M is for Moron

M is for Moron

We're not saying which English-language school is currently at the center of countless stories and rumors, but when you pump as much money into promoting your business as this particular establishment, it's a safe bet that some of your teachers will be crawling in from the bottom of the evolutionary scale. It all started with the 1994 arrest of a teacher from New Zealand, at one of the school's Osaka branches, who had reportedly been dealing marijuana--in class. The follies have continued ever since. Take, for instance, the highly sexed Frenchman at one of the school's branches in Shibuya. A real casa-nova, if you will, he has recently been hired to teach l'Anglais but is constantly fawning over his female students in a desperate attempt to kiss them. Then there's the story--a favorite of ours--about the overindulgent instructor at Kokubunji branch, who regurgitated an evening's worth of beverages on his morning class. We'll just file that one away under the finer points of the past progressive. Next problem, class: imagine you're an English teacher who has had quite a bit to drink. There are no toilets around so you decide to relieve yourself in a public phone booth--which to your dismay turns out to be an automatic-teller cubicle that somehow locks behind you. After your failed escape attempt leaves you covered in broken glass, urine and blood, the police arrive to arrest you. Now, what's your excuse? This lesson may have come in handy for the Canadian teacher who was nabbed by the cops last December when he took receipt of a parcel of hashish concealed inside a jar of peanut butter that had been mailed to him. "No problem!" the happy-go-lucky tutor was known to crow to his colleagues. When they called his school after discovering his disappearance, they were reportedly told he had been "taken ill" and was "in hospital." Which hospital? Despite persistent inquiries, school officials wouldn't say--it wasn't until several days later, when the Mainichi reported he'd been arrested at Akabane, that the truth emerged. A not-so-merry Christmas for this particular loser, but what we can't help wondering is, what kind of effect do all these aberrations of common sense have upon the students? Apart from learning what dorks some of their teachers are, we guess they receive at least one useful lesson: just say no.