I think you'll all be glad to know that I have so far survived two weeks on the job. However, I can't say that I was truly doing my job. October 1st, all the assistants, English, Spanish, German, Arabic, and Italian, in the academie (school district/state) went up to Orleans for an orientation. Mostly administrative, finalizing visa paperwork, insurance, blah blah. It was a nice way for as all together and to meet these people I've only exchanged random comments with in our Facebook group. By the end of it, we were all worn out.
The following Monday I went to school for my first day. Marc, my mentor teacher told me to come at 10, kind of the 15 minute recess during the morning when everyone is always in the teachers lounge. However, he hadn't finished my emploi de temps (my schedule) so I spent the morning doing some paperwork and talking with teachers I hadn't met before.
By the next day, Marc had completed my schedule enough that I could at least have my first day of shadowing classes, two classes of seconde (sophomores) and one class of premiere (juniors). You could definitely see differences in their levels of English. In my school they have these "Euro" sections where you can opt to have an extra hour or two of English a week plus take history or something like that in English so my first class of seconde could speak better than the other one. I was very surprised in my class of premiere how smart these students were. They were talking about Australia (and let me tell you, I got a history lesson in that class too because i know NOTHING about Australia. Two girls in the class were German and were very excited when I told them I had been to Berlin and tried to have me name off the things I saw. Bust.
After Tuesday, the rest of the week sort of flew by. On Wednesdays the French only have class until noon (I don't know if that's all of France, but at least for the schools around here) so I don't have to teach that day. Then Thursday we went back to Orleans to have some "how to be a teacher" training. One day. That's all it takes I guess. We played some language games, talked about some methods to get them talking but I think I'm just sort of going to figure it out once I'm there.
Another wonderful thing that Marc did for me was give me Fridays off. Basically my schedule is as follows. Class from 8am-6pm mondays (longest day ever), 3 classes tuesday, 2 classes thursday. I'd say thats better than like... any college schedule I've ever had. I'm pretty pleased.
Now. Onto why this was the Easiest week ever as I titled this blog post. So as you may recall, my first day I arrived in France I was dealing with a strike. The government would like to raise the age of retirement from 60 to 62 and from 65 to 67 if you wish to receive your full pension. This is not going over well at all. The day I arrived was just a taste of it. Since then, I have seen numerous protests, crazy people, strikes, etc all going nuts over this. I mean I don't entirely blame them, I don't think I'd be too fond of it either and striking is definately the french way. So. Monday I had my long day, except that it wasn't quite as long because two of my classes only meet every other week. Lucky me :) Then Tuesday was day one of a national strike. I'd say about 80% of the teachers were on strike. It's not too bad for the school systems budget because if teachers strike they're not paid, more money for the school. But anyways, I went to school for one class that day. 6 kids from seconde who were less than thrilled that I was sitting there trying to make them talk. That was a bit frustrating but I think I also had the kids that were too cool for school so that made it even harder. So after that long day of work, I had Wednesday off and today... not the teachers but the STUDENTS are striking. Not only that, they're blocking the gate to the school. I went there, not sure what to do, they let me in, I think because they weren't sure if I was at the college (middle school) as well, because middle schoolers still had class (by the way they were throwing rocks or something hard at me from inside the gate, that wasn't cool) but there were no teachers and no classes so I got today off too! PLUS I have friday off. Not at all a bad week. To add to it, I have next week and then a 2 week vacation. Only downfall is I'm broke and haven't been paid yet. Sweet. but my bank card came which means I can FINALLY go get a cell phone as soon as the bank opens back up after their lunch break. Counting down the minutes until 2pm. This has been a serious test of patience.Thats it. Miss you and love you all and Happy birthdays to my big sister Brenna and my Daddy! I'm sorry to be missing the gala birthday week! I know you can do it up without me though!
