Red Tape is Sticky

Japan is well known for its slow moving, bureaucratic layers of impossibility. Many tasks such as getting a driver’s license, or even signing up for a credit card often require moments of effort and patience. Applying for a job, or enrolling in University can sometimes be so stressful, people spend year training for them. We can see a little of that in North American as well(SATs, interviews etc.), but I’m not sure it is on the same scale as what I’ve seen here. What I didn’t realize was that many of these stressful motions are taught from as early as elementary school.

Today, I present for you, the elementary school English club. The school shall remain nameless in order to protect the identities of those involved.

I was asked to create some games and activities for an English club at one on my elementary schools. I created a number of interesting games that focused on colors, verbs, animals and shapes. I was already to have a blast with the club members. However, there was one little thing that stood in the way of this, and this was the ugly red tape demon. Hey, I’m a big fan of order in anything, but let me share some of the following with you:

Before our first meeting began each member got a club book they used to write down what they would be doing that day. Fair enough. I agree it’s important to do a little self evaluation in order to ascertain where you are. But this is where things got a little weird. The teacher in charge of the club asked the students to write down their titles on the board. Titles? There are only 8 members. So the president, the two vice presidents as the note taker all wrote their names and positions down on the board. Yes, there are four executives in an 8 member club. I was flabbergasted. In a moment of jest, since I was there to assist in the teaching of English, I offered to nominate myself the English President. Nobody found this funny at all. In fact most of the kids even looked at me like I was off my rocker. I learned an important lesson with. Never mock or interfere with internal bureaucracy.

After the executives are introduced, the curriculum for the club was laid out. There appeared to only be a handful of meetings during the summer, but they were should to make sure to go over every meeting. After this, we finally started the activities. This involves a twister like game. We actually has three games planned, but the setup time ate into all the time we had for fun. Then, after the game was finished, we had to do a reflection on what we thought of the activties that day. This is good and all, but with time limited to one hour, this is something that could have been written down and discussed at a later time. I was exhausted by this meeting, and not for the reasons I thought I would be. The very bureaucracy of the meeting left me in a mental fetal position.

I can’t help but feel that the club experience in Japan isn’t so much about doing the activity, but rather in all the structure surrounding the activity. For example, if you were a basketball club, and you met everyday, as long as you did all the rigid warm up drills (running, situps, stretches, and if you are lucky some dribbling,) the note taking, the clean up and the post club talk, there is really no need to actually play basketball. You would actually be considered a baskball club club hero if you were good at all the other stuff. In fact I know of a couple of softball teams that spend most of their year never actually playing a single game. This isn’t the case with all clubs, and I’ve seen many clubs that focus on actually teaching the students a skill or ability, but it does give me a strange realization about many of the clubs I’ve been to here.

Perhaps many clubs should just drop the sharade and call themselves bureaucracy club. It’s clear to me now that many clubs are not designed to teach school kids the sport or activity in question, but rather how to teach them how to assemble, when to assemble, how to obey authority, and never to question authority. There is nothing wrong with this per say( a little dicipline can be a good thing.) However, I think I finally know why it bothers me so. I am the kind of person who likes to get down to the essentials. I am not a fan of wasting time, and I feel that a club meeting without doing the actual activity is the biggest waste of time I could think of. But that’s just me. My new goal in these meetings is now to get as much actually activity in as possible. I want my kids playing English games, and speaking English. I don’t want them debating club structure and rules all day.

Imagine the rules of a bureaucracy club. What is the first rule of bureaucracy club? Set up a meeting and discuss the time for a future meeting that will determine when bureaucracy club will meet. What is rule number two? Makes sure the club executive is sound and in complete control. Long live bureaucracy club.