Job announcement at Aichi Prefectural university

Here's another classic. Check it out! Go here for the Japanese version.

The Faculty of Letters within Aichi Prefectural University invites applications for one non-tenure track status English teaching position, beginning April 1, 2005.

This sounds normal until you learn that jobs for Japanese teachers are not advertised like this. "Tenure" and "non-tenure" are Western, American constructs, not covered in Japanese labor law. People in Japan are either employed, or they aren't. Here is the Japanese that they use for non-tenure track: 非終身雇用 (hishushin koyou, non-lifelong employment)

Contract period: One year, beginning April 1, 2005. Subject to yearly review, the initial contract may be renewed for up to five more years (until March 31, 2011)

Again, people in Japan are employed or they aren't and in most jobs if a person works for a company for five years, the employee would be let go if he/she quit on his/her own, broke the law, retired, or if the company went under.

Up to five years...Based on what? Yearly review? I've been through those kangaroo courts. A bogus department committee is hastily thrown together with no interest given to education or university rules and regulations. They make up some criteria by which the teachers will be evaluated, and they interview the person. They come back later with a decision based on who-knows-what. A totally fraudulent, corrupt system.

And by the way, these are only for foreign teachers that get this treatment. How could it be otherwise? No Japanese teacher would be qualified for the job unless they fit requirement number 2 below, no matter how good their English is.

Qualifications:A prospective candidate for this post must: 　　

1. be a native speaker of English
   　　
2. not have been resident in Japan for any purpose between September 14,2002 through the September 15, 2004 application deadline for this post
   　　
3. be less than 50 years old at the commencement of employment
   　　
4. have a Master's degree or its equivalent in an academic field closely associated with the educational, linguistic and cultural nature of the post (e.g. English or foreign language pedagogy, applied linguistics, TESOL, etc.)
   　　
5. have received formal training in TESOL at the certificate and/or degree level and possess extensive experience in teaching English as a second or foreign language to multicultural populations of university undergraduates
   

...not have been resident in Japan for any purpose between September 14,2002 through the September 15, 2004 application deadline for this post

2002年9月14日から2004年9月15日の期間に、目的の如何にかかわらず、日本に居住した経験のないこと

Huh? What's this about? It is about having a person with no attachments to the country. No family. No mortgage. No network of friends and relations. No idea that they could unionize and fight for their jobs when the five years are up. Just like a spy novel. Get someone with no next of kin to start asking questions when they disappear.

...be less than 50 years old at the commencement of employment

Age discrimination, too. No it is not illegal to discriminate according to age here.

Note to applicants: The Aichi Prefectural Government has mandated condition number 2 above and therefore continued funding for this post is contingent upon this requirement being met fully.

Now what does this mean? That if a teacher lands the job and then teaches for two years, that the 5-year deal goes out the window because the two-year policy kicks in?

The rest is all pretty standard fare. Do all the work, and get none of the perks of working in a real community of learning. You may notice that the teachers' responsibilities do not include departmental or university wide committees other than entrance exam creation. Any decision making that happens during the period that this teacher is at Aichi U. will happen without him/her.

My prediction is that a teacher with an other-than-Japanese-nationality will take the job and either not know what is going on or will find out somewhere down the line and try to take action. Yeah, there are people who would like this job. Unfortunately, since there is no rule of law in Japan, whether they like it or not, the teacher will still lose his/her job in five years, and even if he/she takes it to court, it will be thrown out because public organizations like prefectures can act with impunity when they do so under the heading of "Public Interest."

Exams over

On this last day of exams for my classes, I gave two exams, both of them in Conversation classes. The students wrote a brief exam while I interviewed other students to test their ability to use the target language.

Everyone did alright. I will miss this particular group. They came in really not very enthusiastic about English. (there is an understatement) Now some of them are relatively enthusiastic, and one student, the one who was most difficult in the early days, says that English is his favorite class now.

This student is great to watch. In enneagram terms, he is an eight. This morning he came in the room and sat down next to me. That is unusual, because, even though we sit with our desks in a square, I was sitting in front of the blackboard, nearest to the door, where the lectern is positioned, obviously the position of power in the room. Though I sit different places during class and I try to change the position of power to where the students are, most of the equipment in the room is fixed, and I was sitting in the driver's seat. I can never remember anyone in 18 years of teaching in Japan who willingly chose to sit in that position when other options were available, as there were today. My strategy with him, as with any other student in the class, is to remind them that they have the power; they are in control of their destiny in this particular class. It worked with this student.

I hope more students begin to push some boundries. The testing regimin here is so overwhelming, that students feel that there is only one right answer, one right way to do things, and that everything else is wrong. During yesterday's exam a student asked several questions about the ways that he written parts of the exam. For each of the questions that he had there were several different ways of approaching it. I assured him that his were alright, too.

Fireworks

Went with the family to see fireworks in Kuwana, Mie Prefecture on Saturday night. These are some pics from the event. There were mobs of people lining the river. The pyrotechnics were marvelous.

fireworks scene 2 Originally uploaded by Yokkaichi 1.

Exams Today

Today is exam day for the Basic English courses that we teach in our faculty. We are required to give a unified exam for all of the students. It is a first-year class that is leveled, so even though the classes and students are quite different, we are required to give all of the students the same exam. The only up side to this system is that we can grade it, or not, as we see fit, so each class can get the kind of treatment it deserves.

I have speaking exams tomorrow, some grading afterward, and then we're done. Hard to believe. It went so fast.

At the end of the semester, I'm always happy, and sometimes I feel guilty about it. I spoke to my father, who was also a college prof, about that one time. He said that he felt that if he were happy when classes started up again, that feeling glad when they were over was also alright. Couldn't agree more.