Nova Instructors Forced To Teach Retarded And Mentally Disabled

Nova teachers with seemingly little to lose and possibly just wanting to relieve the stress of dealing with possible termination and non-payment of salaries, have turned to Internet forums and blogs to communicate their frustrations with their employer. One very interesting fact that has recently come to light is that apparently some teachers at Nova were forced to teach retarded and mentally disabled customers often together with normal students. Reports of stalking of teachers, threats, assaults and various odd and abnormal behavior from students has many wondering what sort of operation is/was Nova running.

Here is one especially detailed account from Nova teacher CynicalBeyondReason :

“Students routinely showed up drunk, passed out or fell asleep in class. There were three cases of foreigners being stalked by Nova customers (2 of them female customers), one of which made strange, violent threats when the object of her infatuation was transferred (“I will destroy the city!”). In ALL of these cases, despite the endless complaints by us that went all the way to the AAM level, nothing was EVER done in any of these cases. Not ONE of these “students” was ever asked to leave. And this is not restricted to Nova, because I have acquaintances that work at small eikaiwa that tell me EXACTLY THE SAME THINGS HAPPEN THERE.”

It seems cases of stalking and threats are more commonplace at Nova than previously thought. One recent case that turned tragic Lindsay Hawker comes to mind, where here stalker lured her into his apartment under the guise of private lessons only to murder her and dump her body in a bathtub filled with dirt. Despite widespread publication of the suspects picture by police and authorities, he remains at large. The authorities have been accused of bungled police work in that case by letting the suspect escape bare footed out a window as 10 officers arrived to his front door.

What is disturbing in the accounts of some Nova teachers is the lack of concern or responsibility by upper level management in dealing with these cases. Many complain of being ‘chewed out’ by staff when they failed to handle what were obviously bad situations and even in some cases dangerous.

Too true, but the other eikaiwa schools don’t take it to the extremes that Nova does.

We had an obviously insane woman show up for a demo lesson.

Borderline psychos are still perfectly acceptable, and the stalking problem is both rampant and largely ignored. But that is more the fault of the lazy-ass Japanese police, who even when called up by the eikaiwa management, will cuss out the stalkee for getting stalked rather than arrest the stalker (they wouldn’t even arrest a stalker who actually attacked a teacher in the middle of a lesson! School knew he had been a stalker, too, but don’t know how they’d handle his contract because he did the honorable thing and killed himself the next day after a mere talking to by the cops. Problem solved).

In many cases even if police authorities are involved, the mentality is “blame the victim” in many cases. It would seem there are many standards the police use to measure the seriousness of a crime or even a potential one. Self-defence is not an acceptable response to being threatened or attacked in Japan and will often result in the arrest of the foreigner regardless of the circumstances.

Teacher allblacks wrote the following:

What got me was the number of students that were there at Nova because their doctor recommended them learn a language to keep it together when recovering from their illness. I must have had a good 7 or 8 of these people. Nova is psychiatrists aid? Yeah.

Are psychologists and mental hospitals across the nation recommending to parents and guardians of mental patients that they enroll them in Eikaiwa classes? This is how it seems. Are English teachers qualified to deal with mentally disabled and those suffering from neurosis? Nova staff seems to think so. In fact, Japan has a myriad of rules and regulations on how those with mental defects are to be handled, educated, housed, and cared for. It is one of the most strictly controlled areas for public educators and administrators for good reason. Educating these handicapped people is a job that requires special training and aptitude, not everybody can or should do it. Forcing unqualified English teachers to deal with mental disabilities is criminal as it is irresponsible and just asking for a disaster to happen.

More from CynicalBeyondReason:

The craziest students I had were sent to Nova as part of their “job training” or because their shrink told them to. The students freely admitted it. Especially “rain man” who wouldn’t even do listen and repeats, just rocking back and forth in his chair as the other students stared in horror.

Another teacher writes:

We had a guy called Frankenstein and we also had a woman who lost it in the classroom of a JHS that she was teaching at. Dunno what she did there but I know that she went on leave for three years. In Nova she would scratch her entire face all the way through the lesson all lesson long.

And from Cynicalbeyondreason:

I have known of students who threw books at instructors, threatened them, blocked the door so they couldn’t leave.

These are adult students not kids.

NOVA, should just send sales staff into the mental hospitals. It would be easier.

Fumanchu writes:

How about this: An autistic kid who would have a temper tantrum if you tried to make him do anything but would then grab you and dig in his nails when you tried to leave the class at the end of the period. All this while the parents watched and smiled.
Come to think about it, why the hell did we put up with this shit? I’m actually ashamed of myself.

Are parents of autistic children to blame when they put their children into classes of normal children and things don’t work out? One can only sympathize at their desire to give their children some form of normalcy, doctors may even recommend spending time with normal children as good for autism, but an English class taught by an untrained instructor would push the bounds of even common sense it would seem.

It almost seems criminal that these situations remained in the dark for so long and that the financial and legal difficulties Nova finds itself in these days provided the teachers there to come out with their experiences. One can only respond with a big “whew” that worse events didn’t occur. Who would have been around to take responsibility then?

[Quotations found on letsjapan.org]