Salut!
I have been working in France for almost four months now, and I will admit that I am still trying to figure out the differences between the schools here. I teach at two schools, both of which are public and both of which are within the city limits. Issoudun seems to be a middle class town, but the largest discrepancies that I see between my two schools seem to revolve around the finances of the student’s families.
Here is a map to give you an idea of where things are in my town:
(A) Ecole Michelet
(B) Ecole St. Exupery
(C) The Boulot/Lefevre house
Of the two schools where I teach, this is the economically disadvantaged school. St Exupery (or St. Ex) is on the outskirts of town, literally a block away from the southeastern city limit. For the most part, the students here are not as financially well off as those at Ecole Michelet, and I would assume that, generally speaking, their families are in the lower middle class.
The behavior on the playground speaks wonders about the backgrounds of these kids. There are two groups of kids on the playground: those that play with marbles (yes, marbles) and those that play soccer. Those students that play with marbles are the less combative kids. The kids that play soccer are the kids that have potential to be trouble. Recently, many of the soccer kids have taken to wearing oversized LA or NY baseball hats; of course, they have no idea what their hat means in the general scheme of things, but they wear them regardless. It is clear that the soccer kids often watch professional soccer games because whenever anyone scores a goal, everyone helps celebrate like THIS. I am not exaggerating.
The kids that play soccer often tend to rough each other up, but all in play. That is to say that they will push each other around in a fake fight, and then tap each other on the chest or the back of a head in a fake peace agreement. I’m not quite sure if these kids are watching movies that are not age appropriate or if they are getting these moves from, shall we say, first hand experience. I think both are very possible.
To give you an example, last Friday one of the marble-playing kids was beaten up by an older kid (who does not go to St Exupery and the teachers believe that the older kid is a high school dropout)…no one is quite sure what happened, but I’ll admit that this came as a surprise since this particular student is naively young and keeps his nose clean. I have taken a liking to this student because while he is slower than the rest due to a medical issue and a learning disability, he is the only student at St. Ex who wants to have a conversation with me during the recreation period. Fortunately, this student survived the beating, but unfortunately it will take him a while to recover.
All that being said, the classes as a whole at St. Exupery are more enjoyable than the classes at Michelet. I am surprised how much I look forward to going to this school on Mondays and Tuesdays. The students seem to respond well to me, regardless if they are the marble kids or the soccer kids. The teachers at St. Ex are stricter than those at Michelet, and the students know that they are not to act out in class. In terms of English, they are quickly progressing through their yearly curriculum and they focus well in the classroom with me.
Ecole Michelet
This school is known in Issoudun as being for the families with higher income. The school is placed close to the center of the town, and therefore the students that live in this area are financially better off then those at St. Exupery (again, this is generally speaking). When I first arrived, I thought I was going to like teaching at Michelet more than at St. Ex, but realistically it’s the reverse. I do enjoy the teacher's a great deal at Michelet, but the students can be a huge challenge sometimes.
The kids at Michelet are less disciplined and they can be, for lack of a better word, brats. I’m not saying that the kids at St. Exupery are better behaved in the class because they know that education is one of the facets to better their financial situation, but some of the kids at Michelet act like kids who are given everything and don’t have to work for much. If I didn't know it before, I've quickly discovered that this attitude does not lend itself to good students.
My two least favorite classes are at Ecole Michelet, and they both happen to be on Thursday. Generally speaking, both of these classes have a tendency to goof off and the teachers willingly admit (even in front of the kids) that the kids are terrible, badly behaved, and disrespectful. I take a small amount of solace in the fact that the kids are equally unfocused with the regular teacher as with me. These are only two out of seven classes at Michelet, and for the other classes I've learned tricks to intrigue even the most uninterested student. My most effective trick is to pretend that I'm even more disinterested in the student than he/she is in English, and then suddenly kid starts to be attentive and learn English in order to get attention. ha, take that kiddo, I win and therefore you win.
All that being said, my absolute favorite class is at Ecole Michelet. This class is a combined 4th and 5th grade class (CM1/CM2) and I take one half of the class while the teacher works on computer science with the other half. After 30-40 minutes we switch groups so that everyone can do both English and computer science. Because this class focuses when they need to focus, we can play games and do fun activities to practice their English. One of the projects that we are doing is a pen pal exchange with students of the same age at a public school in Atlanta. Here are some pictures of the letters that they’ve sent (I blurred out the images of the kids to respect their privacy):
This kid really wanted to include a picture of himself in 3D glasses...
This kid always makes sure to say hello to me everyday on the playground.
This student became very invested in the project and attached pamphlets that are all about Issoudun.
Although I’m only working 12 hours a week, including travel time and my “overtime” where I elect to stay longer in classes to continue working on English, I’m really working close to 15-20 hours a week. And working with both of these schools keeps things interesting!
Keep in touch!
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