February 25, 2021

Thursday

⚠️Content warning: I describe transphobic comments made by students ⚠️

Catherine met me at Place Platanes at 8 and we drove to school. We got to chat about my trip to Grenoble and talked about how long I would be staying in France. Everything feels so up in the air! My visa is valid until June, but I’m done teaching in April so I’m not quite sure what I’ll be doing at the moment. In the break room, I told Catherine everything that had happened on Tuesday. She was shocked that the teacher was doing nothing to help me. She insisted that I inform the principal. I told her that I would probably be contacting them about my schedule change. Catherine pulled over the Charvieu principal and told her what was going on and she promised to make a call for me to Pont-Chéruy. A bit stressful, I hate being out of control of the situation like that. I hope there’s not too much drama that comes out of it.

My first class of the day starts at 8:30 and is a group of 4ème students. Their level isn’t very high. I have 6ème classes that are much better. I started the lesson off with the same questions I do every week “hello, how are you?” and “what did you do since I saw you last?” None of them could answer, even though the questions were written on the board. I’m trying to speak less French with all my classes, so getting them to respond without immediately translating was like pulling nails. Finally, we got through the snow slides and I started to talk about black history month. I decided to include Marsha Johnson in the slides because she was an incredible LGBTQ+ activist and the accomplishments of trans women are often overlooked. All the students started making really transphobic comments. Some exclaimed “it’s a man.” Many called Marsha “it,” ignoring her personhood entirely. They stated that a transperson is always the gender they were assigned at birth and that they are just “pretending” to be another gender. It was deeply troubling. I was shocked to hear them say such hateful things so openly. I struggled to produce any words in French to rebut them, let alone effectively discuss gender theory. Finally, the bell rang.

My next class was with Noury. As usual, things were pretty smooth. We talked about the snow and moved onto the black history month portion of the presentation. Once again, there were similar comments about Marsha. I was more prepared this time and was able to correct them more effectively. I wrote Marsha’s pronouns on the board and explained that it was rude and incorrect to use the masculine “il” when discussing her and that we should instead use the feminine “elle.” That was at least somewhat effective. The discussion really made me wonder what life must be like as a trans person living in France. I can’t imagine the gender dysphoria folks must experience here.

At the break I told Géraud about his students behavior and he promised to talk to them. Next, I had Catherine’s 5ème class.

Normally, this class is one of my favorites. Thursday they were super chatty. In the first group I had to separate some boys and a group of girls because they would not be quiet. The second group was awful. We were talking about the snow and most of the students were refusing to speak in English. Every time someone answered me in French, I said “yes, but what is the answer in English?” They would refuse to respond. When I was showing them how tall the snow was in some pictures, one boy raised his hand to ask a question. He rattled off so fast and so quietly in French that I had no idea what he said. I asked him to repeat several times before someone finally repeated more slowly. I thought that they were saying the snow was so tall it would cover the head of the shortest boy in class. Thinking I finally understood I said yes- the whole class started laughing. I felt embarrassed to have misunderstood, but moved on. After class, I went to tell Catherine how naughty they had been and to see if some of the boys could stay behind next time. I heard the teacher’s aide that was in the room telling her that the boys were making fun of me throughout the class. They had been comparing the height of the snow to their dick size and then mocking me for not understanding and saying yes to them. I felt sick to my stomach. I knew that I probably get mocked behind my back, but it hurt so much to have in confirmed and my professional abilities shot down by kids. Catherine told me that the entire class would stay behind the next week and write me apology letters.

I was in a daze for the last class and hardly noticed it go by. Mme Bodet picked me up and we did some shopping together. We grabbed flowers for her garden and then got food for the week. I got a ridiculous amount of junk food because I felt like absolute shit and wanted to spend the weekend locked in my room. I really really hate teaching. I don’t know if I can make it through these last few weeks.

I spent the rest of the day watching Youtube, baking, talking with friends on the phone, and crocheting. I felt a little better by the time I went to bed. I ignored the responses from teachers about my schedule and figured they could wait. I was in no state of mind to be arguing in French over something that would just make me more upset.