This post was supposed to be about Fest-Noz

But I failed in transferring the folder with the pictures and videos onto my usb this morning, so Fest-Noz will have to wait. Probably for the best given that I've got a little sickness going on.

Some scattered thoughts on teaching:

Teachers make an incredible difference. Without going into detail, how the teacher treats their class is fairly evident from how the class treats each other and how they treat me. This also tends to translate into how much time they give me to prepare something for the class. On the fly creation of lessons does not go well. When I have time to prepare something (and this really doesn't have to be a lot, it can just be looking up of games and such), the class goes much much better.

Rowdy kids can either be a blessing or a curse. When I've got a super energetic kid, I try to harness their energy and enthusiasm into something productive for the class. Let's be buddies, rowdy kid, work with me! When this works, it's a beautiful thing. Sometimes, however, the student just really doesn't want to do this. They don't give me a chance and frankly I don't see the collège kids enough to establish a rapport that could lead to fixing this.

Primary school kids are incredibly well-behaved. This is in part because there is zero tolerance for misbehavior. Primary school is where the children learn how to be students. Some collège kids decide to casually forget this once they've changed schools, plus there's the fact that they're becoming teens. Oh teens. Les ados. In my CE1 (first grade ish) yesterday, a storm started up outside. The classroom has a wall of windows that look out onto the playground. The teacher noticed that some of the children were distracted. "Oh is this the first time you've seen rain? No. This is unacceptable, you don't stare out the window for rain, for snow, for anything." But then he had all the class stare out the window for a few seconds so they could get their fix. "C'est trop beau!" one child cried. After that, the kids weren't distracted by the rain. Impressive.

Kids that don't try make me sad. Instead of trying and making a mistake, they just go straight to "sais pas" with puffed out cheeks and a little pop sound. Especially when it's something simple like "what's your name?" that all the other students have attempted and succeeded at before them. They're definitely able and the fact that they're not trying now only spells out a future of continued lack of effort. And that makes me sad. One day they'll probably just say "bah je suis nul avec anglais" or "I've just never been good at learning languages." Bullshit. You just turned yourself off to the idea out of fear of messing up.

And because this amused me a lot and hasn't been posted yet...:
Student [rifling through glossary at the back of her English book]: Miss, are you too' 'all?
Me [mightily confused]: too tall? How tall am I? [Gestures height]
Student: Uhhhh non non non uhhhh are you uhhh TAOWN ALL
Me [goes over to glossary, sees what student is pointing at] AHAHAHA
Student was pointing at mairie = town hall, trying to ask me if I was mariée = married.

Nope, I am neither town hall nor married.

Gros bisous,

MCJ