First Day in the Schools

So yesterday was my first day observing in the schools. I woke up bright and early so that I could catch the #10 bus before 7:30am, to guarantee I would be at Ecole Champagne in Planoise before 8:15am. Classes start at 8:30am, but I wanted to make sure that I got there early so I could meet some of the other teachers and figure out which classes I would be observing.

Waking up that early was a bit of a jolt, to be honest. I've been waking up around 8:15am for the past 2 weeks, because that's the time sunlight comes streaming through my window and floods the room with light. And the #10 was packed. But it only took 22 minutes from my stop to the one in Planoise, and less than ten minutes to walk to the school. I went first to the Directeur's office and he showed me to the salle de maîtres (teachers' lounge). I got to meet most of the teachers (about 10 in total, 8 of them women and mostly of the same height and with brown hair -- remembering their names is going to be an issue). I was surprised at how young the teachers were -- all of them seemed only a few years older than me, at most. Maybe this is because Planoise is seen as sort of a "difficult" area, so veteran teachers move on to schools in more desirable neighborhoods? At 8:30am the teachers went out into the cour (schoolyard) and collected their students, who were lined up by class. First I shadowed Caroline, the English referent (point person) for Ecole Champagne. Her class consists of twenty-two CP students. CP is the equivalent of first grade in the US (six year-olds).

Here's the terminology:

1st grade, 6 years old   ==> Cours préparatoire (CP)
2nd grade, 7 years old ==> Cours élémentaire 1re année (CE1)
3rd grade, 8 years old ==> Cours élémentaire 2e année (CE2)
4th grade, 9 years old ==> Cours moyen 1re année (CM1)
5th grade, 10 years old == Cours moyen 2e année (CM2)

Twenty-two students doesn't sound like a lot for someone coming from the context of college seminars. But twenty-two 6 year-olds? Yikes! After only 15 minutes I started to get a headache just from all of the constant motion coming from the little bodies in my field of vision. Caroline wasn't teaching any English on Monday morning -- she told me they reserve the mornings for the core subjects of French and Math -- but it was helpful to see how she conducted the class. I will be assisting in one class at Ecole Champagne which has CP students in it. It's actually a class of CP and CPE (6 and 8-year olds together). Fabienne, my liaison, explained that this is due to budget/hiring cuts, but I'm still not sure why they would put kids two grades apart together. I'm definitely going to request to observe that class when I go in on Thursday.

I spent all morning at Ecole Champagne and ate lunch with the teachers there, then walked over to Ecole Bourgogne. The walk took about 10 minutes -- I'm positive there is a faster way than the one I took, but I didn't want to get lost on my first day and the way I took followed a main road/sidewalk.

At Ecole Bourgogne I followed a teacher named Annette who speaks very fluent British English. I was able to observe her CM2 class for their English lesson, than another CM2 class Annette instructed (while her class was learning German), and then Annette's class again during their history/writing class. I found the CM2 kids to be much more manageable. Maybe that's not the right word -- but the teacher's role in those classes seemed less like babysitting and more like teaching. The two classes were both full (22 kids in each) of exuberant, eager little ones. They were awkstruck when Annette told them that I came from the US. At the beginning of the history/writing lesson, she let her class ask me some questions about myself and the United States. Here were some of the memorable ones:

• Do you know any famous "pop stars"? (in quotes because that's the term the girl used in French)
• Do you know President Obama?
• Have you ever stayed in the White House?
• Do you know David Guetta?
• Were you there on September 11th when the twin towers (les tours jumelles) fell?
• Do you really use dollars and not euros?

There were a couple of other ones like: "Was your school like ours?" and "Where do you live?" For this last question, I whipped out the quick sketch of the US that I made when the teachers at Ecole Champagne asked where Ohio is located. I labeled my horribly-inaccurate sketch with the places I thought they might recognize: NYC, California, and Texas. I also added North Carolina, so I could show them where I went to college. Here's my sketch, just to give you a few laughs (yes, note that Texas's border problem is a fiction as it does not share a border with Mexico):

Also, when I named my home state, quite a few teachers immediately referenced a relatively famous French song whose title is the same name. Isabelle Adjani, a French actress from the 1970s, sang "Ohio" (click to hear it on YouTube). I remember Sabrina and Yohan, the French ex-pat couple who helped me out when I was stranded in Casablanca three summers ago, told me this too, but at the time I was too weary to process it. Other French people have mentioned it to me again since, but this was the first time I wrote down the singer's name.

So overall my first day of observing was highly successful. The teachers were very welcoming, and seemed to lead their classes effectively. One thing that struck me was how long it took to get the students from one place to another: walking from the schoolyard to the classroom took forever because the kids were perpetually wandering out of line and talking too loudly. Despite being in what people keep referring to as a "difficult area," the schools seemed to be well-equipped and well-maintained.

Another word on that: I feel like my blogs haven't done Planoise justice. Yes, it's a neighborhood consisting of high-rise, low-cost apartment buildings built in the 1960s and 1970s for new immigrants. The apartment buildings' architecture reflects their vintage (that is to say, they are ugly). But the area, at least the part I'm in, doesn't seem anything like what I would consider a "rough neighborhood." Maybe it's because there are trees everywhere. Despite all of the buildings, Planoise is just as verdant as the rest of Besançon, maybe even more because it's more spread out than the c-v. It's hard to tell to what extent Planoise's reputation comes from general French phobia of foreigners, particularly those from its former colonies.... But I'll let you know as I spend time there regularly!

Today was our stage d'accueil (orientation), tomorrow no school, then observing again on Thursday. Friday I have a journée pédagogique (teachers' workshop). Last night I went to another Ultimate practice and tomorrow night I'm playing in a mini-tournament at the university! That's all for now!