Productivity

I feel like a dead weight at school sometimes.

How can I be productive when all I do during spare periods is either nothing ( not prepared beause classes get cancelled 5 min beforehand)... or when I try to do something useful such as make posters for the English bulletin, I get 200 eitaku (english homework) notebooks stacked on my desk.

I then spend the next few hours checking homework and making corrections they won't even look at, topping it all off with huge swirls on each page. Yeah, like they can even review their work now.

I honestly don't think the eitaku does anything to build their English skills. The students just copy new phrases/paragraphs from the textbook, worse of all, they can't use their notebooks to review since the teachers draw all over them! In my opinion, a few sentences of original thought per day would take more effort and be more constructive than 3 pages of repetitive " Is this your change? Oh, my change! "

It doesn't help that homework and worksheets have zero effect on their final grades either.

How I could go on about the peculiarities ( negatives? ) of the Japanese junior high education system...

Oh and apparently purikura (sticker photos) on pencil cases and big key chains on backpacks make teachers "angry" as well... (according to students).... to think those are so often my topic starters... "Oh, do you like Stitch? Did you watch the movie?" "Where did you take this picture? Which person is your best friend?".... sigh.

Ok, rant over.

And I promise to do a proper update before the weekend gets here.