Really Tired Students

Last week I worked at the smaller of my two schools, Ogura Junior High. On Friday, during one of the English lessons with the 7th graders (ichi nensei), the Japanese English teacher and I began as usual by asking the students a few questions to review what they've learned. The Japanese English teacher, Ms. Imamura, asked one student 'Do you like Fridays?' He replied 'No I don't.' Naturally she found out why and it was because he had to go to cram school, or juku, after the regular school day. She asked him 'How many times do you have juku this week?' - he replied 'Three times.' She then turned to the rest of the class (about 16 students) and asked them how many went to juku. Half the kids raised their hands.

I asked the kids 'How long do you sleep every night?' Two girls raised their hands and said 6 or 7 hours. Then Ms. Imamura asked the students who got 8 hours of sleep to raise their hands. Two students out of 16 did. I raised my hand, too. 'How about 7 hours?' she asked. Maybe 6 or 7 students raised their hands. '6 hours?' she asked. Another 4 students raised their hands. That covered nearly everyone save the couple who abstained from answering. 'What about on the weekends?' I asked. 'Do you sleep for longer?' The students had some trouble understanding this question so Ms. Imamura asked just one student to answer. A boy answered in Japanese that he gets 8 hours of sleep on Fridays. 'Wow,' Ms. Imamura said and looked at me. 'The students have regular school, then after school a club activity, then juku at night.' She left out homework they had to do after juku and their club activity happenings on the weekend. All the kids in the room are no older than 13.

This was kind of eye opening for me. I and everyone I knew in junior high and high school slept a solid 8 hours a night and longer on the weekends. I had really till then just kind of 'figured' these kids were sleeping about the same amount. Also hearing these kids talk about their sleep habits made me flashback to the numerous times they looked and acted awfully tired during the lessons and not just because I and the Japanese English teacher were totally boring them. And though I'm sure some of my (unspoken) criticism of these kids' motivation was justified at times, I realize now some of it wasn't at all.

In the following class I saw one student sleeping pretty soundly at her desk. Usually the camp counselor, disciplinarian, strong-willed part of my personality would kind of yearn to wake this student up so she could push herself during the 50 minute lesson. I could tap on her desk and say 'Gambare!' (Do your best!). But, after my previous lesson she looked less like a student to be pushed and more like a kid to be nurtured. Really if they're only 12 or 13 and not getting nearly enough sleep it seems clearer to me that there are times when it's fair to let 'em do their best in catching up on sleep during a boring English lesson.