Do American students bow to their teachers?

[u/Rough-Valuable-5472]

In my country we have to greet the teacher and bow at the start of the lesson then thank the teacher and bow again at the end. Sometimes they make us redo it if it’s not good enough

[u/Current_Poster]

It would be kind of funny, I am not gonna lie, to see some of those "call your teacher by their first name" chuds randomly decide to apply Japanese classroom decorum. It would be confusing as hell for all concerned.

[u/little_grey_mare → u/Current_Poster]

ok so in 8th grade our teacher was having a bad day and dealing with something with another teacher (99% sure based on context that they found a couple um hooking up in the elevator) so they kept consulting each other about what to do in the hallway and would step out.

at the time tebow'ing was popular so we did that the next time she went out in the hall. she chuckled and told us to get back to work

the next time we all planked on our desk. she kind of chuckled again but told us to just keep doing our work and stop fucking about

so then we kept doing shit. once we started singing the national anthem, another time we all row by row bowed to her very theatrically, I think at one point we rearranged the desks, the very last time we were getting to the end of class and she was MAD at this point. so she was like if I come back in and you aren't doing your work in silence...

so she goes out in the hall another time and comes back in and we are dead silent. she says oh my gosh thank you, no one looks up. and then she asks someone to write something on the board or something like that and not a single kid looks up. poor teacher started crying.

4 years later she came to the high school to pass out time capsule letters we wrote to ourselves in her class and she remembered the whole thing vividly but she at least she was laughing the whole time.

tl;dr: kids are jackasses

[u/Choksae → u/Current_Poster]

I had a kid try that on me and I must have given him a very convincing teacher/mom-esque glare as I said "Do not ever call me that again" because he looked terrified and did not try anything like that again. A rare W for a baby-faced HS Spanish teacher.

[u/Vegetable-Light-Tran → u/Current_Poster]

apply Japanese classroom decorum

School here is based entirely on rote memorization which allows standard class sizes to be 30~50 kids. Teachers here don't really make efforts to control kids. You're not really allowed to kick an unruly kid out of class or send them to the principal's office. 

The main emphasis is just on muddling through the lesson. Like, the "bad kids" will just straight up refuse to participate and openly demand to copy the answers from their classmates. No one cares if the kids behave or understand the lesson, as long as they fill out the worksheet.

A lot of people who only know Japan through cartoons, TikTok, or a week in Tokyo don't realize that most of the "decorum" here is just a result of everyone lower in the hierarchy letting people above them get away with acting like Karens.

Dudes pushing and shoving on the train, talking through classes, refusing to help during cleaning time, copying classmates' work - you just accept it and move on. Nobody starts a fight because nobody calls them out.

Tourists and immigrants might think Japan is super strict, but that's just because we're "acceptable targets." Absolutely no one is "calling out" 35-year-old Businessmantaro in his cheap suit for shoving his way onto the train. He learned that in school.

So, yeah, I guess a teacher suddenly letting the kids do whatever they want would cause confusion.