 |
| mania.com |
In Student Days, you can automatically tell that education in Japan is a serious thing. The film in class made it obvious that there was also quite a bit of corruption in the education system. If you had money or if your parents were a ‘big deal’ you could get in without the good grades. Unfortunately, for Botchan, he had no such connections and he had to study. In the film from class, a series of unfortunate events happened to Botchan. His sick brother, that had not even been prepared for the test, passed the test; Botchan, who had studied hard and long, had not passed the test. His brother also ended up with the girl he was in love with and wanted to marry.
In Botchan it was pretty evident that the principal and the vice principal (Red Shirt and Buffoon) had all the power, and they did not exactly use it right. Hoffa had been kind to Botchan since the moment he had arrived. On the first day of class, the students immediately started ridiculing Botchan. Every day he arrived to class, they had a new cartoon drawing of Botchan with mean things that were meant to humiliate him written next to it. After his night duty mishap, he confronted Red Shirt and Buffoon about it and on a fishing trip, Red Shirt and Buffoon pinned the students behavior or Hoffa. After they turn against eachother, Hoffa stands up for Botchan and Botchan then realizes that Red Shirt and Buffoon were the ones behind the students. The principal and the vice principal were corrupt!
 |
| Our Senior Sweatshirts |
In my high school, we always joked with the teachers, but we would have NEVER dared to treat a teacher like the students in Botchan treated Botchan. There was far more teasing among students like the kind in Botchan. My senior year, there was an issue that the student body, mostly the senior students, complained and pushed so hard to get through, that our principal quit over the intercom about. At Belle Chasse High School, we had/have to wear uniforms. A black or red uniform shirt with the school crest and khaki shorts or pants. We had to wear white, black or red socks and we had to have lace up shoes. If you wore an undershirt, it had to be black, white or red. On Fridays, we were able to wear club and senior shirts. We were told that we weren’t going to be able to wear any sweatshirts or shirts that didn’t say ‘Belle Chasse High School’ on it anymore. This excluded all of the club shirts, club sweatshirts, some sports team shirts and last but definitely not least, this means we couldn’t wear our senior sweatshirts and shirts. We were outraged. Everyone got their parents to call to the school and complain. We had bought these shirts sweatshirts from the school, so why couldn’t we wear them to school? Students were dropping by the principals office to complain, and parents were showing up to school to yell at the principal. We ended up pushing him so far, that he told us ‘no more uniforms, I quit’ over the intercom.
In my four years of attending Belle Chasse High, there was one teacher that got punched twice. He was seriously annoying and unnecessarily mean to his students though. My freshman year he told a student to shave and that he was writing him up and the kid straight up punched the teacher in the face. Senior year, he took someones phone away, they stood up and slapped him across the face, took their phone and left. So I thought it was appropriate to include a video of a student punching a teacher in the face. This is exactly how the punch went down freshman year, except the teacher didn't push the student first.
