Education, Shmeducation

The school I work at is now officially a joke. I used to think it was just some of the students who were really deficient but now I realize it is some of the teachers too. I've been asked to pass students who were failing before because they were members of the baseball team or there were other extenuating circumstances. But this time it is just crazy. In all my years of teaching I have never encountered a student like this. I'll call him Y. Just to set things up, he's a senior student and his school year has just finished. Usually classes finish in April but senior students finish in December. They are 'supposed' to be preparing for University entrance exams from January. At this school if a student fails even one class then he fails the entire year. So if a senior fails a class he can't graduate. So the teachers are hesistant to fail anyone. I'm not sure if it's an official school policy or not. Y did very poorly in the first semester and received a failing grade. He did even worse in the 2nd semester and I had no choice but to fail him again. The school does have an official policy on attendance. If a senior student misses more than 15 classes he fails the class. Well, as of a month before Y had missed 16 of my classes. Another teacher asked me to give him another chance and just erase one of his absences. Y then managed to attend every class afterwards, although he usually just brought a pillow and went to sleep at his desk. Yes, he brought a pillow. I would try to talk to him about it but his response was the same as the times I told him to stop using his mobile phone or listen to his walkman in class. He would get angry and start yelling at me in Japanese. So as you can tell his attitude was just stellar. Not wanting to cause any more commotion in the classroom I just ignored him. At least he wasn't being disruptive. And to put everything in context, his official score was 0/60 on his tests. He wasn't absent for all of his tests either, he would just refuse to do them. So after 3 months of this, of doing absolutely nothing, I was told by the other teachers that I had to give him a chance to pass. I had to give him some sort of extra assignment that he could do in order to pass and to graduate. What can make up for 3 months of missed assignments, tests and classes slept through? The teacher who taught him English Conversation last year told me that he had failed the 2nd year as well. But he had finished his extra assigment so he ended up passing the course. "What kind of extra assignment did you give him," I queried. This teacher told me that he had asked Y to just copy some pages of English text. That's it, copying some text is all that's required to pass the 2nd year English Conversation program. Well, if I had to give him another chance I wasn't going to make it that easy. Copying text has almost nothing to do with a conversation class. Why not just ask him to write something in Japanese, or do some math problems.
So I decided he would have to do an oral presentation. Nothing too difficult, just a 50 word self introduction. I did this in class with my seniors the year before. So I explained it to another English teacher and he was going to explain it all to Y. He'd have one week to prepare and memorize his self introduction. Fast forward one week, and I show up at the school. He's supposed to come to my office at 1pm so I take a book and wait for him there. At 1:30 he hasn't shown up so I go looking for the English teacher that talked to the student. He's surprised when he hears that Y hasn't shown up yet because, apparently, Y had been memorizing his speech for a few days. Then Y's homeroom teacher pops up and says that he told Y that he was supposed to come tomorrow. So Y's homeroom teacher had screwed up and told Y the wrong date. I'm not sure if I can come tomorrow Yukiko and I have an appointment at the baby clinic in the morning and we're not sure what time we'll finish up at. Then I notice the copy of the explanation that the other English teacher had given to Y. While the paper did have the correct date written on it, it explained that Y had to prepare and memorize a 15 word self introduction. Yes that's right, not 50 words but 15 words. I pointed this out and the English teacher just said he was sorry. "My name is Y. I am 17 years old. I like to play soccer." That is very nearly 15 words. It is not an acceptable substitute for 4 months worth of class work. Not that 50 words is either mind you, but it is slightly challenging. I said this was not good enough and asked the English teacher to contact Y and tell him that I would give him another week but that he had to come up with a 50 word introduction. The English teacher refused to do this because it would make him look bad to admit that he had made a mistake. He suggested that if Y did memorize his self introduction I could ask him some additional questions as well. Of course this would be pointless because even if the student was unable to answer them, he did what he was originally asked to do, and it would be unfair to fail him. And he would be right. Doesn't it seem like these teachers are doing everything humanly possible to make this student pass? I'm not sure what a student has to do to fail here. Receive a failing grade of 0? Nope, that's OK. Be rude and disrespectful to the teacher and other students all semester long? No problems here. Surpass the school's limit of unexplained absences? Get outta here. I should add that my class is not the only one he has problems with. Other teachers tell me that he does nothing in their classes too. I've seen him lugging his pillow to other classrooms than just mine. Yet I'm the only teacher who thinks he doesn't deserve to pass a course. I must be a freak or something.
I said I will try to come tomorrow if we finish at the clinic in time. But I'm not really looking forward to it. 3 hours of travel just to listen to Y recite 20 seconds of English. Not only do I feel like I'm wasting my time in the classroom but I feel for the other students. Even the weaker students put in some effort and generally show up. If I was a student, I would be really upset if the student who slept through every class was able to graduate and receive the same diploma I did.
So what will Y learn from all of this? Well not any English that's to be sure. But he will learn that you can get through life by doing nothing. Is it true? Well obviously, just look at how he managed to breeze through 3 years of high school. However, this attitude is sure to hurt him in the years to come and then I'm afraid it will be the school's fault for not teaching him any lessons about self responsibility. OK, I'm done bitching, for now.