January 12, 2021

Tuesday

I arrived at the school around 7:45. When classes started at 8:00, the staffroom emptied out. I got myself a little coffee from the machine and sat down to enjoy it while I listened to the NPR morning update. I said hello to Christel when she came in and she told me about a few of the students yesterday and explained why they were difficult. It seems there are a few boys involved in a family feud and a bubble burst in my class yesterday. They’ll be separated in the future. Phew!

I started with the least difficult of the Tuesday classes. They’re always fun to chat with. They have creative answers whenever I ask questions about they things they did. They like to read and they are very passionate about Harry Potter. They loved the West Side Story clip that I shared. They liked the dancing and were able to identify the Spanish accent of the actors.

At the morning pause, the teachers brought out three galettes des rois and some crowns. Because I’m the youngest they wanted me to guess who the roi (king) would be, but no one has every introduced themself to me and I don’t know their names! I refused as politely as possible and enjoyed a slice of the pastry.

The second class is one of the problem classes. They always ask good questions and we can have a good conversation, but they’re difficult to calm down and they love to make noise. I told them that we’d be starting a new system. If I needed to talk with them twice, they would write down their name for me and the teacher would talk to them after class. Surprisingly, no names. Their English is good enough that they had time to watch clips from Wicked, West Side Story, and Hamilton. They said that West Side Story was their favorite because of the dancing style. The second half of the class was jealous because the other group got to watch a clip from my cousins’ band last week. Of course, I had to make it even. We watched “When the Curtain Falls” before the bell rang.

The third class is always a nightmare. Even though I use the same room as the first class, the internet never works at this time of day. I couldn’t get my slides to show up, so I had to do the entire lesson with no catchy visuals. None of the students liked the clips I showed. They declared that West Side Story was racist because it mentioned that things are easier for white folks in America. I tried to explain the racial divisions present in our society today and in the past, but it was difficult because students kept blurting out random noises around the room. I wrote down three names for each group of ten kids. The teacher was not happy.

I was surprised by my students’ lack of knowledge again Tuesday. When I asked for landmarks in New York, they suggested the Twin Towers. I had to explain that the Twin Towers fell in 2001 and no longer exist. The students had no clue that the 9/11 terrorist attack took place and had no idea that there were international conflicts that came out of the attack.

After school, I went grocery shopping with Mme Bodet. I was able to find everything I needed much more easily. I asked a grocery clerk for help and she was able to understand me and direct me to the product that I needed! So cool.

I ate dinner with the Bodet family. We had a veggie, red sauce lasagna with salad and bread. There was a galettes des rois for dessert with a cup of coffee. I hadn’t eaten with the family in a few days because they took a trip to Grenoble over the weekend. They packed up unwanted school supplies in a container to ship to Madagascar schools. Daniel was eager to talk about all the issues with the insurrection last week. Both he and Bernadette agree that Tr•mp should be impeached and that he is a danger to our democracy. They are worried that there will be large-scale violence in the US at the end of the month.

We also got to talk about my upcoming MLK lesson on Thursday. I told them that I’m unsure how much students know about the US system and history. They confirmed that the students’ knowledge is very very limited. Bernadette was excited to tell me that she visited MLK’s home in the US when she worked stateside. She was shocked to see how racially divided our country was. While there are class and racial divisions that affect housing in France, they simply do not have anything like our history of redlining and de facto segregation.

I went home and got the chance to talk to my weekly Tuesday groupchat on the phone. Later, I visited with my cousin and got caught up what’s going on her life. It is always awesome to hear from the people you’re close to after a long day of learning.