March 15, 2021

Monday

It was a cold and rainy morning. All the beautiful weather from previous weeks completely disappeared. I grabbed the 7:20 bus with the kids and headed to school. Knowing I had no food in the house, I brought along my shopping bag and my big backpack. Upon arrival at the collège, I started off on my trek to the Carrefour downtown Pont-Chéruy.

It was still a bit early when I arrived, so I picked up some éclairs at the bakery before I returned to do my shopping. I got to wait in line outside with all the old people! Woo! After I finished, I headed back to school to start my day. I had a coffee with Iilaria (the Italian teacher) in the staff room before I went to set up.

My first two groups were the 3éme students. These two groups are unpredictable. Strangely, a group of all boys showed up (it’s generally mixed because the girls carry the class). I asked them if they had their speeches prepared because their teacher told me all of them should be done. Even though I asked in both English and French, none of them acted like they knew what I was talking about. When the half an hour was up, I told them it was time to switch groups. They claimed that the teacher wanted them to stay the entire hour (she didn’t tell me anything about that). We returned to the classroom together and I discovered that half the class was giving their graded speech today. Because the boys refused to practice with me, we sat and watched all the girls give great speeches on gender equality. The teacher was enraged when I told her none of the boys had anything prepared.

The second group was much smoother. We corrected grammar, went over pronunciation, and still had time for everyone in the class to give their speech that day.

At lunch, I ended up eating with the teacher that works with students who speak French as their second language. Yahn and I talked about my struggles in France and about his travels to different countries. It was great to be able to talk to someone around my age. He offered to give me some pointers and to let me observe a class so I could tell what a French classroom was like.

After lunch I had the 4ème students. I’ve been struggling with them because there’s a set of boys that insists on doing worksheets for other classes during my lessons. I asked them to put them away and told them if I had to ask twice I would take away the paper. When I took away the paper they were angry and argued with me, so I had them write down their names for me so I could talk to the teacher.

The 6ème was easy. I showed them the rest of the national parks slideshow. They loved the Everglades National Park. I showed them a video of all the animals there and they enjoyed naming each of the animals and choosing a favorite. I thought it was cute that all French kids call fawns “bambis.”

At last, my final class. The euro kids! The teacher wanted me to show them a video about how they can change the world. The video was 17 minutes long and the man spoke wayyyy too fast for the kids to understand. I couldn’t understand why she would want them to watch a TED talk video. I did my best to translate and break up the main points for them, but I don’t know if it did any good.

Finally, I was able to get home. I made myself a good meal and enjoyed some TV. I had a long phone call with Syd and one with another friend. I decided that I would call out on Tuesday and take a sick day. The thought of going in and working with those classes again is distressing. I sent the emails and let Mme Bodet know that she would not need to wait for me in the morning.