Cosby Got Nothing on My Kids!

Some random stories about my crazy kids... As some of you may know, I teach at two very different high schools. One's a high academic school which has a reputation for being "the nerdiest school in Shiga Prefecture" (prefecture = Japan's answer to a state) and the other one is a lower level school with kids who are known for being kinda punky.

At my punky school:

• One of the kids comes into class one morning and goes:"Hey, do you remember me? On the train yesterday, I saw you! " (He crouches down, waves and yells "Hey!") "That was ME!!!"

• A pair of friendly, middle aged women sell sweet and savory pastries from the back of a minivan in the school courtyard. One boy, whose usual stoic expression rivals that of my dad, says "Gee, I wish I could eat everything! It all looks so good!" with this genuine shy smile. The women were super flattered and happy and I stood there beaming at him with my hand over my heart.

At my nerdy school:

• One boy was walking to school all slowly and such. His friend comes up behind him, offers to take his heavy bag, puts it in his bike basket*, and rides away on his bike as Stevie Wonders' "That's What Friends Are For" plays in the background.

• As I'm walking out of class, a boy hands me his speech to correct. I walk downstairs to my desk and just as I sit down, the same boy asks me to give him back his paper. I wanted to be like "Um, dude, you gave it to me literally 2 minutes ago!" But then I asked his name, looked among the corrected speeches, and lo and behold...there was his red ink covered paper! As I hand it back to him, I go "Holy carp...Yamazaki...and Yamazaki... your (identical twin) brother just..." and before I could finish, he shot me one of those tired "heard it a million times before" looks! (I bet you thought I couldn't tell my students apart, huh? No way! I can recognize the faces, names and socials of all 800+ uniform-wearing kiddos!)
  

*Yes, most bikes in Japan are "mama-charis" a.k.a. "Mama Chariots" with baskets in the front and sometimes back and with 0-3 speeds. Sadly, no ribbons.