Off To School

I've been here for going on four months, and haven't written a post about work yet. Oh where to start?

I work at Jean Jacques Rousseau ecole primaire (elementary school) in a suburb northwest of Paris called Saint Ouen l'Amoune. I work Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for 12 hours a week, but it takes me an hour and a half to get from my apartment to work. Also, the French take a two hour lunch from 11:30 to 1:30. So, I'm there for about six hours a day.

To get to work, I have a five minute walk to the metro stop, Bastille, take line one to Gare de Lyon, transfer to line 14 to go to Gare Saint Lazare. From there I catch a 45 minute train at 9:27 towards Pontoise, and finally have a ten minute walk to school to arrive at 10:20 a.m. So, I leave my apartment at 8:45 a.m. and get home at 6 p.m. to teach roughly three hours a day plus an hour of prep.

The school it self is rather small and only has seven classes for ages 7-11, and a pre-school for the little munchkins. The students, ages 5-11, are always excited to see me and eager to learn. The teachers on the other hand are not a basket of rainbows and sunshine.

Learning how to teach a class of 25 or explain a lesson plan in English and French or prepping lesson plans has not been the challenge-- working with the teachers has been the hardest part of this job. They're cold, non-communicative and absent. They're not the friendliest sort to work with, they have no problem forgetting to inform me of changes, canceled classes or that I exist in general, and they pretend to not understand my French when I'm telling them something they don't want to hear.

They're also extremely rude to the children. Some of their lest harsh teaching skills would have most teachers from America fired and with a lawsuit on their hands. They scream and yell at the children when they're noisy; they grab them by their shirts when one is talking out of line or misbehaving; call them unintelligent; and make them stand in the back corner of the classroom, facing the wall, as a punishment...just to name a few.

All and all they terrify me and trying to speak with them is near impossible with my nervous, stumbling French. So, I sit in the library, blissfully alone, reading books and doing lesson plans during my three and half hour breaks.