![\"Matt](\"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Matt-square1-150x150.png\")
by Matt Shannon<\/p>\nby Matt Shannon<\/p>\n
For the iTDi \u2018From the Teacher’s Family\u2019 issue, I\u2019ve interviewed my partner of seven years, Rieko, and her college-aged son, Yudai. We have all lived together about five years now. I used the questions supplied by iTDi and while the interview didn’t go astray, I did find the answer to be surprising.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Matt<\/em><\/strong>: What are some good things about having a partner who is a teacher?<\/em><\/p>\n Rieko<\/strong>: Positive points? I can think of some negative points. Positive points\u2026you have summer vacation off, kind of.\u00a0And spring vacation\u2026sometimes. You get school lunch. I\u2019m sorry, I can\u2019t think of anything positive right now.<\/p>\n Yudai<\/strong>: When I was working as a tutor, I was able to ask you for help about grammar points. But more so, how to treat people and problems with respect, how to engage someone who wants to be taught without being \u201ctheir teacher.\u201d I also liked that we could have the same day off. I mean, Saturday and Sunday. There\u2019s some jobs in which you have work Sunday-Monday, or worse, the entire weekend. [A<\/em>u<\/em>thor<\/em>\u2019<\/em>s note: I now work a Tuesday to Saturday workweek]<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Matt<\/em><\/strong>: Were there ever moments in your life when you wished I wasn’t a teacher?<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Rieko<\/strong>: Not all the time! But teachers are so restricted. You\u2019re not allowed to tell people what you think, can you? You have to be very careful. You have to sign a contract saying you won\u2019t say anything bad about the government, and really it\u2019s not a very good system, so you must be very conflicted about that. [Author<\/em>\u2019<\/em>s note: in Saitama City where I live, we have to sign a pledge that we will not work or be a part of any group which stands to undermine or threaten the Japanese gover<\/em>n<\/em>ment<\/em>.] You can\u2019t travel or take time off easily, you can\u2019t get too drunk, you can\u2019t be too wild. Teachers are so influential to students or other people, so you should be a teacher, a model, all the time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Matt<\/em><\/strong>: Was there ever a moment when you were proud of something I did as a teacher? <\/em><\/p>\n Rieko<\/strong>: I don\u2019t know how to answer this. You\u2019ve done so much curriculum work; spent so many hours, Saturdays and Sundays, on vacation, always thinking about school, how to teach classes best – what should be and shouldn\u2019t be. I am so proud of that. You made passports [author<\/em>\u2019<\/em>s note: special student self-assessment tools<\/em>]; the time you actually made a town built out of blocks of students\u2019 conversations which showed what was important to them. And then there was the time you made that giant mural with the students, and the green curtain. I\u2019m proud of you. You did things. I don\u2019t know how to make that sound better. You did things with your students.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Matt<\/em><\/strong>: How do you think me being a teacher has made life more complicated for you?<\/em><\/p>\n Rieko<\/strong>: Your eye level, part of it is always at the kid\u2019s level. I mean that both ways. When I\u2019m talking with you, I feel like I am talking with several different people. I don\u2019t always feel your honest opinion on some things because you\u2019re carrying all of these different perspectives inside your heart.<\/p>\n You always work too hard. Sometimes my job is easy, but you always have five or seven hours of too much work. We can\u2019t share time, and I don\u2019t like it. You work forever and don\u2019t get paid anything extra. And if you do work only the contract hours, they\u2019ll bully you and say you work below your ability. It\u2019s a terrible system. You don\u2019t really know your boss, so they don\u2019t have to be honest with you, and they don\u2019t give you a chance. They keep cutting your salary and making excuses. There are so few positions, so you have to hold on to terrible jobs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Matt<\/em><\/strong>: Do you think I am well suited to be a teacher?<\/em>\u00a0<\/em> Why?<\/em><\/p>\n Rieko<\/strong>: In the classroom, you keep your face to students. You\u2019re very good at that – they feel that come off you and the atmosphere is about their interest, not yours. You can grab a topic off of the students and play with it. You have to do that, I guess. And then you can drop the idea you wanted to show them into the students\u2019 context so they can take it home.<\/p>\n You have the most energy of people I know, but it\u2019s not enough and I am worried about how long you can keep it up. You can make students happy, but can you make yourself happy? Your expectations are multiple because of your students. You can\u2019t stop it, so that makes you both stronger than normal but more responsible than you need to be.<\/p>\n Yudai<\/strong>: You\u2019re friendly, you talk to people well. You can build a good relationship between you and your students. Also, you are kind of young. I mean, you know many things which young people like. You\u2019re not dead yet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Matt<\/em><\/strong>: Why do you think I became a teacher?<\/em><\/p>\n Rieko<\/strong>: I think you like teaching. Not a teacher\u2019s job, but teaching.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Matt<\/em><\/strong>: How would our lives change if I stopped being a teacher tomorrow?<\/em><\/p>\n Yudai<\/strong> It\u2019s hard to guess until after payday. Honestly, I can\u2019t imagine. But, harder for sure. [Author<\/em>\u2019<\/em>s note: If I quit my job tomorrow, I would be deported sometime in A<\/em>u<\/em>gust unless I found another job]<\/em><\/p>\n Rieko: <\/strong>\u2026<\/strong> [Author\u2019s note: in the end, Reiko did not answer this question]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Matt Shannon For the iTDi \u2018From the Teacher’s Family\u2019 issue, I\u2019ve interviewed my partner of seven years, Rieko, and her college-aged son, Yudai. We have all lived together about five years now. I used the questions supplied by iTDi and while the interview didn’t go astray, I did find the answer to be surprising. … Continue reading Not a teacher\u2019s job, but teaching<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":5163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-the-teachers-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}