Tales from the Private School

Before I start this post, I'd just like to share the fact that someone is practising saxophone in our hallway. The walls are thin enough around here, did he really need to leave his apartment??!!

So, as I am serenaded, I thought I would share some anecdotes from my day of teaching today. I was at the private school, teaching French kids. The school is actually outside of Paris, in the fairly wealthy suburb of St. Cloud (one of my kids uses a LeSportsac purse as a LUNCH BAG!).

I have been talking about winter with my younger class (8-9 yr olds), which has been tough since it doesn't actually seem to snow around here. Luckily most of the kids go on skiing vacations in the Alps, so they are somewhat familiar with the joys of the white stuff. As a side note, the word toque is French Canadian. I tried that one with them, and got a lot of funny looks. We're sticking with hat. Anyway, the book I read today was A Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats, one of my favorites. Anyone who is unfamiliar with the book should go get it from the library. It's great. Anyway, it's about a little boy who wakes up to a city covered in snow. He goes outside and has fun in the snow, and tries to bring a snowball home in his pocket. Obviously, it melts, but that's ok, because he goes back outside to play again the next day with his friend. Pretty straightforward story. Well, my kids today could barely get past the first page. Here are the questions they asked:

"Why is the snow pink and purple?"

"Why are the buildings pink and purple?" These questions were followed by an quick discussion about 'artistic interpretation.' I would have thought little Parisian kids would have appreciated the art work a little more.

and my favorite...(I should mention that the little boy in the story is black)

"Why is it snowing in Africa?"


The other highlight of my day was when my Director saw a group of my older kids (13-14) on their way in from break and asked me if they had a bad attitude. Uh yeah! It's like pulling teeth to get these kids to do anything. They basically sit and draw for the whole two hours. I do the same lesson with another group of kids the same age on Saturday, and they are much more open to having a good time. Anyway, apparently the teacher I took over from had problems with these kids, and the teacher they had last year, so it was nice to know that it wasn't just me that was having a hard time. It's only my third class with these kids, and I did manage to get some smiles at the end, so I'm not too discouraged yet.

That's it. Tomorrow I'm back at the Nursery School for the full day. I'm looking forward to it. I'm reading the same story to them, so it will be interesting to see how they respond to it. I'll keep you posted. Literally.