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Do you think school teachers in Japan are overworked?

5 Comments

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Yes.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Absolutely. School administrators set up unrealistic expectations of what teachers can accomplish, treat all staff as interchangeable generalists regardless of how specialized their skills are, and then refuse to hire sufficient support staff to get all the jobs done. Then they wonder why teachers stay until after 8 every night.

Some of the worst examples I've seen are PE teachers asked to teach English just because they speak a little of it, and asking a teacher to completely learn kendo just because the kendo club needs a teacher to watch them. Why not hire a proper English teacher? Why not hire a coach? People are not interchangeable cogs you can just slot into any gap you see.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Yes and No.

Yes, they spend far too much time at school, doing meetings, answering phone calls from monster parents, having meetings, doing clubs, having meetings.... well, you get the idea.

Do they have too much meaningful work? No. I've seen too many (in the thousands from dozens of teachers) whose idea of checking homework is the 'swirly that turns into flower petals on the outer rim' drawn on the page without even looking at a single thing the student does.

If teachers were allowed to teach effectively, and the schools trimmed the fat (of approximately 4-6 hours of 'meetings' every day), they wouldn't be overworked.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

I think most people work too many hours in this country. Teachers are no exception.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Agree with David. Teachers here are overburdened with so much other stuff unrelated to actually teaching that the facilitating learning part of the job is way, way down on the list if at all. Many are so exhausted they are just going through the motions and that rubs off big time on the students. Many also lack any real passion for their chosen subjects and just wanted to become a kyoshi. Fellow English teachers , ask your Japanese counterparts why they chose to become English teachers and hear the sound of one hand clapping.

repeat after me...

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

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