Office Politics and The Big Switch

When I was in college, I spent a little over a year in the student government, working as a member of the Treasury. Our student government was rather more cut-throat than most, from the descriptions I hear of other organizations. (Not many school governments have coup de tats.) The politics within the Student Union,  or SU, were much worse than anything the student body saw. Long story short, the whole thing left rather a bad taste in my mouth for inner-organization politics. Sadly, this kind of politics is a way of life, and even running as far away as Japan has not spared me.

Before I get into the heart of the matter, let me explain a few things about teachers and Japanese school systems.

1. The school year runs from April to April.
   
2. Teachers are hired by the Board of Educations in their cities, not by the schools themselves.
   
3. Teachers are moved from school to school within their designated areas. This is to spread around good teachers, though it also means bad teachers can stay in the system purely because everyone says, “Eh, he’ll be traded away soon anyway, why bother firing him?”
   
4. “Designated area” can cover a lot of ground – my prefecture has only 4 areas, which means teachers may be forced to drive well over an hour or two to their job every day.
   
5. The BOE decides when and where to move a teacher. On the whole, teachers are moved after their third year at a school but before their eighth. Thus, most teachers only spend around 5 years at any given school.
   
6. The teachers find out about the switches a couple of weeks before they actually happen, sometime in mid-March. 

It’s an interesting system, one that I think works in some ways and doesn’t in others. Still, it does throw the staff room into a bit of a fit. All of the roles have to be reassigned every year to accommodate established teachers leaving and new-to-the-school teachers taking their place. This year, the head teacher of the 3rd year students (from now on, I’ll refer to him as Mr. X) left. Thus, a new head teacher had to be picked. And here was where office politics raised its ugly head. 

There is a teacher in my staffroom (from now on, I’ll refer to her as Ms. Y) who gets along with practically no one. Everyone plays nice in the staff room, of course, but behind the scenes, this woman receives more bad press than I thought possible. I knew that I wasn't 100% inclined toward her, but I didn't realize just the amount of trouble she caused. It's pretty astounding.

Anyway, back to my story. Mr. X and Ms. Y got along well, so there were no concerns with her placement last year. However, with Mr. X leaving, no head teachers were willing to put up with Ms. Y in their group. It honestly threw the staff room into a flurry of behind-the-scenes chaos. For example, while my parents and I were visiting Saito-sensei’s house, he received two calls from other high-ranking teachers to discuss the matter. Both times, it took him around 10 or 20 minutes to complete the call.

This is already an overlong story, especially when one doesn’t know the players and when I can’t reveal the details on so public a forum as this. So let me get to the important part, that being, of course, how all of this affected me:
An issue was raised by this troublesome Ms. Y that the balance of male and female teachers in each year was off. As she was willing to make a stink about it, everyone gave in. Between this and all of the fuss caused over Ms. X's placement, it became clear that I would be passed to a new group. Yes, the group of teachers with whom I have sat, had numerous drinking parties, and even traveled, during my first 20 months were forced to pass me off to another year.

For the past year, I’d had the perfect arrangement; sandwiched between Saito-sensei and one of my most enjoyable English teachers, Takayanagi-sensei, I always had someone with whom I could talk, joke, and be silly. As it stands now, they are on the opposite side of the staff room from me, as far away as is possible. My new teachers, while fun and nice people, don’t know me well and are always busy. I find that I often feel lonely now. It's not just me, either - when I mentioned my loneliness to Takayanagi-sensei, she turned to Saito-sensei and said (in Japanese), "If that's the case, why the heck can't she come back over with us?" I suppose I can take some misery-loves-company consolation in that. 

It’s not the fault of my new group of teachers that I'm left-out; it’s an extremely busy time of year, only one (my English teacher) speaks English well, and it’s hard to invest in someone who will be leaving in a few short months. Even just now I had a nice conversation with my new head-teacher about the students. Still, I feel sorry for the next ALT, especially if he or she doesn’t speak Japanese. While that ALT will still be surrounded by wonderful, friendly, smiling teachers, he or she won’t be able to experience the same security I had all last year. In the end, I guess I can only be thankful that I had a chance to experience such a warm staff room myself.