Impressions

I'm almost done with my first week of teaching. Things are going well so far. This week was supposed to be observation, but as expected, I was thrown right into teaching. I have some 16 classes, most of them 12 pupils at a time for 45 minutes every other week. This means I have approximately 384 students, and I've only met about half of them so far. The kids are excited to have me in class, both because I'm an exotic American (though most assume I'm English) and because I offer a fun break in their normal routine. Most French teachers rule their classes with a smile and an iron fist, and I am working on this technique. I have been studying teachers' presence in class and noticed that they are intimidatingly calm. They speak softly with a kind, patient tone most of the time, but if a student steps one toe out of line, they transform into screaming French banshees who quickly frighten the misbehaving student into submission. It is quite something to see. When I'm teaching my half of the class, their normal teacher is usually in an adjoining classroom with the other half of the class. If the teacher hears the students being to loud or rowdy, she swoops in and yells at them, towering over them in such a fury that they immediately become as still and silent as stones. Frankly, they scare me a bit. Luckily, they only address me in their calm, friendly voice.

The little girls are especially excited to have me around. At École Buhler, which has a central outdoor courtyard where the kids play and which I have to walk across to get pretty much anywhere, the girls swarm me, touching my coat and asking me questions in French peppered with "HEL-LOH!"s and "OUW ARR YOU?"s. The boys aren't quite so pushy, but many have admitted to being in love with me, blushing bright red. When I introduce myself to the class and get them to introduce themselves, I shake their hands à l'American, something not done very often in France. Once the boys figure out that if they raise their hand to introduce themselves I'll come over and shake their hand, I have about ten boys jockeying for my attention.

I find the work fun but exhausting. Sometimes I feel like a babysitter, other times I feel like a real, full-blown teacher. Sometimes I feel like a twenty-two-year-old, unassertive Minnesotan in a class full of fast-speaking French monkeys. (I am working on my French teacher scary voice.) I have to think on my feet a lot. Next week, I hope to have a better lesson plan in place. I will be starting a unit on Halloween, a holiday not celebrated in France.

Nancy, actress and mime that she is, told us in training that teaching is a form of theater. As a teacher, you play a role. You get up in front of your "audience" of students and perform, and hopefully they will be engaged enough to pay attention and get something out of the lesson. I've been meditating on teaching as theater and find I love that interpretation. I'm not sure the metaphor always works, but in preparing myself for my role as a teacher, thinking of my work as performance helps me re-envision my task as a teacher. I find my greatest and most difficult task is engaging my students in the task at hand, something I hope to get better at as the year goes on.

In other news, Amy, Harriet, and I spent yet another hour in Monsieur Gauben's office this afternoon. Yesterday, we were in there for about thirty minutes shooting the breeze, though our original intention was securing my first "kit linge" or laundry kit (two washer and dryer tokens each and four soap disks). Mister Gauben, as we call him, is a portly gentleman in his sixties, very good-humored and self-proclaimed trickster. He likes teasing us and teaching us French slang. He is determined to find us all French boyfriends. He doesn't seem to be very daunted by this mission as he houses forty eligible bachelors at Les Cottages. He is a little perturbed by the fact that Amy already has a boyfriend in England ("He'zzz not allowed heerre.") He calls Amy's boyfriend her "fiancé" just to poke fun at her. Mr. Gauben is particularly interested in securing me a French man, though he's given me the go ahead to pursue the five Brazilian boys living at Les Cottages. They travel around in a pack speaking Portuguese, and he wants them to get French girl friends to improve their French. "You can speak French pretty well, so it's ok for you to be together. You can teach them French and a little English." According to Mr. Gauben, language-learning is a solid foundation for any relationship. Forget emotional fulfillment--a relationship is worthwhile only when you can gain a second or third language out of it.

I don't see much of my potential suitors; they pretty much keep to their rooms doing their engineering homework and playing video games, but here's a quick sketch of the ones I have met briefly (note: I don't usually publicly scope out the men folk, and I do so now merely for your entertainment):

Romain (Roh-mahn): We met him briefly in the hall when the lights short-circuited. He is tall, gangly, and shy, and would only speak to us in broken English. He impressed us with his bravery by flipping the scary switch in the electric box, restoring power to the floor. Then he darted into his room without another word.

Ajit (Ajet): He is earning his PhD at the engineering university. He's originally from India, though he earned his Masters degree in London, so he speaks English well. Poor thing has been terribly lonely in France, where he's struggled for the past two years to learn the language without classes or French friends. His interests include horoscopes, palmistry, and Canadian comedians. He also gallantly tried to fix my shower (to no avail) when I admitted to having been forced to take cold showers in the morning.

The Brazilians: I really want to get to know these guys better. They seem like a fun group, though they are intimidating in their huge Brazilian pack. They all seem very nice, and with their dark hair, soulful brown eyes, and cinnamon-tinged skin, they're not too bad to look at either. They seemed excited to meet someone else from the Americas. ("Mr. Gauben, it's ok if we have American girlfriend?")

Rémy (Ray-mie): Really cute guy at the end of my hall. That's all I know. Everytime I talk about my room, Mr. Gauben says, "Ah yes, the pretty boy ("joli gar") lives at the end of your hall."

François (Fran-swah): Tall, blond, French (shouldn't he be Norwegian?!) guy with a beard. He's looking for an English tutor. We haven't officially met, but Mr. Gauben insisted on giving us his number so we could set up an English tutoring session with him ("Only for studying, ladies," *wink*).

Thomas (Toh-mah): As Mr. Gauben says, Thomas is "cooool." He's from Marseille, which automatically means that he's a laid-back party-er. Take the outfit I first saw him in: board shorts and sandals, a pastel collared shirt, topped of with an enormous winter scarf slung casually around his neck. It was raining that day. We spotted Mr. Gauben helping him move a sleek red couch into his flat (being from Marseille, he's also loaded and has one of the large flats complete with a balcony where he's strung up a hammock). We asked Mr. Gauben about the couch and told him how much we liked Thomas's snappy outfit. Mr. Gauben communicated our compliments and told Thomas all three of the English ladies want to come have drinks on his new red couch. Evidently he's pretty thrilled. I can't wait for my invitation.

Mr. Gauben is arranging a welcome party for us English-speakers next Thursday, also known as our coming-out party. I hope to make some friends as Harriet and Amy will be leaving me for two weeks starting the end of October. It's fall break and they're ready to go home to England. They plan to stuff their suitcases with English delicacies like crumpets and mince pies for me to try. The lack of crumpets and mince pies in my life is evidently cause for great concern--I mean, what planet am I from? Luckily for me, they're here to make sure I get my fill of the Motherland. I don't know what I'd do without them.