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My PPM Story:
I was working at an English school in Tokyo in the 90s, training new teachers and developing material. An instructor in a small northern province suddenly quit so I went up there to plug the slot until a new teacher could be trained. She had left the school in a mess and hadn’t been doing her job well, so I was busy organizing the materials and getting the classes in order. There was a student who hadn’t been coming to class. The notes said he was ‘wild and unkempt’. Unusual for a Japanese kid. Finally, he showed up and peeked in the windows and doors, finally, gliding in through an open window, wary and ready to flee at a moment’s notice. It took 3 months, but I got him into the circle of youngsters and doing homework. Eventually, he even wrote, memorized, and delivered a speech in English at a contest and won an award.
The replacement teacher came, and I went back to Tokyo and my old job at the main office. One day, there was a commotion in the reception area as there was a blustery Yakuza (mafia) type that had come in wanting to talk to me. He introduced himself as the father of the boy that had won the speech contest! He said the boy had really turned himself around and was doing well in school and was staying out of trouble. The father wanted to thank me by giving me 2 front row tickets to see Peter Paul and Mary, who would be performing in Tokyo the following week.
The show was awesome, as you would expect. Later the Yakuza guy took me back to the green room to meet the 3 performers. Come to find out, he was a good and longtime friend of Paul Stookey. They had attended the weddings of each other’s children.
It was a fine memory for me and capped a successful episode in my efforts as a teacher.