ELT News Think Tank

This Month's Think Tank Panel

Jennifer Bassett

Kumiko Torikai

Curtis Kelly

Chuck Sandy

Marc Helgesen

Panelists: Jennifer | Kumiko | Curtis | Chuck | Marc
Date: November 2005

Topic: "Sharing Our Stories"

This Think Tank is a follow up to that of September 2005 and the subsequent Think Tank Live event at the JALT2005 National Conference.

The Day I Lost My Integrity
Curtis Kelly

“Make a few rules and then be consistent in enforcing them,” I was told, “or else the students will think you are unfair, or take advantage of you.” This is a basic rule of classroom management, and it makes sense. A rule is not something you can require of one student and not of the next. We need standardization and consistency in the classroom. It is a matter of integrity.

Well, here is how I lost my integrity.

“As she neared the door, all eyes were upon me. The others could see my discomfort.”

Her name was Maiko, and she was in my English class at a women’s college. She skipped most of the homework, but she wasn’t the only one. Her greater offense was not coming to class until the class was well underway, and that was pushing against a university requirement to attend two thirds of the classes.

Well, Maiko always came late, usually 40 minutes late, which meant she walked in when the class was exactly half over. One day, I decided to do something about it, albeit in a gentle way, and when she walked in 40 minutes late, I told her that I couldn’t decide whether to mark her absent or present. “So let’s do Jan Ken to decide. If you win, I’ll mark you present, and if I win, I’ll mark you absent.” Seemed fair.

Maybe I wanted her to win, but my “stone” beat her “scissors,” so I told her I’d have to mark her absent. As soon as she heard, she stood up and said, “Okay, then I’m leaving.” As she neared the door, all eyes were upon me. The others could see my discomfort. Then, just before she walked out, I broke and said, “Okay Maiko, stay. I’ll mark you present,” and I could see the others shaking their heads.

I was not consistent. I had reneged on my promise. I was sure I had lost all integrity with the other students, and maybe I had, but then something interesting happened. Three days later, only one student sent me a mail wishing me a happy birthday. It was from Maiko. And then she started coming to my office to complain about how easy the teachers were at our school and how they should be stricter. I asked why she came to me of all people, the “pushover,” to discuss her feelings, and that made her think. After a few more meetings, I helped her discover her real problems, and offered support for her decision to transfer to another program. She moved to another campus, but she still made an effort to visit me once in a while, usually with cakes, and tell me about her life. I had become one of her best friends, and it made me happy to hear how well she was doing.

Then, a year and a half later, when I went to my office one morning and a handmade wooden sign, with my name in red felt letters, was hanging on my door. Maiko had been there the evening before and left it as a gift. On the back of the sign was a poem. I don't know if she wrote it, or translated it, or found it somewhere, but it would have been in her style to have written it herself. Here it is, just as I found it:

Goes and Goes time goes on we are not alone.
We live on together and will find some precious things.
Sometime we smile, sometime we will cry somehow.
Don’t forget believing yourself. Tomorrows never die.

Integrity, Rules. Consistency. Now I think it is all humbug. Making things standard makes them inhuman as well. Maybe something cracked in that class that was needed to support the whole, but for Maiko, it was a crack in a wall.

Thank you Maiko for “believing yourself” and helping me believe myself.

Panelists: Jennifer | Kumiko | Curtis | Chuck | Marc

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Curtis Kelly, Heian Jogakuin University

Author of Writing from Within

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