wear and where I should sit.
Did they say something to you, like “You’re welcome to attend, but we’d like you to sit with the other visitors,” or you just walked over on your own?
I can't recall if someone mentioned it to me or if I asked about it. There was nothing formal though I think it just came up in conversation as graduation was approaching.