Réunion des Assistants Oct. 3rd
Today was the orientation for all of the assistants in the Nancy-Metz académie. It was quite the long day.
I was up before 6am, dressed, fed, and out the door before 6:30. Pierre “showed” me how to take the train to Nancy where the orientation was being held this year. We were on the train before 7, switched trains in Metz, and arrived in Nancy at 8:35. The fact that I’ve traveled quite a bit by train before had no effect on Pierre who thoroughly explained every detail I knew and a few I didn’t – it was in fact very nice of him (but like someone walking you through how to tie your shoe while balancing on one foot – you know how, but you might need to think a little). Pierre stuck me on the bus I’d looked up a few days in advance and off I went to the actual, poorly specified building for my orientation. I was pleased with myself when I remembered how to use the bus. I arrived just “on time” (they didn’t actually tell us when to be there… we all sort of guessed).
During the orientation they discussed the education system in France which I found quite interesting. One of the more notable differences from America, for me, is that middles school is 4 years and high school is 3 years. They discussed a lot of the things I’ve already done to get settled in and pointed out a lot of obvious things – This is a JOB – you have RESPONSIBILITY; Don’t wear REVEALING clothing; You can’t just pick to do something other than your job, it is you FIRST PRIORITY; etc… This was done with all the assistants together and in French. There are English, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and a Chinese assistant/s. During the second part of the day, they split us up into our languages and talked a little bit about ideas for making class fun. They focused on the middle school.. so that will only be partially useful.
I met a few assistants, but not too many. I met two German assistants who are not too far away; however, they were friends back in Germany and didn’t seem the most interested in making efforts to meet others – so not worth pursuing much of a friendship there. I did meet the assistant that was in my placement last year and a few others who I don’t know if I’ll be seeing too often. There were two girls from the beginning that I got to know the most. One is Scottish, but she is in Nancy and not nearby. It might work out a few times that I go to Nancy and crash on one of the 20+ assistants’ places, but we will see. She seemed to want to speak in English a lot. One of the ppl I’m most excited about is living in Creuzwald (about 30 minutes away by car – and she has a car). She’s a German assistant and very nice. We seemed to get along very well. I have her phone number, so once I have one I can give her mine.
Afterward I tried to by an alarm clock – FAIL. I got a guy to open the case for me so I could pick one – it was ADORABLE… It looked like a mini computer monitor. He even showed me where to find batteries. I couldn’t figure out which batteries to use – so I went and found the same guy and he came to help me find them. He couldn’t find them either (I needed 3 AG13 batteries); he left to go get a manager. I waited 20 minutes…. No one came. I left. And couldn’t fully orientate myself on the map… I had to ask for directions to the train station.
I took the trains back and had a nice chat with Pierre on the second leg (it happened that the alarm clock fiasco made me leave so late that I was on the same train that Pierre takes home after work – actually was convenient). We got back to Francoise’s and Pierre’s house around 9pm… and it was decided I’d just crash there since my stuff was still there from the weekend.
I’m going to have to give them some fabulous thank you gift/s – beyond the welcoming things they’ve done, they keep feeding me!
First day of Introductions Oct. 4th
Today I went to 6 classes today – total of about 4 hours of work for me. I gave a little power point presentation about Livermore (during which I took wild guesses about our winter temperature in Celsius and about our population – 10 degrees Celsius; 70,000 – hopefully I wasn’t way off). Some classes went better and some had trouble understanding.
After the presentation it was question time – the teachers had to help a lot with the formation of the questions, but it was amusing since the students really didn’t know how much I understood (most of it). Some questions that were asked included:
Q - How old are you?
A – You never ask a woman that. (In the past some of the assistants were younger than the students…)
Q – Do you have any brothers or sisters?
Q – Can we call you by your first name?
A – No, you can call me Miss Grant.
Q – Have you ever seen snow?
One amusing moment – A student called out in class “You have a nice smile” and then 5 minutes later he tried to tell me “I’m shy.” Right…
One apparently great move I made was to scold a student (in French) and make him put away the scissors he was spinning on his finger; I was told later that I established a clearer identity as a teacher since my position is a little ambiguous to everyone.
Overall it was pretty fun to meet the classes – I have a few left for Friday here at the high school. And my work heels did great for the 7 hours I wore them – not that anyone seemed to notice them at all…
After my classes were finished, I went and picked up my credit card!!! Hopefully I can buy my cell phone tomorrow! *fingers crossed* Once I finished at the bank, I thought I’d continue on and visit the other grocery store in town and see if they had alarm clocks. No luck, but I did find out that there is a third grocery store and manage to get a pot and pan there to do a little cooking for myself eventually. Then I took a wrong street on the way back to school – and the block I walked around went on forever… I thought I’d never find a side street to try to get back.
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