Read Importing Diversity: Inside Japan's JET Program Online
Authors: David L. McConnell
The responsibility for seeking subsequent increases fell largely to the
superintendent of education, who relied on Sato-sensei and Tanabe-san's
recommendation. Each year before suggesting a number to the superintendent, Sato-sensei called all the neighboring prefectures; "We want to
make sure that our prefecture isn't out of step," he said. Sato-sensei told
me that his predecessor had hoped to stay at sixteen because even that low
number was such hard work for him. But the superintendent decided that
there should be twenty-two in 1988. Tanabe-san recalled that for the following year, "We proposed a relatively small increase in numbers in order
to keep our workload down, but the superintendent asked us,'Are you sure
that's enough?' So we had no choice but to increase the numbers. We ended
up with twenty-seven in 1989." In 1990 the superintendent recommended thirty-four ALTs, but to the board of education's dismay the governor announced to the general assembly the hiring of that number well before
CLAIR had approved the prefecture's request. Sato-sensei made a special
trip to Tokyo to ask CLAIR officials to meet their request, but he returned
home with the news that local governments sought 2,400 ALTs and CLAIR
could only guarantee a total of 1,9oo. In the end, only thirty-one were approved. To match the number already officially announced, Sato-sensei
spent a considerable amount of time using his own connections to find
three additional ALTs who were hired privately. Tanabe-san reflected,
"CLAIR is always telling us to get tough with renewers, but we can't tell
someone to go home as long as CLAIR doesn't give us the number we request."
SOURCES: The JET Program(me): Five Years and Beyond (Tokyo: Council of Local
Authorities for International Relations, 1992), 169-278; JET Programme: Ten Years and
Beyond (Tokyo: Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, 1997), 360;
advertising brochure, The Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme, 1998-1999 (Tokyo:
Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, 1998), p. 3.
Prefectural and municipal receptivity to the JET Program was perhaps
most striking in its mirroring of patterns on the national level. Just as Ministry of Home Affairs officials forged ahead with plans for the JET Program
despite foot-dragging by Ministry of Education officials, so too at the local
level did politicians and their political appointees largely set the tone for
requests of JET participants regardless of the desires of local educational
administrators. Those administrators privately expressed reservations
about the rate of increase and complained frequently about the stress of
dealing with the ALTs, all the while striving to fulfill the expectations of
their superiors and to maintain the public image of the program.
DOWNWARD LINKAGES: SCHOOL VISITATION SYSTEMS
In talking about their dealings with the JET Program, prefectural officials
frequently compared the process of hosting ALTs to an arranged marriage.
"The first time I went to meet the new ALTs in Tokyo," confessed Satosensei, "it was like going to meet my prospective wife at the omiai
(arranged meeting of possible marriage partners)." The metaphor is particularly apt because it captures the standard reactions: competing emotions
of excitement and anticipation, on the one hand, and fear of the unknown
and the unpredictable, on the other. One perceptive ALT marveled,
"They're more nervous about us coming than I could have ever imagined!" On the whole, however, JET participants failed to appreciate the
level of anxiety and the extent of prearrival preparations caused by their
visits. Between the time CLAIR notified prefectures of placements in April
and the face-to-face meeting with the ALTs at the Tokyo orientation in
early August, Sato-sensei and Tanabe-san were constantly scrambling to
get ready.
At the outset, their most challenging task was arranging and coordinating the school visitation system. With 45 public high schools and 104 public junior high schools under one prefecture's jurisdiction, there would
seem to be ample room to absorb several dozen ALTs. Yet according to
Sato-sensei, the path to smooth placement was filled with potential pitfalls.
An examination of the process by which the ALTs are assigned to schools
thus reveals much about the management of diversity at the prefectural
level.
Spreading the Wealth: The One-Shot System
The most prominent, and ultimately the most controversial, school visitation pattern in the first year of the JET Program was what came to be
known as the "one-shot" system. ALTs were given a desk in a district board
of education, and from this administrative office, they were sent out to area
junior high schools for irregular visits. The duration of these visits varied-a day, a week, or a month-but even when they went back repeatedly,
the ALT rarely taught the same group of students twice. The school could
be a five-minute walk from the ALT's office or a two-hour boat trip to a secluded school.
In 1987 Sato-sensei and Tanabe-san placed about 70 percent of their prefectural ALTs (ii out of 16) in this manner, with each of the seven district
boards of education prefecture receiving one or two; this pattern was typical
of the first year of the program. For instance, Laura was assigned to a district
board of education with jurisdiction over twenty-one junior high schools. In
1987 she made 151 visits to thirteen different schools, rarely visiting a single school for more than three consecutive days. Typically, the JTL (Japanese
teacher of language) assigned to teach with her would send a tentative lesson
plan to Laura at the board of education before her school visit. It indicated
the grade, period, and atmosphere of the class, as well as a breakdown of how
the fifty-minute team-teaching period would be spent. The JTL usually saw
such a class as a special event and thus reserved a substantial part of the allotted time for the ALT's self-introduction and for conversation practice.
Unfortunately, the emphasis on bureaucratic efficiency underlying this
method ran directly contrary to the ALTs' expectations of a deep and
meaningful encounter with students and teachers, and they wasted no time
in conveying to Sato-sensei their utter disdain for the one-shot system.
Because there was no continuity over time, they argued, the school visit
became far more effective as entertainment than as pedagogy.' It thus perpetuated the notion of the foreign teacher as a curiosity, a "living globe" wheeled out on special occasions. Moreover, the grueling travel schedule
and the necessity of constantly repeating the same lesson made burnout
extremely likely. One ALT compared himself to a tea bag, dipped in cup
after cup of tea. "And that," he concluded, "makes for one weak cup of tea!"
Another complained to me, "One-shots are the desert of human relationships. Smile. Smile. Smile. I think they're dehumanizing and totally humiliating. It's basically utter strangers asking me rude and insensitive
questions. I don't give a damn about my one-shot schools. But the fault is
with the system not the Japanese people. It would be better to expose us to
a few people that we could get to know warmly." Still another elaborated:
"For me, the JET Program fails because I have to change schools frequently.
Although I only have six schools, I feel I'm here for a 'gaijin' show-not
for teaching. I feel no challenge in my work and very little reward."'
Nor were such criticisms restricted to isolated prefectures or municipalities. After the start-up of the JET Program, it was only a matter of months
before the Association of JET Participants (AJET) and the program coordinators at CLAIR took up the cause. In response, the JET Program orientation manual regularly includes a cautionary note designed to temper unrealistic expectations: "The one-shot's duties can produce more culture shock
and demands than those facing many world travelers and may result in
isolation if the ALT doesn't seek out a network of support and friendship.
The rush of autograph signing, hand-shaking and drinking parties on some
days can seem as unreal as behind-the-hand giggling and terror-stricken
teachers seem on others! "9 Japanese critics of the government were also
quick to echo the complaints of the ALTs. In a 1988 newsletter of the leftleaning Institute for Research on Language Teaching (IRLT, also known as
Goken), a university professor commented:
The ALTs look for satisfaction and meaning (ikigai) in their jobs. In the
classroom they want to be treated like people, not machines, and they
want to interact with students with some continuity. But what repeats
itself every month is ... a "show-your-face" entertainment industry.
The ALTs who came with the desire to reform the educational environment realize that the realities of Japan will not change so easily. As a
result, they begin to think, "only a few more months till my contract
expires ... ," and they go through the remaining school visits with indigestion. An ALT I met told me this: "If we can find some meaning in
our work, then it's easy to renew our contracts. But most of us don't
and so we leave quietly after a year. The biggest reason is that we can't
find any significance in our work." Is this acceptable? To put it another
way, doesn't this amount to throwing away the foreigners? ... The reality of English education in Japan is that we are creating people who more or less lack a sense of purpose and meaning in life (shitsuboshita
ningen).1°
Such criticisms make the question of why the one-shot system was initially so appealing to board of education officials even more pressing. Satosensei and other prefectural ETCs I interviewed offered two rationales.
First, posting ALTs to district offices of education made it possible to ensure
that the participation of schools in team teaching would be voluntary. We
must remember that teachers and principals were never consulted about
the start-up of the JET Program despite being the ones most directly affected by it. Each district board of education would typically have fifteen to
twenty-five junior high schools under its jurisdiction, so the likelihood of
finding schools enthusiastic about an ALT's visit was quite high. When one
district office notified fifteen junior high school principals under its jurisdiction that it was accepting requests to host an ALT for three months, six
of the fifteen applied. The matter was decided by lottery, and the winning
principal returned to his school boasting that he was responsible for getting the foreigner. In this way, the integrity of those schools that did not
wish to participate could also be preserved. Among the nine who refused to
participate was a small rural junior high school; one of its middle-aged
JTLs recalled:
The board of education asked the Principal's Association who wanted an
ALT this year. Then the principal asked me because I'm the head English teacher. I asked the other two English teachers, but they are very
nervous because their English is not good and they're afraid students
might notice their lack of English ability. One is a real introvert and
doesn't want to get in touch with foreigners. Anyway, they told me,
"Of course," but I knew it was only because they were deferring to me
as their superior. I have to be considerate to them. So when I said,
"Let's not have an ALT this year," I could see the relief in their faces.
Second, defenders of the one-shot system argued that because the ALTs
were a valuable asset, they should be spread as broadly and as equitably as
possible. Indeed, Tanabe-san noted that he had felt subtle pressure from the
budget section of the prefectural office, aware that taxpayers' money was
funding the program. The board of education did not want to be accused of
favoritism; by posting ALTs to each of the district boards of education, they
were in theory making the ALT available to every junior high school in the
prefecture.
Some disillusioned ALTs had a less benign interpretation of the motives
of prefectural administrators: they saw the initial placement system as a means of spatial segregation and of diluting the impact of a required but
threatening commodity. The one-shot system allows schools to "do internationalization" and to participate in the campaign to promote conversational English without seriously disrupting exam preparation and without
putting the burden of prolonged face-to-face contact with foreigners on a
small set of schools. In this view, the dehumanizing quality of the one-shot
visit is evidence of the prefectural officials' lack of empathy. Indeed, the entire structure of the one-shot visitation system is predicated on the notion
of foreigners as oddities.