Crazy teacher

So theres a crazy teacher at my Tuesday school - which I found out about today - because I had to teach two classes with him. before I got here, my predecessor had written me a description of each school I teach at -for the tuesday school he wrote "there`s one teacher you should watch out for".. I wondered what this meant the whole time. 

After the first couple of weeks, I thought back to what he had written, I even re-read it, to make sure he was definitely talking about this school. Today it all made sense. This guy has lost a fair few marbles.　He introduced himself to me this morning- and I thought he seemed nice enough - it was a brief introduction. It was ten minutes later when I started the long walk with him to lesson one, where I couldnt help but notice he was muttering to himself. He mutters to himself a lot - in quite a crazy way. I naively figured he might just be nervous - or maybe even thinking outloud - I know I talk to myself a lot - especially now that I am living alone - however, I do get a little embarassed when I realise someone has caught on.

 My lessons with him were a total joke. As I am expected to teach EVERY class in the entirety of my Tuesday school - which is 15 classes altogether - the rotation is slow - meaning that I am doing the same lesson for over two months at a time. Pretty easy I guess- Although somewhat boring for me to have to repeat myself so much. As it happens, I am STILL doing my self-introduction lesson at this school - and I think I will continue to do so next week as well (possibly the week after that also)..hmm. So, having done the same lesson a whole bunch of times, I have gotten into quite a routine with it. The way it works is that I show a slide on powerpoint, I speak a bit - and then I look towards the japanese teacher to translate as they see fit - sometimes they translate word-by-word (if the kids are particularly low-level)- or sometimes the teacher will pick up on a word or two that the students might not have understood, and ask them if they know it, etc. the point is that the Japanese teacher works with me. 

This time was weird. I would finish a slide, look at him, desperate to make eye-contact, but he was on a different planet. I started asking him, "can I go onto the next slide sensei?" but he was confused and confusing - just muttering away, I didnt know what to think. It got to a point where the students (who by this point are very used to how crazy this man is) would simply give me an OK sign with their hands whilst simultaneously rolling their eyes, some were laughing - at points I was laughing - it was weird, in the end he just got ignored. 

 The second class - was one of those really badly behaved groups. You can tell within the first minute of walking into a class how the lesson is going to go - what type of class is it? this was full of naughty kids who were yelling things out the whole time. Sometimes these classes can drive me nuts - other times they can be a godsend when Im not in the mood to take the job seriously. Today it was a godsend. they actually were saying in english that the teacher was crazy (probably the best english I had heard from students all day) so... we just had fun... I had a wild ridiculous lesson which I never would have gotten away with in my high-level school. I had fun, I was basically just playing around with the students - everyone was feeling silly - meanwhile old crazy is wondering around the classroom muttering to himself. I am lucky that I had done this class so many times, as by this point I have learnt the few key terms that teachers usually always need to translate "capital city", "religion", "dentist", "hobbies"..... when I asked the students, "whats this word" - it was weird that I was the one would had to tell them if their Japanese was correct... felt pretty good - it made me excited to learn more.