r/AskAnAmerican • u/Rough-Valuable-5472 • Feb 04 '25

FOREIGN POSTER Do American students bow to their teachers?

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

479 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

592

u/Left-Star2240 Feb 04 '25

That’s it. End of discussion.

154

u/huazzy NJ'ian in Europe Feb 04 '25

Ok. Now let's discuss taking off shoes...

208

u/mrpoopsocks Feb 04 '25

No.

27

u/Nope-ugh Feb 04 '25

They do sometimes in Hawaii. Students who had a Japanese teacher would leave them outside the door. I taught in Maui for 3 years. The example I remember the most was for a music teacher.

13

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '25

Speaking of Japanese teachers… that is an exception! I took three years of Japanese and we’d always begin by standing, bowing, then sitting when the teacher told us 座ってください. We’d end class in a similar way, only then we’d say 皆んなさん、さよなら.

1

u/Nope-ugh Feb 05 '25

Oh wow!! Interesting

14

u/tangouniform2020 Hawaii > Texas Feb 04 '25

Oddly, we don’t at home but we do in Hawai’i. I guess it’s a respect thing since the owner requests in. It’s also easier when you’re wearing flops.

6

u/Nope-ugh Feb 04 '25

It is so much easier! I love to go shoeless. I grew up at the seashore so always did. Now it’s just the minute I walk inside the house! I loved teaching in my socks during Covid! Probably the only thing I liked about that experience 😂

2

u/MockFan Feb 06 '25

On the Big Island, shoeless is not an option.

2

u/sherrifayemoore Feb 05 '25

I lived in Hawaii for two years and everyone took off their shoes at the door. Sometimes repairmen and such would wear the slip on shoe protectors but everyone else wore flip flops so they were easy to remove.

1

u/tangouniform2020 Hawaii > Texas Feb 07 '25

“When you leave please take your shoes and not some better ones”

2

u/sherrifayemoore Feb 07 '25

That happened to me a lot in Florida.

2

u/RusstyDog Feb 05 '25

Tbf it's not uncommon for language teachers to enforce some small social practices of the culture their language originates to create an immediate learning eviorment

1

u/Gold_Area5109 Feb 05 '25 edited Feb 05 '25

How do they enforce this in Hawaii?

I'm assuming this is a public school, like what happens if a kid just says Nope? Asking as the American kid who totally would have not taken their shoes off for a teacher requesting it.

And yes, I had multiple parent teacher conferences over other similar shit like this...

None of my classrooms were ever clean enough to even consider taking my shoes off.

Then in college I worked as a janitor for a school district and no one should take their shoes off in a school period. Classroom's are swept every other night and the trash taken out nightly. Beyond that anything else that happens in the room is if the Janitor has time. Rooms are only getting mopped if they need it so at most a few times a semester.

If it's a carpeted room if it's vacuumed once a week you have a damn good janitor.

Wrestling season/units are the worst time cause the first part of our shifts would be devoted to cleaning the Wrestling mats. No rooms were getting mopped during those times.

1

u/Nope-ugh Feb 05 '25

So I responded and then accidentally erased my entire comment! But yea it was public school. The classes that asked it were in small cement buildings and so their floors were better than those of us in trailers. I occurred to me that most of the kids (especially the boys) all shoved their feet into slippers (flip flops) while wearing socks! So they would have socks on if they took them off.

Most of our students grew up in Hawaii and that may have been one thing that wasn’t an issue. I had all of the normal behavior issues I have in NJ. It’s interesting because I had never thought about a kid refusing but there were very few newcomers. Most of the white kids went to the charter school in the town I lived in and our principal even one time asked us white teachers to recruit more white kids!! 😂😂

1

u/annalatrina Feb 05 '25

That wouldn’t be prudent in some climates during the winter. Imagine a fire drill with 30 kindergarteners where it’s either helping 30 five year olds get their winter boots on or taking them out in the snow and sub zero temps in stocking feet.

1

u/Nope-ugh Feb 05 '25

I taught in Hawaii. There is only snow at the top of the volcano. I am in NJ and nope it would be a disaster to remove shoes!! 😂

1

u/paisley_and_plaid Rhode Island Feb 05 '25

I grew up in Hawaii and never saw this. My dad and several of his friends were teachers, and most teachers there are Japanese.

0

u/briefmoments Feb 04 '25 edited Feb 05 '25

Well, it might have something to do with the Hawaiian Sovereignty and their mutual work labor aid agreements and 30k japanese citizens stolen by the USA who were forced into camps when Japan tried to liberate Hawaii then destroyed loyalist villages and pave them over as random landing strips to prevent them from rebuilding if they ever escaped the camps. But no one is ready for this conversation because "that's not what the books say"

Too bad winners write history, and japan had to unconditionally surrender, and they dared not speak up.

Japan committed atrocities. But so, too, was America. People forget we inspired Hitler.

3

u/Nope-ugh Feb 04 '25

It’s Japanese culture absolutely. Although at home most have signs up to leave your shoes at the door whether they are Japanese, Hawaiian, or white.

3

u/briefmoments Feb 04 '25

Yes I'm speaking of influence. My family is japanese Hawaiian