Baseball is King pt2

The other day I got a call from the head teacher at my high school. He said there was some problem with one of my student's grades. Not exactly sure which student he was talking about, and not having my grades' book with me, I said I would could in the next morning. Then he said that there was an 8:30 meeting the next day so could I come in before that? I'm pretty sure this teacher knows I live 90 minutes away from the school and it's my holiday so I was a little ticked off. Why couldn't I come in after the meeting? Oh well, I'd go and get it over with. I had a feeling this was going to be about something stupid and I'd be finished in about 5 minutes. Well, I was right. I got to the school, picked up my grades' book and asked for the student's name again. I looked up the student's markes and asked the head teacher, "so what is the problem?" He replied, "why did he get such a low grade?" I had in fact failed him. In Japan the grading scheme goes from 1-5. 5 being the highest and 1 being the lowest and a failing grade. Normally students don't receive anything lower than a 2, technically a pass, unless they are really, really bad. Japanese schools also grade on a curve, so only 1 or 2 students will get the top grade while the bottom 2 will get the lowest. Everyone else fits somewhere in between. Not wanting to get into the inherent problems with this system now, the student in question was ranked 18/18 in the first 2 terms of school. He scored about 30% in term one so I gave him a 2. In the second term, after taking two exams he accumulated a total of 1 point out of 40. This was such a low score that I gave him a failig grade of 1. Of course all he had to do was work a little higher in the 3rd term and he would pass. However the 3rd was very short, and many classes were cut due to holidays, graduation ceremonies, practicing making letters for baseball pictures, etc... So we only had 1 exam in the 3rd term, on the last day of classes, and he missed it. He knew there was an exam because he went to the previous class where we spent the entire time preparing for it. He didn't just miss the last class though, he missed 40% of them. So I did for him what I did for the other students that missed the last class, I averaged out their previous terms' grades to come up with their 3rd term grade. Well this student did so badly that his average grade was a 1. So that's what I gave him and his final grade also averaged out to a big fat failing 1. I explained this to the head teacher and he quickly replied that this student is on the baseball team. And couldn't I change his grade to a 2? Not really having many options I agreed and changed the number on the computer. With two 2's and a 1 his final grade would change to a 2 and he would pass the course. The head teacher still wasn't happy though. What about that nasty second term 2. Couldn't I change that to a 2 as well? I should have offered to give him straight 5's and make him the top student in the class but the head teacher probably would have thought it was a good idea. So there it is. At my school, if you're a bad student but play on the baseball team you don't have to worry about your grades. Actually at this school, pretty much no one has to worry about failing. I've got a 2nd year student in the English-intensive 'International Program' who understands absolutely no English. 3 times a week for 2 years and he still can't answer 'how are you?" I've tried to fail him multiple times but the other teachers won't allow it. And he's not even on the baseball team! Not only is his English ability hovering around zero but he disturbs everyone in class by constantly using his mobile phone, chatting with his friend and randomly yelling out English words that he thinks are funny (I'm impressed he's memorized them though). I had a long talk with the head International Program teacher about him and he agree with me that he is a problem. Apparently he is the same way in every class he takes but no one has ever failed him. When I proposed failing him the head teacher replied that it would be better to give him a good talking to about the need to clean up his act. Because, according to this teacher, there's no way he'll be able to pass the 3rd grade and graduate with his current attitude. I don't see why though. He's had no problems sailing through the first 2 years at the school.


Here are some random photos that deserve to be seen:

Yukiko making her first ever pizza. Of course it was delicious.

Eating at a Turkish restaurant in Namba with Emi and Emi's mama.

Here's a good picture of our group outside the restaurant.

The bellydancer really got the crowd going -- or at least got them clapping politely.

The Hinamatsuri (Girl's Day) display in the lobby of my hotel in Tokushima.

Yuki & her friend Tsuji dressed to impress.

My kimono fitting. Yes I bought a kimono! I want to be the penultimate samurai.