Why Are You Here?

Written October 4, 2012

Teaching in France has been quite amusing up to this point. For the most part, the children are very eager to ask me questions about where I’m from, what I do, what I eat. Others are so blunt as to demand: why are you here? I’ve done my best to appease their curiosity without stretching my white lies and American stereotypes too far. Hopefully, no one minds my insinuations that all Americans do is eat McDonald’s, drink Coca-Cola, and watch football.

As teaching assistants you’re expected to work for 12 hours a week over a 7-month period, with 8 full weeks of paid vacation. As for me, I’ve been lucky enough to arrange a schedule that allows for 3-day weekends every week and most days I work only for 3 hours to make for a comfortable work, life balance. And this brings about the most challenging part of life in France: planning the logistics of your next vacation. With no Internet, this can be an even greater challenge, but this is a popular topic of conversation in and around the office.

Not surprisingly, the French educational system is entirely different from that in the US, in good ways and bad. The schools can seem entirely disorganized upon first impression but they actually run quite well. French high schools are set up similar to an American University. Most students choose a specialty after middle school and being preparing for their profession right away. Most students enter the general/technological school, which is designed to prepare them for French university or grand école (Ivy League status in France). Other students (about 25%) join the professional school, which is designed to prepare them for work directly after finishing high school. The latter is where I’ll be teaching 9 of my 12 hours. My students range a wide array of professions: from auto mechanics to electricians to secretaries and they attend all their classes with other students who study the same profession.

When the headmaster called an all-teacher meeting or Réunion to discuss the agenda, rules, and amendments to be made for the 2012-2016 period, it struck me that the teachers are very well aware of issues that exist at the school. We began the meeting listening to and interrupting a speech from the headmaster for an hour before breaking up into groups of 15 for 2 hours where more detailed discussions of how we could improve the school ensued. From logistics to communication to technology, many brilliant ideas were suggested amongst my group. But because of French social customs, every time someone brings up a good idea in conversation, it turns into a joke or someone immediately changes the subject. In a French meeting, there’s no such thing as waiting your turn to speak. You speak whenever any logical or satirical thought pops into your head. There’s no order for when topics will be discussed. If you have something to say you say it, then someone interrupts you, someone else makes a joke, everybody laughs, the next topic is discussed and the process repeats. When the meeting finally came to an end and someone suggested we draw a conclusion, what we concluded is that there would be no conclusion. The regimen will remain the same, we will bring a cake to the next Réunion, get paid to teach and all will be well. No lie.