TPP

Today something amazing happened. My classes on Fridays are all small ones, which is wonderful, because it means that the too cool for school kid who slouches in late, goes to the back of the very large room, slumps in a chair and tries to pretend he has been there all along, cannot get away with it, and in fact ends up looking a bit silly when he realizes that everyone else in the room is sitting at the front and enjoying speaking English with each other and with me, and he is being ignored. Eventually he slouches to the front and asks where he should sit, at which point I look surprised and ask him kindly whether he has a textbook. When he (inevitably) doesn't, I tell him (still kindly) that he can either go and buy one or sit at the back of the room and write – in English! – about what he did last weekend, because with no text he will not be able to do the work anyway.

The next week he turns up with a textbook or else he doesn't turn up again at all. (It is usually a he.)

Today the amazing thing that happened was that during a time when students were supposed to be speaking to each other in English about a topic of their own choosing, a couple of the good ones broke into Japanese. They don't, usually. When there are only twelve students they know I will know and mark them down for it. (Yes, I have to be draconian about this. They are not in English classes because they want to be. They are in English classes because it is a part of the required curriculum. The fear of failing the class and having to repeat it is usually greater than any other motivation they might bring with them, and even negative motivation is better than none at all. Sometimes they even end up enjoying themselves.)

These two students today are generally very good. They actually do want to learn English, and make a huge effort to express what they want to say in the required language. But today they broke into Japanese, so I listened carefully to find out what it was they were unable to manage in English and yet so worked up about they were willing to risk being marked down. I wanted to know what it was they wanted to argue about so seriously. My students do not usually argue, even in Japanese.

It turned out they were arguing about the TPP, and the reason they were using Japanese was that they didn't know the words for things like 'efficiency,' 'tariffs,' and 'competitiveness.'

What made this amazing was that I have never before heard any of my students even talking about politics before, let alone arguing about it. In fact I have often had the opposite problem, where I ask what they think about something dramatic that has happened in Japanese politics or business and they aren't even aware that it has happened. I have grown used to my students being so politically apathetic they are practically comatose.

Today I realized that while I had heard TPP mentioned in the news and knew that farmers did not like it, I didn't even know what TPP stood for. I had to look it up. (I have been preoccupied with following the Olympus scandal. I do not have the time to follow very much news, and recently the Olympus scandal has been it.)

I looked it up and discovered that TPP stands for "Trans-Pacific Partnership."

This did not really help, actually, so I decided that if I am suddenly going to have politically aware students (WHAT?) I should make an effort to find out what TPP actually MEANS.

But not tonight. I started a little research after I got home – I read an entire article about TPP, but my brain laughed and said,  You have to be joking, try reading it again when you're awake, idiot!

Maybe tomorrow.