Today I had my first day of work preparation. No contact with kids yet, just getting a lay of the land. I was not supposed to show up to the school until noon, so I went to the biggest cathedral in the city and sorta just walked around for a while. There’s an ancient Roman amphitheater right next to it, so I walked around that, too.
(I found another cathedral nearby, but it was a piddly little thing. The stained glass wasn’t even floor to ceiling. And no mosaics of the blessed assumption!)
I made it to work on time, thanks to my new handy-dandy metro pass. I walked right in and was stopped by a lady at a desk, who I was later told was not the secretary. Then who was that? Also, apparently, she was definitely not supposed to let me right in, so maybe she doesn’t even work there. Who knows.
I met my reference professor again, who I met for the first time last week when she cooked dinner for me. She is a short, spirited blonde woman with a distinct British accent from having learned her English there. I met the real secretary, who stressed me out severely with all the papers she kept handing me. There are six English teachers and about twenty language teachers total at this school – apparently the student body is upper middle class or higher. Quite different from my pedagogical training.
French academics, much like French bureaucracy, does not want much to do with technology. I was toured around the state-of-the-art computer lab – no, sorry, the two computer labs, one for teachers and one for students. I watched several educators peck with the tips of their fingers at the keyboards while my “prof ref” pulled up my schedule. It turns out that French high schoolers have schedules similar to American college students. Not daily, rote routines, but weekly alternates and AB type setups.
I asked if the students have their own computers, and my prof ref said that if they do, they aren’t allowed to have them out in class unless they have special needs. When I explained that every child in Tennessee is given their own laptop around age seven, she went pale and muttered something about the damage of too much screen time. Can’t say I disagree.
I also had an orientation with my program, so I got to meet many other language assistants. We sat together in a small auditorium and listened to an older gentleman warn us repeatedly and emphatically to 1. not form romantic relationships with students and 2. not smoke in the schools. You know what? I feel like I could have figured those both out on my own, but hey, this is France. The president, Emmanuel Macron, met his wife while she was his high school teacher.
About half of us don’t have housing yet, and most of us don’t have bank accounts. Those without housing are living in hostels or Airbnbs. A couple folks are sleeping on their prof ref’s couches. So while this older gentlemen was explaining social standards that are literal federal law for the rest of us, we’re sitting there thinking, when does he bring up housing?
He finishes and dismisses us forty-five minutes into our scheduled three hours. We resist as a group and politely request information on how to house ourselves, get paid, get bank accounts, get enrolled in social security, etc. The older gentlemen and the small coterie of teachers with him looked confused and perturbed. This is roughly how it went, in script form.
PEOPLE IN CHARGE: What do you mean, you don’t have these things? You should have these things by now.
WE THE LANGUAGE ASSISTANTS: Some of us have only been here a handful of days. And there is no housing available whatsoever.
PiC: Have you looked on the Internet? You should look on the Internet, or ask friends.
WtLA: We have been looking everywhere constantly since we each arrived. Our only friends here are each other.
PiC: You really should have taken care of these things by now.
WtLA: [as several get up and leave out of frustration] You were the ones who told us to not begin these processes until we arrived. We are here now, and we can’t get bank accounts or social security or even paid until we have housing, and nobody has been able to help us.
A YOUNG MAN IN THE BACK: I’ve been living in the guest room of a woman who doesn’t let me cook food.
GIRL NEAR THE WINDOW: The only apartment viewing I was able to line up is for a mattress in a hallway with a curtain around it.
PiC: Okay, we are going to go around one by one and you are going to tell us your specific problems.
And so, that was the next two and a half hours. I sat next to a person who did this same program last year, and said that they had the exact same response then: shock, inadequate methods of aid, and finally a conclusion to let us work it out on our own. Later while speaking to my prof ref I found out that there is a crisis in Lyon of university students dropping out and moving home because they can’t find housing in the city.
I am relieved, thrilled, soothed, and downright jazzed that I disobeyed orders and rented my apartment before getting here. Looks like I might be hosting some friends on my couch here soon.
Cordialement,
Allison
Flan in France 