1
“Next week, when class is finished, can I have your sign?” Suzuna asked.
“My sign? My autograph?” I asked, just to be sure what she wanted.
“Yes! Autograph. Autograph,” Suzuna repeated. It was a word that she had learned in the Out of Control story. “Autograph!”
I reluctantly agreed, feeling I have not done anything good enough for someone to want my autograph. People want autographs from their heroes. I was no hero. I was only Suzuna’s teacher, on and off for a number of years. But she has known me for about a third of her life.
The first time someone is seen as a hero is by their children. Fathers are supposed to do all they can for their children. They see us lifting things they cannot, solving problems they cannot, knowing things they do not, and doing things beyond their power. They look at us in awe, their big eyes attentive to all the things that make us their heroes.
As their world expands beyond the home, fathers are often no longer big and large enough to do all the things children expect out of their heroes. Someone else in their growing world takes his place. Perhaps a coach who can move in a way they cannot, or perhaps a friend who can say the things they cannot. Still, even such heroes are not asked for autographs.
But heroes are not the only people who are asked for their autographs. Celebrities are hardly heroes, and they are asked constantly. And what do people do with those autographs? They hang them on the wall, to remember their time together with the person. Maybe an autograph is also a simple time machine, one that anyone can make.
I am no hero to Suzuna. I mean, what have I done for her? And what about the time we had spent together? What do I know about her? I see Suzuna s a young Japanese girl caught by the webs of English, and contemplating its purpose in her life.
2
I met Suzuna’s mother first. Mothers usually come before daughters. It is the natural way things move.
For years, I worked in Iwata. It was my first assignment in Japan. A lot of the other teachers left after a year, but I stayed. I was coaching basketball, writing speeches, and making movies in English with the kids. I was doing things that no one else had thought to do. The job was so exciting for me. I was finally able to make a difference, and all of my students were using English. But I had gotten too involved with Iwata. There is a reason that foreign teachers don’t coach teams or make cultural festival movies. The involvement gives is a false entitlement. We may feel like the other teachers we work with, but we aren’t. we can never be like the Japanese teachers who teach English.
Fukuroi had never hired its own teachers before. I thought Fukuroi would be a nice change.
There was a panel of people, two men and two women. One of them was the coordinator between Fukuroi City and the foreign English teachers that came to the city’s schools. The other woman, who had nothing to do with the English program, was Suzuna’s mother.
She watched as I presented my demonstration lesson. Perhaps she enjoyed the energy that I was giving off. She watched as I gave away origami prizes at the lesson’s end. Perhaps she was pleased with the origami model she received. She listened as I read my speech in Japanese about why I wanted to work in Fukuroi. Perhaps she recognized the name of the hero, Phan Boi Chau. She heard me answer questions in Japanese. Perhaps she thought it was fine.
I caught her smiling. I caught them all smiling. I knew that the job was mine. And when I gave them my letter of intent to come to work for Fukuroi, I saw her again at the Board of Education. She was watching as Rieko-sensei was going through my paperwork, perhaps listening to our conversation. We didn’t speak in English, but maybe my non-native Japanese reflected her non-native English enough for her to feel things were okay. She told me her daughter attended Asaba Minami Elementary School, and that she loved English, it was the first words she had said directly to me.
I asked her what her daughter’s name was.
“Suzuna.”
3
Here is a secret about teaching English in Japan. Although the classroom teachers are should do the lessons, they are terrified of doing so. Expecting them to do so in front of people who speak English, people who see all the mistakes the teachers are making, and expecting the teachers to be in charge, how can a teacher not be terrified? We were to be T2s, teacher #2. If we do so, the teacher and the schools will be happy with us. There is a great problem with teaching this way. The students don’t really learn English.
Imagine Naomi Osaka has come to your school. She wants to teach the students how to play tennis. Everyone knows her tennis is world-class. Now imagine she is not permitted to teach tennis. There is not enough time for her to teach every class, so the school tells the teachers to teach the students tennis. Naomi Osaka can go from room to room, observing what the teachers are doing and saying, but she cannot be the main tennis instructor. What kind of tennis would the students be learning? What is the quality of tennis the teachers can give while Naomi Osaka walks around? I imagine the teachers would be very nervous, and the instruction not very good. Did the children learn tennis? Saying yes is the worst lie teachers tell themselves. They students didn’t learn any tennis on that day, just as they don’t learn English with homeroom teachers who did not study English themselves. Instead, they learn that English makes Japanese people very nervous.
It was in class 5-2, Omiya-sensei’s class, where he and I agreed not to make this mistake. He allowed me to teach the class. If Omiya-sensei had not agreed, who knows what Suzuna’s first experience with me would have been like?
Her mother was right. Mothers are always right. Suzuna loved English. As an English teacher, all it takes is one active student to make the rest of the class join in. The mistake most teachers make is they will choose that student. The real trick is to make students choose themselves. Let the leader arise. Make them want to speak out. Make them want to show off.
Suzuna was not alone. Children like Suzuna are never alone. She brought her friends with her. Sannin joshi. The three girls. Suzuna, Himari, and Rio were the first to join the party. The rest of the class came along quickly after. 5-2 became my favorite class all year.
I didn’t really teach Suzuna. She was studying with ECC. What she was learning was working. I looked on, proud and hopeful, not for what I had done, but for what she had done. I don’t know if her mother sent her to ECC so Suzuna could talk to foreigners. I don’t know if talking to foreigners was one of the goals in her life. For that one year I taught her at Asaba Minami, she showed not only me, but everyone in 5-2, herself included, that she could.
4
The next time I met Suzuna was when she became chu-ichi. Her big, wide eyes were still as attentive as ever in class, but our relationship had changed. I was still her teacher. However, I was no longer the teacher who made English fun as before.
Elementary school English builds a foundation, a stage for kids to play on. In junior high, playtime is over. Uniforms and hair restrictions become a standard. There are expectations that come with junior high school. Expectations are met or they are not met. The only way to see if students are really learning is by testing. An unforgiving style of testing.
English shifts for students, from the mouth to another body part. Tests are all handwritten, so it no longer mattered what you could say. The only way to demonstrate the English that Suzuna knew was by writing it down, and similar to any skill you learn with your hands, it required hours and hours of constant practice. English classes became silent events, and students’ heads were always either looking at the board or down at their notebooks.
The biggest change is the shift in instructors. I was no longer in every class she studied English in. I couldn’t be. In elementary school, her class studied English twice a week. Now, English increased to four times a week, more often than math and PE. Multiply that with 18 and it’s easy to understand that being in every English class in a week was impossible. At Asaba, all the English classes total in a week, 72. All the classes from 1st period Monday to 6th period Friday, 30. Enter the Naomi Osaka method of teaching English. I was left to smile and encourage.
Grammar was now the main focus. Could I understand what Suzuna was saying? I have never misunderstood Suzuna. But I was not the one grading her test papers. And whatever scores she had gotten, they could not measure how much English has been a part of her life.
It had an effect on Suzuna. My history with her, interacting with her at a younger age, I could see the difference. As a 5th grader, she wasn’t nervous about blurting things out in English, correct or not. Her English was fast, live, and on time. Now as a first grader, talking to me at the end of classes, she would ask me in Japanese, usually about how a word was used.
I answered as best I could. I answered in ways that I thought would help her study better. But I knew. I knew that she was now more worried about making a mistake with her English, instead of just using it. The innocence of her English was now gone forever. Innocence once lost can never be regained. I hope that whatever takes the place of that innocence of English can give Suzuna the same amount of joy. People only love English because it is enjoyable.
5
Things then went from quiet to dead silent. This was the nature of being a second grader. The grammar jumps considerably from the first grade to the second grade. Subjects, verbs, and objects turn into complex subjects and complex verbs, devoid of emotion. The girls have to learn this grammar all while experiencing the most emotional parts of their lives.
The chemicals that are now suddenly surging through their bodies affects them in different ways, ways they expected and ways they did not. This is probably why the schools will never let go of uniforms or the hair system they expect students to abide by. For some students, this was a relief. It gave them a consistency they may not get physically or emotionally. Every day they and their friends were different people, and it was hard to explain.
Suzuna had grown. I kept my promise to her mother, who I would see when I went to the Board of Education. She would come and ask under the cover of assistance, “Suzuna は?”
I wondered how much Suzuna spoke to her. As teenagers, girls stop talking to their parents. Girls stop doing their laundry with their fathers. As a man, I cannot understand the changes happening to Suzuna. As a foreigner, I cannot understand what Japanese girls go through. I am not a Johnny’s fan, but teenage Japanese girls love them. Maybe they were seeing boys as partners rather than classmates, and the search was on for the best partner. Did Suzuna know that isn’t what boys her age look like? Those boy bands weren’t even teenagers, a majority were in their mid to late twenties. As a father, I am angered that someone so much older would be looking at my teenage daughter. I would want to rip off their balls.
I knew there was little I could do for Suzuna. Japanese English had now gotten a hold of her. In order for her to prove she was good at English, she needed to get top scores. It hurt to think putting together one sentence, or putting together a group of separate single sentences was having an effect on her identity. If she did not get good English scores, did that mean Suzuna was not good at English? If she was not good at English, what was the point of going to ECC? Like a fool’s gold award in the brass band, could a person possess a fool’s English?
I say no, but that is because I know who I am. I am formed. There is no one in Japan who dares to ask if I can really speak English or not. For me, no test was enough to change who I am. It would be foolish to expect Suzuna to feel the same way. There is nothing I can do to know what English will mean for Suzuna going forward. Whether English is her identity or not, that must be Suzuna’s choice to make. Her parents could not give her a sense of what English really is. For her right now, English is just a tool, like a carpenter’s wedge, or a sushi chef’s knife, something for her to use and master, whether it is fun or not. Suzuna は?
6
I was no longer her teacher when Suzuna became chu-san. I transferred to another school, and went to Asaba once a week. I didn’t have the third graders. I had no idea how they were doing.
It wasn’t as if I never saw them. In the hallways, the boys would flex their arms, wondering if they were making any progress. I told them they were getting there. As adults, we have to let children know they are capable of taking over for us eventually.
I had hoped that Suzuna would do the English Speech Contest. I had told her about it during her first and second years. Her pronunciation has always been superb. It was a way for her to see her English as more than just words bound together by grammatical rules. It was a way to bring back the magic that English had initially meant for her before junior high school had interrupted the spell. I knew that it would work too. Suzuna’s sempai’s speech the year before had helped to define her, to give words to the feelings that were inside of her heart. That is the purpose of English, to help us understand ourselves better. It is not meant to make us be more misunderstood to the world around us. If I could help Suzuna see that, then maybe English could be just as emotional as anything else in her life, something to connect to, rather than just a tool to master. After all, sushi made by a sushi chef is no good if there is no one around to eat it. English is better when there is a room of people waiting to listen to you.
Suzuna did not want to participate. I didn’t blame her. I was no longer at Asaba enough to be able to do anything. If she was going to do it, who would help her write her speech? Who would help her grow her idea? Who would support and guide her? I wasn’t worried Whether she trusted her other teachers. I was worried whether she still loved English, and her decision not to try it gave me the answer I needed. And I remember being sad about that.
Suzuna was not the cause. I alone was the reason for it. I had given in to what her teachers wanted, making the few lessons I had with her grammar lessons. I had not shown her English in all its wonderful parts like I used to. There was no music, no movies, and no bits of life in an English world. There were only games, games with certain answers in single sentences. If the native speaker in charge of your classes was showing you that this was the full extent of English, then where was the fun in that? We were teaching students the art of putting a sentence together, and showing them how hard it was to do. How could we expect them to suddenly come up with an essay, which had dozens of those sentences all tied together?
I knew I had failed her. I knew the girl I had known speaking English to me so easily had now been put in a cage, and I was partly responsible for that. To free her, I’d have to look past the speech contest. The speech contest was never the solution. It was just another judgment.
7
I was working on lesson plans when Suzuna’s mother asked for me. The other teachers were surprised. I don’t know why. I taught in the area longer than any of them. For years, I was the constant in the children’s lives, more important than any Japanese English teacher had been.
She asked if it was possible for me to practice with Suzuna. Suzuna wanted to go to Konan High School, a school out by Lake Hamana, famous for its English curriculum. Part of their entrance examination was an interview in English. It was the first time I had heard what Suzuna’s future plans were. My heart leapt. So she still loved English after all.
I gave Suzuna’s mother the same smile as before. Of course I would! She trusted that smile. Why wouldn’t she? It was as if I were a part of their family. I was as close as any teacher would ever get to becoming Suzuna’s family.
We communicated through Loilonote, a school program allowing teachers to send assignments to students, and students to send them back, completed. It was the first time I had ever sent Suzuna anything. I gave her a list of questions to answer, questions I thought she would be asked. After Suzuna responded, I would give her suggestions. It felt like we were pen pals.
I was excited to become a part of her furtive world. Teenagers are mysterious and volatile. Lots of things can set them off. Their minds were abuzz with abilities, insecurities, and information they were storing up for the day of their tests, and then forgotten afterwards forever.
If you had to learn something and then you forgot it, how did it impact your personality? What if all those things you learned and forgot about helped you get into a good school, and the school gave you an identity, did all that information which you studied and forgot give you that identity, too? Does going to a school for studying English make your identity English-related?
Suzuna and the other students were about to find out. All I could do was to look on and help with her interview. Her mother and I both knew that Konan would help Suzuna’s English grow. We had no idea what she would do with that English, but it was not necessary to know that yet. What we did know was learning English for Suzuna gave her the chances that she was looking for as a little girl. English could allow her to be a journalist, and travel around the world. It could help her with her career, allowing her to talk to the rest of the world. It could help her see what was going on outside of Japan, the news of the world. English gave Suzuna a chance to leave Asaba, a fate all parents and teachers know students come across growing up. She could become a hero for all young girls to do the same thing.
Those short Loilonote correspondences became the last thing Suzuna and I exchanged.
8
“Thanh-sensei?”
Suzuna certainly was not expecting to see me. I was filling in for the original teacher who had become unwell. I told her that it was only going to be a temporary assignment. I was filled with joy to know that she was happy to see me, regardless of how many classes it would be for.
The class at Op-Net was a write-heavy class, and though I knew it was important, I felt Suzuna could practice writing somewhere else. I didn’t want the class to give her a hand with English. I wanted to return English to its original place in her life. I wanted it to give her a voice.
I was proud of how far she had come. She asked questions boldly again, not worrying whether they were correctly formed or not. The important thing was to ask, to get it out for another person to hear it. When Suzuna wanted to know how to say a word, she would give it pretext, instead of expecting just a quick response. It meant she knew that not only were there all kinds of words, but also all kinds of different ways of using words, too. I am impressed that she tries not to use programs such as google translate, even if they are available.
I learn about how hard the effort Suzuna makes to learn English. Sometimes she has to wake up at four in the morning to get to school. School is no longer a bike ride away. She bikes to the station before riding on the train for another hour. She does it all on her own, too. How lucky and proud her parents must be of her for being so independent.
Gone are Himari and Rio. She now has friends from everywhere. They visit her home, and she invites them to see the fireworks festival from her town. In the future, she might go off somewhere, but that didn’t mean she would ever forget the place she is from in this world. Now, if only I can figure out the boy that she spends so much time together with…
I am reminded that it really is none of my business. If that relationship ever evolves to love or something similar, that is for Suzuna to have. She deserves it, and has worked hard for it. Maybe I’m just a little jealous. For years, I have watched Suzuna grow up. I love her as if she were my own daughter. And I’m glad that she chose English to be the world the two of us share. I can’t wait to see what she does with it. I wonder if it is now as much a part of her as the rest of her body is, something she cannot live without. Without English, who would I have ever been to Suzuna?
A hero? I doubt it. Even after giving her an autograph, I don’t think I will ever be a hero.
I’m so happy for the time I could share with her. I love you, Suzuna.