Second week of observations - observing empty classrooms...

My last week of my two weeks of observation was probably a lot less useful to me than it could have been.  Part of that can be blamed on my attitude.  I went into the two weeks of observation thinking that two full weeks seemed a little much, a little more than I needed.  Having taught French classes at BYU for a while and having been a missionary which is a much more one on one type of teaching – giving me experience in both large class and individual teaching situations – I felt that two full weeks would not benefit me as much as someone who is unable to comfortably stand in front of a group and teach.  Besides that, with everything I witnessed during the first week of observations, I knew that I wasn’t necessarily planning on following the “French” style of teaching.  Another reason that this week was not a beneficial for me as it could have been is thanks to the French national sport – going on strike.  In France, striking is a right that each citizen has, similar to the freedom of speech we have in America.  When the French go on strike, the people they work for are not allowed to fire them or attempt to find a permanent replacement.  The strike is pretty much a crippling event for the entire country.  Everything stops – trains and busses stop working, many stores stay closed the entire day, and affecting me more than anything else, many of the school teachers decide not to hold class and a large majority of students don’t come to class.  The strike was scheduled for Tuesday of this week, but since that meant the “internat,” or student housing used by students during the week when they do not live close enough to the school to travel home each day, many students chose not to come to school on Monday leaving me observing classes that were less than half full.  On Tuesday I was scheduled to attend quite a few classes and some of them had me somewhat interested.  My first class was going to be a math class, which was cancelled.  My next class was supposed to be an English class, but only one student showed up.  Before cancelling class, the teacher asked the next teacher down the hall if he had students and it turns out he had only one student as well.  We combined the classes and had two professors, one assistant, and only two students for an entire hour.  This could have been a very beneficial time for both of the students with a lot of one on one teaching, but one of the students seemed so… I don’t really know how to describe him… he was timid, scared, perhaps thinking about something else, and very bad at speaking English.  Despite only asking him yes or no questions and eventually translating the questions into French so he knew EXACTLY what was being asked, he still struggled to respond.  Rather than moving on when he was struggling, the professors spent a lot of time trying to get this one student to repeat sentences that they were telling him to say.  Because of all the time we spent trying to get this student to talk, the other student, who was older and quite a bit better in English (still not a really high level of English, but better than the other student), was not able to practice almost any English at all.  The rest of the day was pretty much the same story.  Classes were cancelled as teachers were on strike, other classes cancelled because no students showed up, and when the classes actually did take place, there were always less than ten students in the class.  The strike was scheduled to be over the next morning, so when I showed up to my first class and learned not one single student had come to class, I was very surprised!  The strike did not end on Tuesday.  Nor did it end Wednesday or even Thursday.  Each day there were more students, but the only full class I went to the entire week was an English class for a group of “scientific” students who are known to be the most dedicated and hard-working students in the school.  It seems so weird to me that students are allowed to go on strike!  The teachers act as if it is completely normal.  They mark the students as absent, but aside from that, there is no other penalty.  Their grade is not lowered, no quizzes are given, nothing.  Teachers and students alike admit that students mostly only go on strike because they would rather be having fun than being at school.

                So what is it that is causing the French to be so mad that they are closing their stores, cancelling their train and bus routes, and skipping school (both teachers and students!)?  The answer is their retirement.  From what I can tell, the French law says that they can officially retire at age 60 and receive a certain amount of social security.  If they wait another five years, to 65, that amount of money increases.  The government has proposed that two years be added to each of those making the limits 62 and 67.  Being notoriously lazy (a couple years ago they were all going on strike to make their work week on 35 hours instead of 40), this makes sense.  As usually happens in such situations, things are blown way out of proportion and many of the rioters are making claims that are obviously not true (ie. “At this rate I’ll still be working when I’m 90!”).  The French are truly, honestly mad about this proposed change.  Even the students claim to be sincerely worried about working too late in their life, which illustrates another difference in thinking between the French and me.  When the US government begins proposing things that will change what happens to people who are older than I, I never really consider that it will directly touch me.  My thought is that, if they are making changes now, they will definitely make more changes before I reach that age.  Nothing is stable, nothing is certain.  The economy is constantly changing, the laws are changing, the country is changing.  The French do not see it this way.  So far the government has not budged and another strike has been planned for next Tuesday as well.  My first week of actual teaching might be just as productive as my second week of observation!

                The strikes aside, I am glad my second week of observation is over and I am looking forward to actually starting what I came to France to do.  I did learn some interesting things during the weeks of observation and some of the classes I attended during the second week were much better than the classes that bothered me the previous week.  There are so many different techniques to teaching, so many theories on how to best teach students, and unfortunately not one of them has been proven to be successful 100% of the time.  Thus every teacher tries to teach in the best way they can.  Every teacher has to put him or herself into the lessons being taught.  There has to be a passion in the teaching that will cause the students to begin to feel a passion of their own.  The key to good teaching, in my very limited experience, is to make the students want to learn. 

                The teachers have been extremely kind to me and have treated me like any other professor at the school.  They have immediately started treating me like a friend, yet also showing me the respect they would show someone who is very knowledgeable in a given subject.  Apparently word travels very quickly between teachers (I asked one teacher where I could find laundry machines and the next day another teacher offered to let me use her laundry machine any time I needed because she heard from a different teacher that I had been looking for a laundry machine), so they all know that my wife has been out of France for the past few weeks and they all know/assume I am bored and lonely.  They have been inviting me to things with them, telling me about things going on, offering to take me places, etc.  Several teachers asked me to go to the riots with them, but I had legitimate reasons I couldn’t go and I’m not sure I would want to go given the current terror threats in France.  Countless others have offered to have a coffee with me or to take me out to get a drink.  They have all been very kind and understanding when I explain I don’t drink alcohol or coffee but I would happily have a hot chocolate with them or drink a coke and talk for a while!  I am quickly falling in love with Perigueux and the Dordogne!  I can’t wait for my wife to come back and experience these things first hand with me.   

Going back to high school

The past few days have been very interesting for me.  I graduated from high school in 2005 and thought I would never be going back. It had never even crossed my mind or entered my wildest dreams that I would not only be going back to high school, but high school in France! 
My assistantship began with a training meeting that took an entire day - from 9am to 5pm, with an uncaricteristically short lunch break of a little over an hour (at least short for the French who often enjoy two hour lunch breaks.)  We did have a nice forty-five minute coffee/tea break somewhere in the middle there too...  The entire morning section was dedicated to telling us what exactly our responsibilities would be and what sort of procedures we would need to go through to be legal here in France.  I don't know if it took so long to tell us that because we are in France, or if it took so long because it was a Brittish man telling us those things all in French - probably the latter.  By one o'clock it was time for lunch and I had made some new friends and we all had a good kebab together.  The afternoon was more dedicated to principles used for teaching our little classes or groups of students.  It was strangely familiar - very similar to the trainings I went through to teach my French class at BYU, although I must say, and if you are reading this Mme Thompson, it is definitely a compliment for you, the trainings at BYU were MUCH more effecient, effective, enjoyable, and beneficial for me.  From one thirty to about four thirty, we all did ONE teaching practice and we were given about five minutes to do it, and on top of that we had to do it with a partner, which we will never have in real situations.  The practice was not too intimidating for me because I have done so many in the past and I feel comfortable in front of a crowd.  I could tell that it was much more difficult for some of the other assistants from the other schools though.
I was glad to be in my own school, Albert Claveille, the following day.  I was told that for the first TWO WEEKS of my time in Lycee Claveille, all I will be doing is sitting in on classes taught by other teachers in the school in all sorts of different subjects.  I have seen classes in English, French, Philosophy, Engineering, Auto mechanics, P.E., and I was supposed to have two different math classes as well, but it didn't work out.  I have one more week to go sitting in on classes, but just in this first week, I have decided how blessed and grateful I am to have been born and raised in the United States and in the US school system.  I know our system has flaws and I could talk about the flaws for hours, but seeing the way the French students are forced to learn was an eye opener for me.  My first class was an English class with the professor who is my "contact person" for the school.  She is a wonderful lady who means well, but I did not like the way she ran her class.  Students were pressured into talking in front of the class rather than invited or encouraged.  Rather than giving the open ended questions to answer and asking them for their opinions, they had to give very specific answers to questions the teacher asked.  If their answer was not what the teacher wanted, it was wrong.  Rather than looking for the positive in the answer, it was just deemed wrong.  If any student made any comment when he was not addressed, he was quickly scolded.  If I had started my language learning career in classes like that, I know I would not be where I am today.  I had such good language teachers in high school.  They treated me like a student, with the distance that required, but I also felt like I was a friend.  I need to make a point to go back to my high school and thank my Spanish teacher for her hard work.  I fell in love with languages because of that class.  That took me down a path to French and now I'm living in France.  I'm living a life most people could only dream about and a lot of it is thanks to my high school Spanish and French teachers.  I know that I would not have liked my language classes if they were taught like the ones I have seen here are. 
I thought to myself that perhaps it was just the one class that I didn't like... until I visited others.  Other English classes were the same.  Students would have an idea that they wanted to share and they were cut off and scolded before they could express any of their idea and other students were asked to correct their mistakes.  How discouraging for them!  Then the teachers wonder why no students want to participate in class!  I was sent to one English class, on the other hand, that was much better.  The teacher had not really warned me ahead of time, but when I got to the class, he basically asked me to stand in front of the class and let the students ask me questions about anything and everything.  We talked a lot about the differences between French and American school systems, life, politics, sports, hobbies, careers, etc.  I don't say it was better because I was talking the whole time, but rather it was better because the students were interested in the subject matter, they had opinions and questions and comments, and they were allowed to express them - EVEN if they made mistakes when doing it.  I respected the teacher for that.  One student wanted to tell me his futer plans, what he was studying to become, but said in French "I don't know how to say it."  The teacher told him, "just try and explain it."  It took a couple sentences, and there were definitely a couple grammatical errors, but I now know what he wants to do with his life and it was very interesting to me.  I told him I was interested in that and the rest of the lesson he was actively involved.  If he had been shouted at, I'm sure it would not have been the same.  He seemed like somewhat of a trouble maker, but he was well behaved the entire class.  I hope to run my little language groups the same way.  Open communication about interesting topics for the students.  This cultural exchange, this sharing of ideas and opinions is why I wanted to come do this assistantship in the first place.  I love the multi-cultural exchange that takes place naturally if you let it. 
Other classes have been more or less interesting as well.  Some I like while others I definitely did not like.  It seems that students are not encouraged to "take notes" in the way that most American students think of it.  Rather, the teacher presents a topic, asks for one or two students to comment, then gives them the "correct" answer in a Word for Word sentence that they are to copy down into their notebooks and study for later.  Every student has the same notes.  Every student has the same SENTENCE that is the "correct" answer to the question of the day.  This way of teaching was particularly bothersome to me in the philosophy class.  The teacher presented a text about artists and inspiration and whether the concept of "inspiration" in a work of art really exists.  Being an artist myself, I was excited to hear the comments of the students.  Sadly there were none.  The text had several "comprehension" questions at the end and the teacher answered them with her pre-written sentences.  No discussion, no debate.  Question.  Answer.  Same thing in the French litterature class.  History.  Everything.  I would not have done well with the one sentence answers to every question if I had been in French schools.
I suppose I can see some of the benefits though.  If you are in class, you will have the important notes in your book for sure.  I remember sometimes sitting in classes writing things as fast as I could as the teacher spoke, studying everything I wrote only to find out on test day that I hadn't written the right thing and did poorly on the test... but tests aside, I feel I learned the material better seeing it being used.  Language for example - in a class, a teacher would explain a concept such as pronouns or verbs.  I didn't necessarily understand right away.  Then in open conversations in class, with the teacher and with students, I figured it out.  There was a light bulb that suddenly turned on and I never forgot how it worked.  I can still remember some of those "ah ha!" moments to this day.  Could something like that exist if all I had to study were the sentences I was forced to write every day?  I suppose if I had been raised like that from birth I would have managed, but it is not in my personality. 
I'm looking forward to being finished with my high school attendance and being able to finally start what I came here to do - speak English with French students.  Help them love speaking English the way I love speaking French.  I will be able to teach them and talk to them in my own way.  I can talk to them the way I did in that English class the one day I was allowed to talk to them.  At the end of the class, the teacher told the students I would not be going back to their class because there were too many other classes I had to work with.  The students started complaining and said, "Isn't there some way he could come back here?  It's not fair!  He is the best English assistant this school has had and we don't even get to talk with him!"  I take that as a compliment.  The fact that he would even ask that means he enjoyed the class, the conversation, the exchange.  If I can make it so that every student enjoys the class periods they spend with me, I will consider my time here in France well spent.  I know I won't make any students fluent in English, that is their own path to follow.  If they want to speak English fluently, they need to practice.  My job is to make them Want to practice and hopefully it will come as naturally to them as it did to me. 

First weeks in France

When I found out I had been accepted to come to France for about eight months, I knew it was going to be a great adventure.  I had lived in France before, so I felt confident that everything would just fall into place just like it did when I was here as a missionary.  I knew how to use the train stations, I knew how to figure out the bus system, I knew there would be an immediate base of support and friendship coming from the ward in Perigueux, and I knew French.  I figured that would be enough.  For the most part, everything has been as I expected it to be.  But I believe I did underestimate exactly how much of an adventure this experience really was going to be.
I have been in France now for almost three weeks now and still haven't written a blog post, and I will get to the reason why in just a moment, but I would like to start from the beginning, just so nothing gets left out.  The trip started in Salt Lake City on September 20, 2010.  Everything went smoothly at the airport, all our papers were in order, we hopped in the plane and took off.  The first flight was smooth.  The second flight would be the most difficult of them all, and we knew that getting on the plane.  It was about ten hours long and it was overnight.  Everyone knows that sleeping on a plane is very difficult, but I think it would have been less difficult it the elderly couple with noise cancelling headphones in the seat right behind us would have realized the could have heard each other better if they had taken the noise cancelling headphones off instead of just shouting to each other and if they had turned off their overhead lights during at least some of the flight... none the less we ended up in the Netherlands and finally landed about a half hour late because of extreme fog.  The flight messed with our minds.  We were flying east and the darkness of night was heading west.  We passed through the darkness and back into the light in what felt like no time at all.  We really only had about two to three hours of night.  Shortest night I have ever experiened.  Because of the late landing, we only had fifteen minutes to get to our next gate, we were nearly running.  We showed up at the gate only to find our flight had been delayed a half hour - also because of the fog.  We sat down, extremely tired from not sleeping all night and running to our gate, and waited a half hour.  That half hour turned into an hour which then turned into over two hours before we were finally boarded the plane.  It felt like an eternity because we were so tired and so anxious to finally arrive in France.  We did finally get off the ground and shortly after landed in Bordeaux, France.  Getting a train to Perigueux took another couple of hours of waiting and when we arrived in Perigueux, we had no map (there was a map distributer, but it was broken.), and even if we had found a map, we had struggled getting in contact with the person who was keeping us at his house and didn't know where he lived or how to get there.  Getting in contact with our friend seemed almost impossible!  There were no public phones around, I saw no cyber cafes around (beyond that, he doesn't really use e-mail anyway), and the only pay phones we could find wouldn't take coins, only French credit cards.  It seems illogical to me that the only way to pay for a pay phone is with a French credit card.  Don't most French people already have a phone or some way to contact people in France?  The people most likely to use pay phones are TOURISTS who need to call someone in a city (like us) or call their hotel for directions or something of the sort, meaning they won't have a French credit card.  So we waited at the train station for a while, bought a kebab (not the best I had ever had) and had to borrow some random girl's cell phone to try to get ahold of our friend.  No answer.  We left a message and told him we would be sitting in front of the train station.  An hour later he picked us up.  What a relief it was to finally get to rest in a confortable house and get all cleaned up!  Sadly the first few hours in France for my wife and I were not as enchanting as we might have hoped.  The next day we took a bus into town and tried to get our bearings, which was also hard.  How do you find the interesting parts of a town if you don't know anything about the town at all?  We took the first bus we saw and spent the day walking. 
Our third day was another great experience.  We didn't do much the entire day, we had no plans, nothing to go see... and in essence, that was our cultural experience for the day: it was a day of greve (strike).  No busses, no trains, no planes, nothing of the sort.  We were completely stuck in our little suburb outside Perigueux with our gracious but slightly awkward hosts.  I suppose we now know what it is like to be a French person who is particularly bothered by the nation wide GREVES. 
A few days later we took a train to Bayonne.  I suppose that is when the truly enchanting part of our voyage really took place.  Visiting Bayonne was heaven.  I knew the city because I had been there on a mission, I knew members who were excited to see us and very excited to meet my lovely wife, I knew what was worth visiting... really it was the epitomy of a perfect vacation.  We spent little money because people kept us at their houses and fed us.  We made the most of every day.  We got some good exercise.  Everything was good.  We attended church in Bayonne and everyone was so happy to see us.  People I knew from my mission and even many that I didn't know from my mission were so kind to us.  Probably seven different families offered to let us stay at their house if we ever wanted to visit Bayonne again.  Even people I had never met before were offering us their homes!  The kindness was almost overwhelming.  I couldn't help but think to myself that if the whole world were more like the members of the church in Bayonne, well... I suppose we would all be translated already!  The highlights of the trip were the beaches of Biarritz (even though it was a bit cold and rainy), the open air markets, driving down to Espelette where they hang piments from every Basque looking building, the cathedral in Bayonne city center, visiting people I had met on their mission, and of course, the U2 concert in Spain.  We were worried about how we would get to the concert, but even more worried about coming back because I realized that there were no trains scheduled that late in the evening.  We were very blessed because a family that was inactive when I was on my mission -but still invited me and my companion over for Christmas dinner my last mission Christmas- had started coming back to church the week before we arrived and they were going to the concert as well.  They drove us and we considered it a miracle.
Getting back to Perigueux and finally moving into our apartment was like jumping into a cold swimming pool after sitting in a relaxing hot tub for hours.  Because of French policies, we were NOT allowed to move into our apartment until October 1st, even though there was no one in the apt.  Not too big of a problem for use because we had a generous host, but how are all the assistants in the past and future supposed to deal with that situation if they can't move into the apartment until their first day of training?  It seems unreasonable to me.  We moved in on a Friday and started getting settled.  Later that evening, around seven or eight at night, I realized we had no hot water because the water heater was not plugged in.  Obviously an attempt to save energy when no one is living in the apartment.  I plugged it in and immediately heard a small explosion of water.  I looked in the toilet room where the water heater was and water was spraying all over the floor and walls.  I quickly unplugged it again and turned off all water that was passing through it but nothing would stop the leak.  It wasn't as bad anymore, but it never stopped.  Drip, drip, drip, drip... We had no phones.  We had no internet.  I had no phone numbers of people to call except one of the English teachers who was my "Contact person" from the school.  I went to all the offices where I had been introduced earlier that day and everyone had gone home.  We managed to get a bucket in place to catch the falling water and decided to try to find a phone in the morning to get ahold of my contact person.  We walked to the chapel and were lucky enough to find the missionaries holding a sports activity with some members and investigators and we used the church phone to call Ginette.  She ended up completely unable to help us because she didn't have anyone's phone number either.  She said to just keep an eye out for anyone at the school and tell them.  We did end up seeing someone at the school and told them about our problem.  By this time the leak was getting worse and we had to drain the bucket every couple hours.  "Sorry, there is nothing I can do during the weekend, it will have to wait until Monday."  That was the response every time we managed to find someone and tell them about our problem.  Weekend = we don't care.  On Monday, though, everyone started really worrying about the situation and the problem was quickly solved.  An easy solution that could have been done on Friday night if anyone had bothered enough to care.  I recognize that it was the weekend and everyone needs their personal time, but there are also situations that require a little extra effort than the minimum.
Things have calmed down now that the leak is fixed and we have hot water again, but it still seems like we have been struggling with many minor things that are never too much of a problem in the United States.  Maybe we just aren't as accostumed to the French culture as I thought I was, or maybe Perigueux is particular in its nature, but things have been difficult.  The stove top was broken and the school refused to fix it because they fixed it last year.  It was obvious no one had cleaned the apartment before moving out and we spent an entire day throwing away boxes and trash that had been shoved in the closets probably for years.  Ariel, my wife, was particularly worried about the cleanliness of the beds and such and spent several days cleaning everything to perfection with bleach and any other cleaning agent she could get her hand on.  If only I could demand they take all that labor out of the cost of my rent, as well as the price of a new stove top thing and a small convection oven... but I'm sure that wouldn't go over well.  Little by little we have taken care of all the major problems and are finally starting to get confortable not only in the apartment but in the city as well.  We are starting to know where things are, how to best get around, etc.  Once we both feel more confortable in this city, I'm sure it will be the paradise that we were hoping it would be and we will enjoy Perigueux as much as if not more than we did Bayonne.  Now all that is left is to start my assistantship, the actual reason we came to France.