La Maternelle... and more striking.... (UGH)

This morning I got ready to go the Simon Signoret school. This is the one that was so unorganized the first time I was there. Thankfully, this morning I a) got to school no problem with the strikes, and b) was handed a schedule upon arrival. The woman who gave me the schedule actually showed me hers and said, "Oh, do you not have a copy?" I was like.... when would I have gotten a copy? I haven't been here in 2 weeks... But, she explained that I'd be meeting with the maternelle first (the preschool), then with her class (CP), the second CP class, the technology class, and 2 CE1 classes. Welp- so much for only having 4 or 5 classes at this school. (My total number of classes is now up to 15). In all honesty though, it's not so bad to have this many classes with only 20-30 minute lessons to plan... and if a class is crazy, I'm only with them for so long. On the downside- for the classes I really enjoy, I only get to see them for the same amount of time and I'll never remember anyones name. (To make it even worse, their names are like Guyard and Aurelien and Aloex.... half the time when I ask for their name, I have no clue what they're saying in response).

Pierre (the director) helped me find the maternelle class (all maternelles are in a different building than the elementary classes). Each maternelle class has about 25 or more kids (there are a lot of little bodies) and they start as young as 3 years old. Most French children start school at age 3, if not age 4... which is why they learn extensive French grammar rules in the CP/CE1 classes... and know how to write in pretty cursive by age 6! Each class has a teacher and a teacher's aid, and these teachers are often seen wearing little aprons, which I think is cute... and very practical when working with germy, glue-y, preschoolers.

The teacher was all in a dither when I got there because the children were arriving at different times. The before-school care workers were on strike, so all the parents were bringing their kids in as opposed to some dropping them off earlier and some at this time. The cantine was also on strike today, so all the parents were asking questions about picking their kids up for lunch. In between talking to parents though, Corinne (the teacher) talked with me about teaching the kids "Hello, My name is..." and maybe a good morning song. So I wrote down the lyrics to the "Good Morning" song I sang with my Kindergarteners.... and tried it out with them (the lyrics were for the teacher, not the kids). Unfortunately, although this song is fairly easy to pick up by 5 year olds who already know English, for 3 and 4 year olds who do not.... it was none-to-easy. They got the first 2 lines, but after that, they were pretty much just mumbling and trying very hard to follow along. So I made a mental note to bring in lots of pictures and easy songs the next time.

In the 2 CP classes, I read Funnybones again, doing the English/French back and forth on my own as both of these teachers know very little English. Actually, the second teacher knows no English, so she had no idea how to help me translate. At the break, the first CP teacher talked about how much her kids enjoyed the book and how neat it was for them to hear English and to have to figure out the story line. The second teacher, however, did not agree. She said it was too hard for even her to understand and her kids told her they had no clue what I had talked about.... lol. Oh well, I tried. Guess I need to bring in big easy pictures for that class too.

I was supposed to have the technology class next, but it was canceled due to someone striking... I'm not sure who... maybe the computer room monitor? So I had a little coffee break teaching Pierre English, and then it was off to work with the CE1's. The first CE1 teacher, Eve, is my favorite at this school. She's the one with the best behavior management ideas, and she has a class pet rabbit. (Funny side note: At lunch, someone was talking about how much they like to eat rabbit and she said she can't bear the thought of eating it anymore now that she has one for a class pet). I talked about Halloween and read Funnybones to her kids. She was very helpful in making sure the kids followed me and watched for context clues. She also had a real Jack-o-Lantern in her class, so they had clearly already worked with some Halloween traditions. After I read the book, she had her kids do the coloring page I made to help learn Halloween vocabulary and colors. It was a great little 30 minutes!

And last, but not least, I went to the 2nd CE1 class. This is the teacher who has to bounce around to 4 different classes to fill in for her colleagues. The class is by far the rowdiest bunch (even more than Carole's class at Les Marendiers), but she is a cute little teacher that has lots of ideas and ways to keep her kids entertained. I'm sure she just has a rough time with them because she only sees them once a week... and it's hard to maintain a routine. Anyway, there are some interesting little kids in this class. There's one little boy that has red hair and a pony tail. He was wearing skull suspenders and walked around like a mummy after I read my story. There's another kid who immediately told me I should say the word "putain" when the teacher had her back turned. I was like, "Ah! I know what that word means. That's not nice." I was shocked! The kid was trying to get me in trouble!

At lunch, I sat and awkwardly ate by myself until the rest of teachers dropped all their kids off. I didn't realize they had to wait for all the parents to come pick them up before they could come eat, so I was practically finished by the time most people started eating! One teacher had no idea who I was and said... "Sorry, but who are you?" It was an interesting morning. And I don't go back until Nov. 9, so I don't have a whole lot of opportunity to get to know these teachers or kids like I do with the Berliet school.

I usually take the tram on my way home, but when I got to the stop it said I still had 17 minutes to wait for the next tram. Stupid strike. So I walked. It was too cold to sit and wait... and it probably took me less time to walk anyway.

I got home and immediately started reading articles about the strike. I'm getting even more anxious about all my upcoming travel plans and visitors. The oil strikers are the most likely to continue striking.... which is bad for people trying to fly here from the United States. They're canceling flights that can't bring enough fuel to get a plane back to where it came from... and of course flights over 6 hours can't store that much extra fuel. Go figure. The high schoolers who are striking are also making a bigger mess because they are getting violent... which is what you see on the news. I haven't seen any violent rioting, but then again, I'm not out there rioting or protesting. But, I think for the most part, there are just a lot of mad people. And for us, it's really hard to understand why they're striking... but because the government runs almost everything, creating a law to say you have to work until you're 62, provided you have worked for 40.5 years affects a lot of people. And the most frustrating part for the French is that there are little loop holes and rules stating that only certain fields have to abide by this... military or police can retire at age 45... teachers who have 3 kids can retire early... etc. So people like the oil workers who have to work 40 years before they can retire are mad that other fields can retire after only 25-30 years. So clearly it's a complicated issue... but still the whole thing is becoming really annoying and frustrating for me. Don't they know I'm here??? Don't they know they're stressing me out?

Hope you're all doing well. Reste cool:)