When I was drunk at a work party a month ago, one of the teachers sprang the following question on me:

“Brad-Sensei, do you like children?”

Sensing another rant about the students, of the type that frequently come up when the work-staff is under the influence, I heartily jumped in. I smiled at her and filled her glass up with beer, which she then was forced to drink, along with me.

“Not really, Sensei,” I began, “If I ever have any, I plan on boarding them at a school far away until they are 18! Then they can come back,” I laughed loudly, I took another swig, “…for one month. They can come back for one month. Right before they go to college. I’ll introduce myself and I’ll have a whistle. Have you ever seen The Sound of Music?”

She looked at me, confused.

“Well, I was wondering if you might be willing to teach my children English. Once a week. I would pay you," she said.

I stopped laughing. I swallowed.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“They are very young kids, six and eight years old. They love English. Could you help them?”

I looked around at the other people sitting at the table. The English teachers were listening intently. What was I supposed to say? That I find little children only marginally less annoying and gross than many of the High School kids I’ve come to know? That when they whine and scream for attention I sometimes just want to haul off and beat their asses? That I look forward to the day when my kid throws a fit in a supermarket so I can just leave them there, get into the car, and drive halfway out of the parking-lot before little Brad Jr. comes crying out of the supermarket Daddy Daddy don’t leave me I love you I’m so sorry!!! And I say You broke daddy’s heart in there, it’ll be a while before he can love you again and all the while I'm holding back laughter? No. No I cannot say any of this.

“Uhm. Yeah. Sure! Sure I can!” I said, looking about the table. “Little kids, they are… Well…they are just great. Aren’t they?”

“Yes. We’ll talk more about it on Monday, ok?”

“Ok!” I said, and then proceeded to drink a lot of beer. I promptly made myself forget about the entire conversation until the next morning, at which point I immediately questioned how smart a move it was to agree to this special class. I know a lot of JETs that have these “secret” English conversation classes on the side, and only a few that actually enjoy teaching them, despite getting paid fairly well by the hour. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I say “secret” because for some reason JETs aren’t technically allowed to do these things. I have no idea why not. It is still doing what the government hired us to do, after all. Regardless, everyone does it anyway.

So the next morning I see the teacher again:

“Brad-Sensei! About the conversation class…”

“Yeah, about that…you see—

“I was thinking about paying you 3000 yen for 45 minutes,” she said.

“…what? Are you serious?”

“Not enough? How about 4000?”

“4000 yen!?! You don’t have to pay that—”

“Also, I’ll be there the whole time. I’ll make all the lessons. I’ll bring all the materials. I’ll also drive you.”

“Really? That’s…that’s awesome!”

“All you have to do is talk and play games. It’s a conversation class. We call it an eikaiwa in Japanese,” she said.

“forty bucks for 45 minutes of playing games? We call that highway robbery in English.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Sign me up!”

“Are you sure it’s enough money?” She asked.

“Whatever you think!”

“I think it’s very fair.”

“Then so do I, Sensei. So do I.”

So we’ve had four lessons thus far, and let me tell you, they are awesome. The youngest one joins in sometimes, other times she runs around the house eating things. Fine by me. The elder one, at eight years old, is already twice as smart as 95% of the Koho students I've taught. She loves to read things, and she tells me how her day was and what she did. She is a wicked Old Maid player too. Very talented. When I first met her I said "how are you?” to which she gave the standard and generic "I am fine, how are you?" answer that they teach every Japanese student from the womb. Nobody actually cares to hear how you are, it’s just how they have been taught to answer. Nobody except this girl, that is. After asking her how she was, I went about setting up the game and turned to see her still looking at me, waiting to hear how my day was. At first I didn’t know what to do. Then I answered her.

“Well, my day was good. I read a lot.”

To which she nodded.

I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to teach a student that wants to learn of her own accord. Even if she is just eight years old. By God I can almost, almost see how someone might actually get into this teaching gig for keeps. Almost.

And as far as the whole “all little kids are annoying and gross” thing? Well, here is a picture of us playing a concentration game with various animal picures:

Yes, that is her sitting primly and politely smiling. And yes, that is me: I haven’t showered in almost 24 hours, I’m sprawled out on the floor, and I’m acting like an assclown.

So we can pretty much throw that theory out of the window right there.