Beautiful

So Yoshida's mom came to the school, where I still am at 6:30 so you know it must have gone well. I spoke very polite Japanese to her from the beginning and thanked her for coming. I told her I was happy to get a chance to speak with them as I hadn't on Friday. That was probably the high point of the meeting. She didn't even accept my greeting. The whole meeting boiled down to the demand that I apologize to her son because he hurt his foot while kicking a boy who was lying on the ground, or maybe he hurt it when he was shoved off of him. In any case, he is worried that he might not be able to play basketball next week even though he had no problem completing the second half of the sports test which involved running several 50 meter dashes and one 1,500 meter race. He had no problem laughing and joking around with his friends.

I tried to tell her that, as a teacher, my first responsibility is to stop a fight and to protect people who are being beaten. She said, "But he already apologized for that. Now it is your turn to apologize to him!" I explained to her that I understood that parents are concerned at that if he was injured that was unfortunate but that I wanted her to understand the atmosphere. That a group of strong, popular boys were standing around laughing at a weak child on the ground being kicked. "But he apologized for that. Now it is your turn!"

"Please tell me where I was wrong." I asked. "Honestly. I want to think about what I could have done different."
"You could have talked to him."
"I tried. He ignored me."
"Pushing people can injure them!"
-so can kicking people (not actually said)
"I understand that. But if I grabbed him, he would fight me. If I yelled at him he would ignore me. If I grabbed his shoulder, he would shake it off and run away. I have to stop the fight."
"It was over!" Daichi chimed in.
"How is anyone else supposed to know that. We can't know that just by watching. He was still on the ground and you were standing over him."
"But I was done."
"You were laughing."
"You are a liar! Why would I laugh!?!"
"I don't know. Why would you laugh?"

Daichi continued to call me a liar and speak very disrespectfully to me in front of his mother who said nothing. His mother was shaking with anger. This went on for a while. She told me she was raising her child to not be violent and that I might have ruined that by pushing him. I might have broken his bones.

"And Fukunaka?"
"He already said, 'sorry.' Now it is your turn."
"I'm sorry. Saying that I am sorry would be very easy but I just don't understand where I was wrong. I have to stop a fight if I see it. I would have loved to do it by talking but I was ignored. I want you to understand that the other boys are standing around laughing and telling me that the will kill me and that I should die. It wasn't an innocent schoolyard misunderstanding that your son was involved in. He was bullying a defenseless child."
"And he said he was sorry. You just won't understand!"
"I told you mom! He's impossible he kicks the other students (I haven't. But I would like to.) He is a piece of shit motherfucker!"
"I came here for an apology but it is clear that I won't get it. I will have to go through other means!"

This actually took over an hour. After a bit the principal came and spoke to me and told me that I was right but that parents can't always understand what it is to be a teacher. That apologies are important in Japan (the speech I was afraid of) but that I don't have to apologize if I don't feel like it. He did ask me if I would go by their house this evening and explain the whole thing. I told him that explaining isn't a problem, but that I won't apologize for stopping a bully.

So now I am at school, waiting to go onto enemy ground. The principal gave me a cup of ramen.

Oh. It was just explained to me that I am supposed to apologize....a little bit. I don't quite understand. I said I have no problem explaining my position. That I have no problem saying that I didn't mean to injure anyone. That I was trying to stop someone for being injured. That if anyone was injured I feel bad about that. Is that an apology? I don't even know. It is retarded.